Minecraft : Zayama Railway station world - Mercator bridge

 Apparently this is the pefect place to stop and soak your llamas while you talk to the fish.  I need to fold and finish laundry.. but I sat down for a bit and started building another house, and a mine, and flattening out more space for fields... 

I was working on the Copper Valley world in the snapshot 2wk18 but it crashed and will not load again.  I'm hoping they fix it with an update and that the whole world isn't just lost.  I finished ny delivery work in real life today and then have postal route tomorrow.

The roof I was trying to reconcile.. I had it almost done and ready for a picture of the finished building, and then.. crash... this is the Glenardd mansion in the Copper Valley world.  I was really looking forward to playing with more copper items, as well - waxed cut stairs?  I need to go look things up now, and hope the snapshot comes back for me sometime soon.  I love new materials and making them in survival.

Bright Mountains castle (alternate saga)

 This is the castle for 'Around the Bright Mountains' which was supposed to be a short story about a shipwreck and the community that came out of it... I rolled for both Rivertown and this one a few times in early October, and then continued with Rivertown and left Bright Mountains dormant.

I decided to use that world today for some quick draw play, and built this in creative mode.  It took four hours from start to finish.

The quick sketch plan:

 

 

and a few shots of in-progress work (Finished below)

in the beginning... 

 

 

after the towers..

I told myself it was okay they weren't identical... I was doing this for fun

 

  in progress (above and below)

It is like playing with a 3D puzzle except I have to pull the pieces out of thin air and nobody gave me an exact plan to go by...

 and from there it was just making sure all the rooms were sealed and had doors and stairs to them etc...

 

And now the finished images 

 

Finished : front of castle 

Finished : Back of castle, stable side

Finished : side of castle - side dock

Finished : back of castle - central view

castle and town at night (with the Bright Mountains namesake in background) 

one of the town houses 

a view of the little stable building in back

a Raised Bed garden for vegetables

The raised bed garden I built between yesterday and today for Irene. 

along with her cat and dog helpers :)

It is 16 standard cement blocks, and about 12 bags of different soils, a third of which is 'container gardening mix'   We lined the bottom of the area with cardboard before we put the soil on top, just like I did in my own raised bed garden three years ago.  The next step is to water it down good, and let it drain a little, and plant a few test quick-germinate things to make sure the ph level is good. 

Radishes like pH of 4 to 5.  If they come up purple instead of green - it is WAY too 'hot' of soil.  Komatsuna and mustard greens like 5 to 6 pH, and cabbage likes 6 to 7.  All of these things should show 'signs of life' within 3 to 6 days if the soil mixture is good.  If it is, then put the greenhouse plants in it.  If you see any warning signs, get a pH kit or, in the case of knowing that it is 'hot' - add pelletized lime, water down and let drain again before trying again.

Build a Mountain Tree Farm in Minecraft

Today we are investigating different ways to build a tree farm in Minecraft.  You would build a tree farm on an island, in the sky, or anywhere you would like a steady supply of wood.  And in the case of this farm - you get the bonus of getting lots of apples (if you're lucky).

This farm provides drops from the oak trees of wood, sticks, saplings and apples.



Oak trees are best for producing apples, but Spruce and Birch trees do drop them as well.




Remember to cut all of the wood away from the trunk and branches of each tree - and then the leaves will begin to disintegrate.  The saplings, apples and sticks will drop from the leaves to be gathered up on the ground.

This is the way my daughter likes to make her tree farms.  She puts a 6 by 6 square of dirt down, and plants a sapling in the middle of each 9 square.  I tried another one behind it of 8 by 8, to provide a bit more space for bigger trees to grow.  She says the 6 by 6 is the best for making sky tree farms.

I like two different ways of making tree farms.  Either, completely free form on a plain, planting them as I run - or to put them down in holes in the stone or gravel, like this.  I actually found that the 'holes' method produced grown trees much faster right beside the dirt squares shown above. 

I couldn't explain it - but the trees were popping up almost as fast as I could cut them down and replant them, compared to an entire day's worth with the other method.

