!! SEPP to Boot: Stephen's Experience (BEL)

Hello everyone!
Will the outcome be a necklace or pin or wall plaque or other? How large will the product be? Rebekah pinged me to give feedback but instead I only have questions ;)

BEL #737

Happy Taco Tuesday to you...!

In the first half of the day, Faith and I re-fitted a number of ceramic and glass containers with drain holes, making them perfect as pots to start more seeds.



We ended up potting 9 different plants across 10 new seed starter pots. These were all intended for Basecamp, so we used fancy-ass potting soil with a bit of biochar at the bottom of the container. We're doing a bit of construction over at the Solarium, so for now all the starters are sitting on the mass inside the House.



In the afternoon, Faith and I went over to the DogStar Bark Park and chipped away at more of the fence over there. I'd say it's about 2/3 complete. The gate remains to be started, and the doghouse is maybe 6% done: it needs walls and a roof.



We wrapped the day with a fun discussion of films, good and bad, after our community dinner. Paul's speaking at a conference this weekend and we won't be able to hold our usual "Paul Theatre" screening on Sunday, and I'm considering some kind of low-budget zombie horror flick to fill the void over the weekend...

That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BEL #738

This morning, we put to the test our hypothesis that sunchokes and walking onions could survive the winter, and be ready to eat if we just left them in the ground during the coldest part of the year. Evidence suggests that it works - and additionally, Paul makes a wonderful stir-fried sunchokes dish.





Faith and I spent most of the rest of the day working on a renovation down at the WilloWonka. Paul requested we make some changes to the exhaust from the cabinet where the Willow Candy is stored prior to removal. Pictured below are two of the main aspects of this repair. First is the "wooden cork," which Faith carved down to fit into the 4" stovepipe at the top of the trombe wall. I drilled through the cork with a paddle drill bit (the pathway is pictured here, in green). This serves as the junction between the trombe wall and the upper portion of the exhaust.



The pipe shown here is the rest of the exhaust, which descends through the roof and into the top of the wooden cork. It will eventually be painted black to encourage warm air circulation. We added a U-turn to prevent moisture intrusion, and then clamped a fly-catcher made of stainless steel window screen to the end of it. We'll observe this over time and see if it actually needs to be emptied of occupants on the regular.



After the new assembly had been completed, the final step was to seal all the edges with pine pitch. Here's Faith and I as we melted the pitch to a serviceable consistency. We'll be finishing this tomorrow. I think most of the construction of this project will end up in a future video project, and even at this stage I think folks will be impressed with what we accomplished.



Finally: a question for anyone reading this. One of our hydrants has a bolt that has failed on us. While I was loosening a bolt, the head of the bolt twisted off, leaving the rest of the bolt still in the bolt-hole. We really can't continue repairs without replacing this bolt. It's not accessible from the other end of the bolt, as it squeezes a rod between the bolt and the rod housing. Any ideas on how to successfully, cleanly remove a bolt that's missing the head?



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

I'm not sure on the bolt.  I think a "screw extractor" might be the ticket.  I think you get a set of them, then drill a small hole down the center of the broken bolt, then use the extractor to reverse the piece of bolt out.  But I've never done it myself so I'm not positive.

On the piping for the trombe, if you're hoping warm air will rise, go across and then drop into the screen, I "think" it will.  I believe the downward bit at the end will really fight the natural draft.  I'd use the shortest possible stub on that downwards section to hinder the draft as little as possible.  I'd actually remove the pipe nipple all together and attach the screen to the tee.  Now that I think more about it, if moisture intrusion is the only worry, I'd remove the plug from the end of the tee and have the tee open on both the end and the downward facing bit.  Wrap the screen around the whole tee.  Then rising air can travel horizontally out of the contraption and water that might get in the end would likely drip out the downward bit.

Sorry for all the words, if I had more time I'd condense it...

BEL #739

[cue that song: "Oops, I Did It Again"]

I'm just grateful that Fiskars has a lifetime warranty on their splitting axes, and that Home Depot agrees to this without a receipt... I must be really slapping the shit outta that X-27 somehow.



In other news, Faith and I have been more brazen in our attempts at early seeding. This week has been just too warm and sunny to ignore. We chose an open spot inside the fences of Allerton Abbey for some more cover crop. My hope is that stuff will grow well over here even if we neglect it, and/or just don't have time to provide it with consistent watering.

This morning, the area was seeded with a bit of mulch scattered over the seeds. Faith watered it to provide it a bit of an additional kick-start, so we'll see what happens through the rest of this growing season. I'd like to see more radish greens pop up this year, personally speaking.



Speaking of which, here's part of our cover crop mix: wild peas (thanks once again, Clay!), dandelion, daikon, lovage (just for the heckuvit), some clover, and rhubarb.



We used a slightly-modified mix in a couple non-fenced areas in Dances With Pigs Meadow. I think tomorrow we'll drop in some sunchokes in those same "pockets" and see if anything is spared by the deer. We're looking to see what sorts of things are successful down in the Meadow, and what can make it without regular watering.

In the afternoon, we headed back to the Lab to continue work on the Bark Park, behind DogStar. More tree-felling, delimbing, and junkpole fence construction.





Not a terrible amount of progress for about 3.5 hours, spread over two days. I'm excited for when this project is finally done. I imagine it will see a lot of use from our guests who bring dogs on the road with them.



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!