!! In the quiet hours of the bootcamp grind, I found myself: Esteban's Bootcamp Experience

Yesterday 05/12/2026 ... turned into another solid and productive day with the team. During the morning meeting, I picked Tracy, Lorenzo, and Jessie to join me, and we headed straight over to the Abbey to get rolling.

I had Tracy and Jessie continue watering the trees and berms while Lorenzo and I kept processing the junkpoles I felled earlier for pickets. We cut them to length and fastened them onto the tipi gate. I still need to add a few more pickets around the gate handle area to close up some unnecessary gaps, but it’s basically finished for now and coming together nicely.

Back at basecamp, I set Tracy and Lorenzo up to debark the remaining material I felled this past Saturday. They did a delightful job and nearly processed everything. I’m really looking forward to getting started on the live roundwood natural fire racks soon.

While they were working on that, I had Jessie sharpen another chainsaw and then continue work on the horseradish trails. She’s doing such a splendid job with those trails and they’re shaping up well.

Meanwhile, I spent part of the afternoon processing gravel at the rock face next to the wooden delivery sign and managed to net 4 buckets of gravel. Afterwards, I spread three buckets of “candy” that Samantha brought over this past weekend around the baby trees along Apricot Alley.

By then, Tracy and Lorenzo had wrapped up debarking, so I tasked them with securing the lines for the yoga yurt roof window cover. One of the tie-down lines snapped during the process and it turned into a complete comedy for a while there, but we eventually got everything back on track.

Wrapped up the evening with Taco Tuesday meal and called it a day.