H2oDragon says that it is probably playing off the fact that a large tree can spawn more readily than a small tree if the spaces immediately around it are blocked.

All comfy and cozy in our mountain home

I just wish we could make apple pie in Vanilla Minecraft!

Build a stone house in Minecraft

 

I am going to show you how to build a simple stone house, like the ones in my  town here, with these four materials.  You will need lots of plain cobblestone, wooden stairs of whatever type you like (I've used oak), glass pane, and a door of your choosing.  It will probably take several stacks of stone and stairs to do any of these houses.  I'm going to show you a large house I built.

  

Start out with a flat building space 

Lay out a square on the ground, leaving a space for which way you would like the door to face.  You can place the door anywhere you want, but I tend to put it in the middle or a few blocks away from the corner, as shown.

Start to build your walls up, leaving a two-high opening for the door, and if you use 4 high walls, two-high openings for your windows.  In smaller houses, you might use three-high walls and one-high windows.

Finish completing the walls to the same height.  Now, have your stairs ready, and more stone, as we are going to begin to make the roof.

The thing about using stairs is trying to keep what you see happening in the above picture from happening.  If you are too far to one side, the stair you are trying to place will come out as a corner.  You will need to be more 'head on' and aiming towards the bottom of the last stair, to place them properly.


As you move farther up the roof, you will place more stones into the side wall to meet the height.  You can leave a couple of gaps in the side wall to add more windows later, and it will bring more light into the room.


In some houses like this, I will choose a place to make a second story, and build stairs up to it.  The second story will then be an attic room.

Continuing to build up the roof

Make sure to place lots of torches inside the bigger houses, to keep monsters from spawning.  Where there is no light there can be spider!

On this house I stopped the roof at this point and finished off with polished andesite.  You can change this up and make your houses all a little different, or all the same.

Good luck building your town!

Build an Empire style play Minecraft - population and jobs

This is an extension of my original post 'Let's Play Build an Empire style Minecraft'

This is an example of a spawn point town, in  swamp, using the available resources.  The houses have a cohesive style, but they have some individuality, too.  This town is called Cantrall (after the courthouse Abe Lincoln stood his first case in, I don't know why, it popped up in my head and I ran with it) 

We Will Survive

The original 'house' is built into the side of the hill and becomes the city center.  It contains the mine down to bedrock, a bed, a loom, and the beginning storage chests.  This is played with Monsters ON, and Normal mode.  So, the player is going to get hurt (a lot) and need to eat (a lot).  Luckily, there were some sheep and chickens to the North.

 The very first thing is cut down a tree or two, make a crafting table, get a wooden pickaxe, mine some stone, build a shelter with a door, and build a furnace to burn some logs in to make charcoal for torches.  You might get lucky and find iron or coal but you want to be in a small shelter with a roof, a door, and torches before the Sun Goes Down.  Or, you're toast... in the middle of a zombie/spider/skeleton sandwich.

Make a sword.  You will need it before you want to need it.

Have extra torches, and an extra tree or two worth of logs to make more sticks for torches and tools.  Then go mine, and hope for iron.

Home Sweet Home

If you can't get a bed right away (and you probably won't, because unless you go killing your sheep you will need to mine iron to get shears).. then stay underground with lots of torches until daybreak, then go back out and collect wood, kill fish in the lakes for food, gather kelp (if you're by the ocean) and dry it, etc etc.. 

Start building your farm as soon as possible.  I killed four spiders right at the beginning, so was able to make a fishing rod.  I also collected every apple from every harvested tree.  Food is no joke.  Get your gardens and food sources producing and make sure some is stored for later.  It's just like a real town in that way.

When you are comfortable with surviving  - and have your necessities covered, you can burn some sand for glass and make a fancier shelter on top or beside your emergency shelter.  You can also begin to plan your town with roads, fields, and footprints for houses.  You will end up with lots of materials from mining, so use your creativity!

