Last-Minute PEP Workshop - March 24 - 30, 2026

We won a stay up there! Yay!
I wanna do PEP while I'm there. Yay!
I hope to not be a nuisance in my attempts to PEP (yay?)
I'd like to ascertain what of my wishlist BB's are possible/available.
I'd like to know what I can pitch in with, too, and maybe it's a BB?

Hopeful these are possible:
- Greywater, Hand-Crafted Information sheet: Is there a pooper up there in need of an information sheet? I'd feel silly making one if it had no place to go. (I'm planning to make the sheet before traveling)
- Greywater/Roundwood, Dry-peg coathooks: surely there's a bit of green wood and dry I can get my hands on up there?
- Rocket, 1-Week-Heat: Assuming it's chilly enough, is there a space I may manage all the heating for a week?

Surely these things need done?
- Tool Care, Clean the shop
- Tool Care, Chainsaw Sharpen
- Tool Care, Shovel
- Tool Care, Wedge Handle

Maybe these things need done, but maybe it's the wrong season?
- Woodland Care, Peel: Is there a 6" tree being felled that needs a'peeling? I somehow peeled ~1.74 trees last time
- Woodland Care, 6 Shakes
- Earthworks, Improve berm
- Earthworks, Add Trail to berm
- Earthworks, Eliminate puddle
- Earthworks, 3 excavator scoops
- Earthworks, Dry Stack wall
- Foraging

Probably nobody has time to babysit me for these, but I hope it doesn't hurt to ask:
- Metalworking, Kindling Cracker and another metal thingy

As always, if there's a better place for this post, I'm all ears. Thanks in advance for helping me figure out what's doable.

hmmmm ...  late march ....  

In a normal year, we start planting stuff in late march.  The ground is less frozen, the crocuses are blooming and the rhubarb is budding.

Do you have some thoughts on what you might be trying to forage?

Lots of green wood and dry wood!

rocket heat:   hmmmm ....   cooper will take more work and more wood ...  allerton doesn't have a rocket mass heater - just a cooktop.  The dogstar is small and has the first experimental cob hat on top of a cottage rocket.

Surely these things need done?
- Tool Care, Clean the shop
- Tool Care, Chainsaw Sharpen
- Tool Care, Shovel
- Tool Care, Wedge Handle

should be fine!

Maybe these things need done, but maybe it's the wrong season?
- Woodland Care, Peel: Is there a 6" tree being felled that needs a'peeling? I somehow peeled ~1.74 trees last time
- Woodland Care, 6 Shakes
- Earthworks, Improve berm
- Earthworks, Add Trail to berm
- Earthworks, Eliminate puddle
- Earthworks, 3 excavator scoops
- Earthworks, Dry Stack wall

The only one that can be tricky is 3 scoops.  I don't think we have fired up rex for over a year.  So rex will need, at the very least, annual maintenance.  And maybe additional love.  We could look into ordering up the filters and stuff for maintenance.

- Metalworking, Kindling Cracker and another metal thingy

Everything is here.

Rad! Thank you, Paul.

paul wheaton wrote:Do you have some thoughts on what you might be trying to forage?

Nettles or mushrooms or the like were what I was hoping might be available. If foraging doesn't work, I think I've already got a week of doable things.

paul wheaton wrote:The only one that can be tricky is 3 scoops.  I don't think we have fired up rex for over a year.  So rex will need, at the very least, annual maintenance.  And maybe additional love.  We could look into ordering up the filters and stuff for maintenance.

Gosh, that seems like a lot of effort if y'all weren't already planning to give Rex the love (if y'all are wanting to do it, I'm in to help!).

paul wheaton wrote:

- Metalworking, Kindling Cracker and another metal thingy

Everything is here.

I now realize what I wish I'd said the first time: is anyone there available I can hire to teach me how to weld, enough for me to make those?

Hey Ash! Harry (my better half) will be at WL for the first ~2.5ish weeks of March and he knows/can teach MIG and stick welding. If you’re making a kindling cracker, I recommend salvaging/bringing a long piece of hard steel to use as the cutting edge unless new pieces of hard steel have been acquired since the 2024 skip event (dunno?)

Thank you Alexandra!

Alexandra Malecki wrote:Harry (my better half) will be at WL for the first ~2.5ish weeks of March

We're there Mar 23-31, is there overlap with Harry?

Also, thank you very much for the advice on hard steel. Now to google what/how to do that.

Oh bummer, no overlap. He needs to return before our daughter’s birthday/his parents visiting. Ideally he’ll be back by the 23 and it’s a 2 day drive.

To tell the difference between low and higher carbon steel (hardenable), a high carbon steel will have a high volume of sparks (like a firecracker) when you grind it. The sparks will be more yellow or orange and more dense or concentrated. Low carbon steels will spark less (lower density relative to higher carbon) with a whiter spark. The reason why you need to do the spark test is because a hardenable/higher carbon steel may not actually be hardened, so you can’t depend on the “file test” (which gives you an indication of hardness alone).

It sounds like you’ll have plenty to keep you busy for a week. Maybe you’ll be interested in returning for one of the summer events (details tbd) after we’ve moved to WL in May!

Alexandra Malecki wrote:It sounds like you’ll have plenty to keep you busy for a week. Maybe you’ll be interested in returning for one of the summer events (details tbd) after we’ve moved to WL in May!

Congrats to y'all! What an exciting development.

I'm always interested in getting up to WL. It's about the logistics of getting away and dealing with airplane-guilt/cost.

Ash Jackson wrote:We're there Mar 23-31...

We could put a shout out to lots of people that you will be here doing PEP stuff and see if anybody else wants to be here at the same time to do BB stuff.  It seems a lot of people that show up for this sort of thing has skills.

paul wheaton wrote:We could put a shout out to lots of people that you will be here doing PEP stuff and see if anybody else wants to be here at the same time to do BB stuff.  It seems a lot of people that show up for this sort of thing has skills.

Let's do it!

I'll make this thread clearer, cross post it into SkIP and then remember how to get it into the dailyish. (let me know if there's a preferred other way).