Chris Clinton

I built one of these back in 2020 to house timber framing tools. This meant it was long enough to hold an axe. I'm happy with it but since it's packed full it's generally too heavy to lug around when I only need 2 or 3 tools out of it for whatever I might be working on most times. So generally it just lives on the floor. I thought it would be a good rainy day project to make a smaller one for grabbing what I need for any job at hand and then return tools to storage. It would have been a quick task if I hadn't found and decided to use the last board left from chainsaw milling up bits of a giant oak that came down during a hurricane here years ago. Working with dry oak that was cupped and a bit warped added time to the build, but now it is a simple thing embued with memories and features nice grain and chainsaw marks.

Once cut into the lengths needed it became very apparent that the width was inconsistent and that cupping was going to need to be addressed. I chose to split two of the longer boards to remove the worst cupping. I then hand planed those rough edges down to a more pleasing profile and planed all pieces to lessen cupping and get a reasonable fit.

I liked the curves in one of the example totes for the bb and marked out some curves after drilling holes for the handle. A mason jar band is one of the standard circle template sizes around here, I'd have used a compass if I had thought to do it before drilling. I used the vise on my bench and a coping saw to cut said curves and then cleaned it up with some half-round rasps.

I used a piece of clear straight grained white oak from my firewood shed for the handle. I keep trying to avoid actually using it for firewood because it's so nice for stuff like this. Split a piece down with the froe and then roughed out with a drawknife at the shavinghorse. I made the tenons first and once they fit the holes in the ends I used them as a stand to refine the handle with a spokeshave till it felt nice in the hand.

I used 6 brass screws on either side of the tote and then two more on the bottom to connect everything. Given that this was dry oak and I didn't want it to split, I pre-dilled and countersunk each screw hole. Screws were installed with a hand screwdriver after, to my annoyance, the drill stripped the head on the first couple. I went over it with a block plane at the end to chamfer all the edges and smooth some joints over.

It's a little heavy for what it is but I'm pretty happy with it. It's a far cry from fine woodworking but it is robust and should age well.

I scored this cool little unmarked hatchet head at a thrift store for $2! It's a very different pattern than others I have and seemed like it might be good for carving so I put it on the top of the queue for getting a handle. Dug through the wood stockpile and found a well seasoned chunk of osage orange and split some blanks out. Roughed out the billet with a hatchet and used my pocket knife, a spokeshave, broken glass and rasps to shape the handle. I used my shaving horse for most of the spokeshave work but did not get action shots of that.

I got the top of the handle fit into the eye and then shaped the rest of the handle. I used black cherry for the wedge, nice contrast. It felt very solid and secure with just the wooden wedge but I'm of the habit of adding a little metal wedge too and I wanted to fill a little gap in the front of the eye. I notch my metal wedges with a file to make them easier to pry out if needed in the future. I took the opportunity to clean up the poll of the head and thin the profile while it was unhafted. It still needs to be truly sharpened at this point but I'm happy with it thus far.

Finally getting around to putting in my submission for the first 6 ft section completed of hugel bed at the specifications for this bb. It is intended to be a good deal larger at some point but other tasks have my attention for now. This was a slow hand-build process aimed at achieving long lasting fertility. My techniques evolved as I went. You can see my more detailed series of posts on the ongoing project with lots more photos here: https://permies.com/t/269642/Hand-built-hugelkultur-frog-pond#2830247

Most of the soil came from digging a pond on the site and thoroughly mixing that mostly subsoil with ground charcoal and compost from onsite. I live in Atlanta, city in a forest, so plenty of wood around our properties and the neighbors. We deal with a lot of aging trees coming down or dropping limbs, especially the massive water oaks (Q. nigra) which grow very fast but are relatively short lived. A large pecan had come down a couple years earlier and a lot of that went in too. Beyond that there was beech, boxelder, privet, black cherry, american elm, mimosa (Albizia), a little pine, and probably more species that I have forgotten.

Aside from the required comfrey, sunchokes, and Sepp grains I also transplanted tomatoes, milkweed, elecampane,  trailing nasturtiums and kale. I seeded with iron and clay cowpeas, bush beans, illinois bundleflower, vetch, and burr clover for nitrogen fixers as well as beets, carrots, salsify, vegetable mallow, papalo, other greens and a packet of mixed edible flower seeds.