Give your Towns Unique Identity - with Names and City Colors

Each town needs to have at least one custom banner, and a wooden sign saying the name of the village.  So one of the first goals of the city center, beyond food sources, is to have shears, a bucket and a loom.  Iron and string - not easy things to get for each village.  It's the basic 'iron age' technology.

Let your town have 'roads' and fences and a real flow of moving around from place to place within the village.  You might build it into the side of a hill and use the natural landscape, or flatten it out and start from a big square plane.  It's up to you.  And you can do something different for each place, evolving over time.

A Real Town would have Population

Villager mobs can be very annoying and take up CPU power, slowing the game.  We will experiment with those in another 'style' of Minecraft, where we don't expand across the entire world - which by itself takes up CPU power.  For now, we will just pretend that we have people in these houses, and that these people are here for a reason.  Each one will have a working house (as if you wanted to spend a Minecraft weekend there) and a 'job' that makes sense with the town.

For each 'imaginary villager' in a home there will be a separate bed, and a separate chest.  That means wool, and wood is needed for those things.  There will also be a crafting table and furnace for every house, usually near the entrance.  Each house needs torches for lighting, and glass for windows.

The kinds of 'jobs' you will be doing indicates what kind of population the real 'town' would need.  Farmers - the more fields, the more houses you might need to build.  A fisherman?  A woodcutter?  This town also has a paperworks (for the sugar cane farms) and a baker (where do you get your bread?)  It will need a sheep paddock and housing for the sheep farmer.

When you can - Specialize

Have lots of wool and a field of colorful dye-producing flowers?  How about an artist shop with paintings? 

In one of my towns there was a large amount of gold and redstone found deep underground.  That town became the first (And only, so far) town to have a clock tower building, sort of like a miniature Big Ben.


The Hard Way

If you REALLY wanted to get bones about it - you would provide in the 'villager' chest food, tools and clothing or armor.  But THAT would be going pretty far.  In a richer village, each chest would have some example of that to show someone 'lives' there - and the floors would be decorated with wood, carpets, glazed terracotta, brick etc - with item frames and paintings on the walls, terracotta flower pots and cauldrons - all the trappings of a town.

Get Yourself a Great View

One of the great things about Minecraft is the uniqueness of the places that are created - sometimes you just have to stand back and say 'Wow' - like the image above.  Try it out for yourself - version 1.15.2 Vanilla
seed# 2144314632329636425
and the coordinates for this plateau are -543.563, 77, -141.453
find an ocean monument at -880.396, 62, 255.962


How do you Win?

The joy is in the journey - but you will know you're making progress by expanding your territory.  When a village is self-sustaining, make yourself an 'export' building and chest - and begin to put excess food, materials and special items in there to 'seed' a new colony.   You may build roads in each direction trying to find a new place with unique resources, or a pretty view, or a different biome etc, to build the next town. Once you have scouted out a place - or before (if you're brave), head out with only what you can carry and build the next 'city center' to expand your Empire.

This World is an Island
Like to play islands?  This one spawns on a small island that may or may not have enough sheep to breed a population from.  There are a few trees, and some ores in the ground nearby.  If you really can't make the island work for you there is another larger flower-field landmass a distance due East... 
Try it out - version 1.15.2 Vanilla
seed# 8746182473153761204 

Note  If your town is an island, you have a unique opportunity to learn to reserve, multiply and expand your resources.  Trees are precious, as are wheat seeds and animals.  Beware creepers don't destroy everything!  How much space do you use for fields, and for buildings -- do you pull dirt from underground to expand your landmass in the water?  Don't spring a leak in your underground buildings while you mine!

To navigate away from your island (without just writing down coordinates at each place) - build a spire 20 blocks or more high and place a torch on top of it.  If you jump down into the water (and not onto the land) you will not hurt yourself.  Then, when you have built your boat, you can place your back to the spire and head off in a direction, and - if you build a spire on your newfound opposite shore, you have a landmark that will allow you to return back home 'easily'.

