When I was at the equivalent of high school, it was sort of expected for brighter students to aspire to a university education. Fairly unusually both my parents had degrees (they met at university) so there was also a family expectation for higher education. At the time higher eductation was virtually free in the UK. If I were to be in the same situation now I would probably not take a degree. If you don't know where you are going, how can you know whether you are heading off in the wrong direction? I ended up with a chemistry degree (never used it - and science technicians don't need a degree to have a job, or they didn't then...) I got employment in an automotive firm and did a second degree in mechancal engineering, which gave me a professional engineer ticket. I then started an Engineering doctorate (research based) but hated academia, so dropped out and ended up with a MSc in engineering business management (never used it professionally). Both the engineering degrees were supported by the company I worked for. I worked for a few more years in a couple of different company before 'dropping out' from the mainstream; we didn't quite get the early retirement bit, but I now run my own little grocery store and earn a bit less than the minimum wage (although there are side benefits ). The rambling point I was trying to make is that I never used any of my degrees. Yes they got me a foot in the employment door, but there are other ways of achieving that - especially if you are spending four years of your life doing it!
It was quite common at the time for people to take a 'year out' after school, often with a promise of a university place, but sometimes just to resit exams to get better grades. People used to travel, volunteer, grow up a bit.... I think that would be what I would do now (if I knew what I do now too). Volunteer somewhere worthwhile, that would teach me something useful, and help me find my direction in life.
Do I know what I want career I want yet? No, but I'm having fun learning about life still.... maybe I can persuade my husband that it would be cheaper to retire properly than carry on working.....
Thanks Deane!
Still a long way to go yet I fear (lots of earthmoving in my future over winter!) But I won't put the cover on now until spring. There is no point risking the winter wind season when I won't be growing stuff in there. I do want a good start for next year though.
This is a picture of the South corner showing the altered window layout taken this morning. You can see I had to overlap the braces slightly, but not as bad as the side base rail.
More missing parts, poor weather, staff holidays and slightly sick husband all conspiring to slow progress, but another milestone reached today!
The first step was to put the door lintels up - One beam across the full width of the tunnel at either end. It turned out that the braces didn't work from the second hoop to the lintel - the length and angles were all wrong. However I remembered these clips from the old tunnel:
Open tunnel clamps
These are designed to clip onto the hoop after erection - so they got us out of our sticky situation
Slowly making progress: The door posts are going to be buried at the bottom ends, still dangling in a hole at the moment.
End hoop braced and lintel in position
Had to work off a tall ladder to reach the ridge this time for the bracing.
Lintel braced to ridge
Having checked the proposed openers against the South end frame. I realised that the windows would not fit below the lintel to the rock/corner bracket position. I decided that I needed to make another dogleg in the frame and dig out the rock (it was pretty soft there) a bit more. Unfortunately I just couldn't make the brackets I had quite work; I needed one more angle joiner. Plus, for some reason I hopelessly underestimated the number of M8 fixings I needed to fix the brackets to the aluminium sections. One reason is that I was inserting lots of spare fixings in between the brackets, just in case I fancy bolting stuff to them in future, but I think I did just get the quantity wrong too. I have lots of really long M8 fixings (which were just to fix the base rails to the hoops) but nowhere near enough shorter ones. Actually, even though I ordered more at the same time as the extra bracket I still had to beg some from my husband's stores.
This last picture isn't quite as far as I have actually got since it was dark when I finally finished the last bit beside the South end door today.
Crystal palace framing
I put copper grease between the steel brackets and the aluminium frames, as I am slightly nervous about galvanic corrosion going on there, and more on the threads of the bolts, in case I decide to modify the frame, or it needs to come off for some reason. Might as well make life easier, rather than harder in future if I can!
In the end I have one complete 6m length of Aluminium box left, so I had very little actual waste, which I'm quite proud of (alhough could have saved £). The spare length I'm sure will come in handy for some construction in future, it's nicely engineered lightweight box section.
So, the next step is the cropbars. I think these just need fastening together, adding the appropriate support brakcet in the middle, supporting from the brackets on the hoops and the braces to the ridge adding. I think I have rather an odd collection of support brackets left, but I don't think that matters.
Then make the frames for the high level ventilators, tidy up the site, and I can start getting irrigation, soil, beds and paths in place.
Thanks for sharing Craig. That is an impressive temperature effect!
I guess having lots of small jars makes them easy to reposition keeping the space multifunctional. Did you experiment with different colours in the water?
Maybe ducks are like dogs - they can count to 'lots': one, two, lots, lots, lots... As long as salty has lots of babies, she won't mind some extras.
Glad they're safe so far.
Many years since I turned 40.... Soon after we moved here. I bought some (relatively) non toxic hair dye to cover the grey. I'm not even sure why now.... I still have it, unused, I cut my hair short instead
I've been thinking of putting my (future) smelting forge in a building, so that it is protected from the weather and I don't have to keep dismantling it or wait for fine weathr to play....
I've also been intrigued by the idea of building something ike a little blackhouse for an outside view point/shelter. Something like this:
Thinking about hobbit houses, makes me think that the forge ought to at least be able to boil a kettle quickly, making it a bit more mutlifunction. So starting to sketch possibilities on the back/front of an envelope (as you do). I have turf, rock, roundwood, polythene sheet. I may need to sink the forge into the floor slightly, so that the kettle hotplate is at a reasonable height. I may have to (ahem) borrow some flue from another future project to get the hot gases through the roof.
Any easy ways of protecting the roof from the flue? I'm assuming it will still be pretty hot, as I'm not thinking of saving the heat with thermal mass at this stage. Maybe infill with clay?
Michael Helmersson wrote: It's very Jeckyll and Hyde.
I'm not scared of her, but I would be if I didn't know her.
In our old house the neighbours had a rottweiler like that. For the first few months we used to carry a hammer down the garden with us in case she came over the fence at us. It was a 6 foot fence so she couldn't see us but jumped up and we could see her jaws snapping above the fence line. When we met her at the front or rear of the property with her owner, she was calm and frendly enough (although we never felt particularly like petting her!). Dogs are dogs not people so you can't really know what goes through their mind.
Like the OP I'd love more advice on calming Della though, as I think everyone would be happier if she wasn't so nervous.
A graduate scientist turned automotive engineer, currently running a small shop and growing plants on Skye: turning a sheep field into a food forest.
). The rambling point I was trying to make is that I never used any of my degrees. Yes they got me a foot in the employment door, but there are other ways of achieving that - especially if you are spending four years of your life doing it!