The mound was somewhat mulched as it was built as I used weedy plants (lots of cleavers) to hold the soil in place as it ascended. I used lots of old plant stalks of things like goldenrod in a penetrating manner as I did the secondary covering of the steep sides. A little bit of full on wattle construction was helpful at holding it up here and there too. Additional mulches came in the form of old tomato vines and such from spring garden cleaning, fast growing green weeds like lactuca and pokeweed, as well as the material from cleaning off the nearby woodshed roof and gutters. I also coppiced some nitrogen fixing Albizzia and stripped it of leaves and twigs and bark for mulching with.

This took quite a while working on it intermittently and I found it a challenge at times. I would prefer to construct them a good bit wider for that height but the space was too tight for that. Hopefully I'll get back to completing the next 12 feet before too long.

Here's my submission of one of last years mulberry harvests. This particular tree, a wild hybrid of alba and the native rubra, is very prolific and tasty. Berries were both hand gathered and shaken onto a tarp and sorted. Much more to ripen over the following weeks. The photo strip shows container being tared and the weight of berries: 11.09 pounds. yum yum

I fell off on my updates here last year but did finish the first section of the hugel last Spring so I'm trying to get the pictures together and pick up where I left off. Looks like I was nearing final height in the last update. I continued on as before and capped it off with around a foot and a half of just the improved soil mixture after covering the sides with earth. I found that a more difficult stage at first due to the steepness and had to resort to using lots of old hard stalks of goldenrod and similar plants shoved into the sides to keep the soil from rolling off. I continued to use lots of weedy materials to wall up the edge and mulch as I went and would also periodically do a more deliberate and robust wattle woven with firmer sticks and peeled bark or whatever. The side trenches were dug during this phase and the start of a parallel bed was dug and planted with willow cuttings for another bb. After construction was mulching and planting, which if I recall were interspersed. Sunchokes, comfrey, tomatoes, milkweed, and kales were transplanted. While a mixture of vegetable (carrots, beets, mustards, salsify, etc) and nitrogen fixer seeds was broadcast on the mound. The legumes were various vetches and clovers and lots of old school iron and clay cowpeas (which took over the bed most of the year). The dozen Sepp grains were more deliberately seeded to one side of the hugel. Additional mulches came in the forms of the previous years tomato vines, freshly harvest green weeds, nitrogen fixing trees (Albizzia) were felled for leaf and twigs as well as the bark which I peeled off, also cleaned the roof and gutters of my nearby woodshed for material.

Howdy. Need to change out a sink and started trying to find ways of sealing pipe threads not using all the PTFE products that have taken over that application. No luck finding anything on youtube thus far but the search algo's are what they are now. Anyone made pipe dope from scratch or recommend a product for water pipes that's free of forever chemicals and such? I've found a little to go by here: https://theplumbero.com/how-to-make-a-pipe-dope/  but would love to hear some direct experience. I also saw toothpaste and hair used in a recent Project Kamp video. thanks in advance!


edit: Now that I've posted this I see some similar threads recommended below it. Still not really much in the way of answers but apologies for creating another thread

I found one single stem in the nettle patch with 3 leaves whorled per node instead of the usual opposite two. Didn't really realize till I had it in my hand and couldn't find exactly where I cut it from but there were no others. Anyone every seen this? I'll try to root the stem and see if it keeps up this growth habit. Any guesses what's going on with this, random sport mutation or some sort of physiological response?

Sticking cuttings of two varieties of basket willows alongside my big hugel project. This will get extended in the future. I had planned to get more in this Spring but so it goes...

These weren't cutting all that bad but better to give them some attention before I finally got around to my grafting work for the season. Disassembled and cleaned and sharpened with files, stones, and a strop. Lubricated and protected with coconut oil.

Mike Barkley wrote:Chris Clinton ... I don't think that would qualify for commerce but I think it would fly as an oddball BB.

For clarification, is that because tree work does not fall under "permaculture labor" or because I did not specifically state that I would be paid for my effort. I think they've been getting quotes in the thousands and I said I'd tackle it for $300. It's not a favor for a friend situation, I just need the firewood and this tree is close by and has a head start in drying.