The NUTSHELL

Goal : Self-sustaining villages that provide protection from monsters, and food for the player.  Iron and other resources.  'Domesticate' and breed flocks and herds of animals.  Create roads, signs and / or landmarks to allow you to navigate your Empire from place to place.  Export materials to other colonies and share materials and resources like a real Empire would - a system of 'trade'.  Explore!  Try to collect as many unique materials as you can and distribute them across the 'known' world.

T-rexes

Esme has been building these in her Minecraft.  She modelled them off a plastic dinosaur toy she has.  This really shows where her natural talent lies.. she can just start and build something with an idea in her head given materials and tools she can use. 

She named this world 'Jurassic Esme'.

It even had small pools of water to the other side of the house that were dinosaur footprint shaped.

 This is in our shared world - Freeway world.. where we are all working together.

I went out to the garden this morning and pulled in ingredients for a soup, which I took for lunch at work.  I have been avoiding the garden some these past few weeks after all the weird weather made half our crops fail to thrive.  But Mark is right- I'll lose what is producing if I keep feeling scorned and neglecting it.  It also doesn't help that I am just so tired lately, Esme wants to play her games SO much (she is exhausting normally, but the undirected energy of no-school schedule in the day seems to exhaust me MORE not less...mostly because she gets prone to repetition and throwing stuff about randomly without something we forge ahead on) When I get up in the morning I am getting ready for work -and when I get home from work I hardly have much time before it is time for bed...I feel like I can't burn the candle at both ends to get anything done, and a bit stressed by the idea of starting things and not being able  to finish them for days.

We did read a bit more in our Little House book.  She isn't into it - but I feel it is important she hears how life was that long ago.  I do see some gears turning here and there - especially during the 'when I/grandpa etc were little' stories.  I've also been scanning here and there for more resources for her science next year - as I feel that will get her excited in other realms.  I am toying with the idea of making her a folder for the main subjects and holding her to finish what is in there (whether I'm here or Daddy is) and then she can decide what to do for the rest of the required time for the day. 

I asked her what she wanted to learn most next year and she said Roller skating tricks...and woodworking (making things with wood).  And she wants to go the zoo again (She said that this morning when she woke up).  When she did her journal entry today she said she was glad her writing was getting  better and staying in a straight line now instead of going up and down all over.  It really is the little things.  I need to work on recognizing that, myself.

Thursday apple barrel

They brought the barrel into the house workshop (downstairs on the concrete) and talked over the project.   She told Daddy she knew what to do - it was in her head.. he asked her to lay out the steps for him, she got to 'three'.. and decided she would write down a plan after all.

We washed the barrel outside and then Daddy cut it down the middle after we marked it.  Then we washed it inside and out again, and used the other half for planning.

We measured with the measuring tape, decided the size of the triangles and the distance between them, got some cardboard and cut pieces out to 'test the theory', and it seemed to work.   Then we drew all of the pieces out on wood for Daddy to cut with the saw.  She had to use a square and a marker to make the triangles (with my help).

  

She did a great job with the electric screwdriver, and put in seven of the eight screws for the triangle braces.

Testing it out - it fits.

 Trying it out - it works!

We did the project!

And now it is cleanup and rest before we do the more 'traditional' school stuff...

9.30a    - construction project, apple bobbing trough. - moving in, washing, cutting barrel, more washing
10.15a    - break
10.45a    - more construction - planning, trying out theory  marking and cutting wood, starting to construct.
12.30p    - break; trough finished.

After the project we took a small break and when she came back upstairs Daddy asked me if we should do P.E. or read.  I asked her - she said she wanted to do P.E.!

1.15p    - PE (30x 10lb bench press, 10x 10lb deadlift, 

              50 situps, 50x 2lb R&L curls,

Each time Daddy asks her what exercise she WANTS to do, and how many - we ask her 'really?' - and she says 'really really'... and each time she actually DID that many, with some breaks on the situps at every ten... 

After that, I suggested she snuggle up in the knitted blanket on the bed with me and read some - which she agreed to.  She just kept going and going on it.. she really liked this story as it had lots of 'gross' in it.

