Homestead – Jason Burns

Ceres Update: From Empty Scaffold to a Garden That Talks Back

Seventy-four commits across one weekend took Ceres, the multi-agent assistant for Kim's garden, from a bare scaffold to a working assistant that transcribes voice notes, diagnoses plant photos, answers questions, plans the watering, and runs a scheduled daily briefing from an orchestrated roster of specialist agents.

June 15, 2026AI Projects, Development, Home Automation, Homestead

Ceres Update: Building the Schema, Then Tearing Half of It Out

A week ago I introduced Ceres, the multi-agent garden assistant Kim and I are building for our raised beds. A week later there is, in fact, code — and a careful re-design that ripped out part of it within three days.

May 19, 2026AI Projects, Home Automation, Homestead

Managing a Homelab AI Project with Claude Code, Gitea, and the Gitea MCP Server

I am not a software engineer. I think in milestones, user stories, and outcomes. Kim wants a smart garden assistant that tells her when to water and when the blight risk is high. I want to build it. Solo homelab…

May 13, 2026AI Projects, Development, Home Automation, Homestead, Product Management

Building Ceres, a Multi-Agent Garden Assistant

We are growing a lot of vegetables this year. Carrots, cauliflower, russet potatoes, Roma tomatoes, and more are all going into fourteen raised beds in our garden. We have done our research, but there are a lot of variables in…

May 12, 2026AI Projects, Home Automation, Homestead

Insulating the Chicken Coop – The Data

Earlier this year, I took the time to insulate the walls of the chicken coop and cover the insulation with 1/4" plywood. I had hoped we could go without needing a heater in there in the deep winter, and luckily…

February 19, 2026Carpentry, Home Automation, Homestead

Chicken Casa Complete

I have learned so much about estimations and weather. I thought I could knock this thing out in a few weeks. For those counting, it's been 13 weeks since January 5th 2025. A sprained ankle delayed me a little bit,…

March 31, 2025Carpentry, Homestead

Chicken Casa v2 almost complete

Between a sprained ankle and the weather, it's taken me over a month to get 8 good days in, but that's enough to get it completely framed, wrapped and the roof covered. Next I need to install a door, the…

March 1, 2025Homestead

Chicken Casa v2 Paused because I’m an idiot

Saturday morning the gravel showed up and I got to work building the floor. Started Sunday screwing down the floor and ended with two walls built. We had guys coming to clean the gutters Monday, so I needed to clean…

January 30, 2025Carpentry, Homestead

Time to tackle cold air leaks

First I'd like to get out of the way that this is a gadget that I have displayed insane self control not buying before now. Maybe it was the movie Predator. I'm not sure why I have always thought thermal…

January 23, 2025Homestead

Chicken Casa v2

Most of the time, I figure out the key dimensions and just come up with my own design for everything. We sadly lost a chicken to a coyote and while the coop wasn't the problem, that put us at 4…

January 21, 2025Homestead