1.45p    - Reading aloud (Frannie Stein- Frantastic Voyage) 

              She wanted to go on and finish the book - so we did.
2.45p    - done - although she wanted to go play Frisbee outside in the sun and then we had her feed and gather eggs from the chickens, too.

As we were finishing the project she said she couldn't wait - when she went back to school (?) she would tell her friends all about using an electric screwdriver.  We just nodded along - she gets it some days and others she thinks she is going back 'next year'... we'll still have to see.  At this point she would be even MORE bored in that same sort of public school class..and not have anywhere near the choices and consideration we are giving her.  We still make her do things - like worksheets, and not 'drama' ... but we do listen to her and involve her with the day's events... which leads to her learning more about what she can really 'do.'

She told me the other day that she was glad she wasn't at school for the 'when there is trouble and it's my fault, even when it isn't.'... I thought that was an interesting note for her.. she said it kind of off-hand, while watching a Johnny Test cartoon... and that was that.  We didn't elaborate, I just said 'Yea..' and agreed that shouldn't happen.

Saturday building stuff

We started out at Lowes early this morning to meet up with friends and build the project.

She did very well and did require some help - but did almost all of the work herself.

She was very helpful and mindful at the Lowes store to stay with us,clean up after herself and say hello and goodbye to people - several people commented on her good manners - which only goes to show the school just wasn't handling her right.  She didn't hide behind me at all while we were there!

We got a pumpkin for carving later, some groceries, some lunch, and came home.

Then Daddy set up the Atari system and she helped clean the parts, hook up things and learned how to use it in her DVD area to switch the video input back and forth.  We played PONG, Frog Pond and Combat together.  I cleaned some, napped (while she played Martha Speaks on PBS), did laundry, talked to Aunt Dot about our homeschooling week, and then it was time for dinner.  I cleaned up some, set up some more areas for homeschool (trays and sorter for nature stuff) and then we disassembled the K'nex rollercoaster from last Christmas and played with the K'nex to make a cube, 'birdcage', swing and practice with the rollercoaster pieces.  She was so happy several times today that she didn't give up and things worked out with a little extra effort.

Then Daddy and Esme watched an engineering video about racecars.. and it was time for bed.
We decided that was a day we would mark 'present' as school - because she really did a lot of hands-on building things and was doing a lot of thought while playing the Combat and PONG games about what to do and when, and why.  We discussed the 'ethics' of Combat.. she didn't want to shoot at my tank.. and then we decided to play it like tag and she laughed a lot about the way the tank spun when it was hit... so she got over the freeze-up at the idea of hurting the tank when it didn't disappear.  She hated Combat 2 though, so we went back to the regular Combat.

There was more rollerskating, and weight-lifting, and some running around outside after the rain stopped.  She even made an attempt at tying her shoes.  I didn't make her do a journal for today, though..   Tomorrow, we hope the weather will cooperate and we will invite our friends over for fishing!

transition :  We've talked more, but she still isn't entirely certain why we are homeschooling her.  She doesn't think there is anything too bad about it.. she wants to go places and do things and homeschool actually makes that MORE possible - since she is not gone from 6:30 am to 3:45 pm every weekday.  She really wanted to initiate the building school late tonight, even though it is a 'weekend'..   She has been mindful about expressing her thoughts on seeing friends, thinking about time (discussion of earlier and later, and what happened years ago vs. what will happen in a minute or a second from now).  She discussed, by her initiative, listening when we have to do things, that she had not thrown a fit leaving Lowes even though it was tough leaving friends, trying hard on things, and trying to give us time to do other things (like fold laundry, or write this post) and wait patiently.  All of it is very good progress!  I love to hear her express her reasonings out loud to us again - it shows she is really working things out and remembering what she has learned.

I noted that she had her Indian village playmobil set up inside her spaceship toy (the one she can fit inside and has been drawing chalk graffiti on all of the walls of for months, including the 'best day ever calendar' I saw a few weeks ago)... space Indians ;) We are missing a few pieces but I was impressed as she has not shown much interest in that toy set since last Christmas...pieces were scattered to the wind last I knew about.