PEP Badge: Oddball

My trailer was falling apart.  The porcupine shaped hole in the plywood worried the people driving behind me.  So I replaced the wood with white pine I milled from my own trees last year.  It's not varnished or stained since I plan to keep it under a roof for most of its life.

I had to plane the wood to a consistent thickness and rip the sides of each board so that they were straight and parallel.  I made the stake pocket boards to fit snugly in the unusually sized pockets (why aren't they 1.5" by 3.5"???).  Carriage bolted some of the boards down and connected them underneath with cross boards.  Apparently the trailer designers assume you're using plywood on trailers like this so they don't have enough carriage bolt holes for all the boards...

Cut out the stake pockets at the front and back, added new side stake pockets, fitted wood to the old fenders to make them fit, screwed the sides and ends together and fitted hardware to make the ends connect and disconnect as needed.  For those who are interested, the awesome hardware for the tailgate latch is from Northern Tool and Equipment.  Mounted the spare and about a dozen other things I forgot and now it's done.  I've taken it about 300 miles so far and it's held together admirably.

Build scaffolding

A couple of weeks ago I identified a problem - my gutters weren’t function as intended. I fixed two of them
See Clean / Repair Improve gutters homestead Badge Bit

The third was more tricky, it looked like the fascia board was rotten. It needed further inspection and something more useful than just a ladder.

I would be doing a lot of work on the outside of the house and needed safe place to work. I investigated scaffolding - buying and renting. Then I brought up the subject here : Safe working platform to fix the outside of my house.

I don’t have a pickup so buying and renting weren’t an option, also very expensive and local suppliers all out of stock. Craiglist didn’t have anything and I’d still have a problem transporting it. So I decided to build it myself. These were my design goals.

1) Safety
2) Working platform 16ft from the ground
3) Sturdy but not over designed
4) Reuse / repurpose existing lumber
5) Light enough that I could easily lift one end
6) One man installation
7) Portable - be able to move around the perimeter of the house

I’m renovating my basement and I need to insulate the walls. One of the walls had a large shelving unit made of 2 x 3’s and ply. This would the main source of materials for my project. I used an entire shelf as the platform. I also had some 1 x 4’s I had recovered from some outdoor projects in my old house. I only needed eight new 8ft 2x4’s and a box of 3 1/2 inch decking screws.


Design sketches


Shelving unit before deconstructing


Shelf unit for the platform and 2x4’s


Making 4 “ladders” for the side units


Laying out the sections before splicing


Constructing side units


Sanity check


Nearly complete


Raising plan


One anchor / pivot point / stop,  secured with 12 inch nails between paving slabs


First phase of lift


Hanging truss Part 1. Truss secured with rope so when I lift it swings into place.


Hanging truss Part 2. Success, now taking the load enabling me to move boxes etc.


Webbing / rope anchor with ratchet


Scaffold nearly at tipping point enabling me to man handle into final position


Scaffold installed

I levelled with a few off cuts and then rested the ladder next to the platform. I installed a safety rope to close off the open side.


I can now work on the gutter.

The structure is light enough for me lift one end and easily drag.

In total this project took me 7 hours and an unknown amount of time thinking and sketching.
The shelving unit took me two hours to deconstruct. I had hoped to reuse the screws but 90% had damaged heads which is why it took so long.
Three and half hours cutting lumber and building. I used a Japanese pull saw to cut the wood and an impact driver for the screws
Half an hour getting it into place
An hour to raise
One trip to the box store on my cargo bike. Yes, you can easily transport eight 8ft 2x4’s on a cargo bike!

PS You maybe be wondering why there aren’t more diagonal braces. I needed to keep the weight down, so made it strong enough for the raise. If needs be I could add after installation. The cross brace end joints are very rigid with three screws from each side. There is very little lateral movement. If I was in any doubt, I would add more diagonal braces. As a trained civil engineer, I don’t think it’s necessary.

Would turning and reviving a dead compost heap count towards Oddball points?

Here's my submission, anyway. If it does not count, that's allright - maybe it will be helpful for other permies looking into compost turning, compost activators, and what to do when the heap dies on you.

I am still a novice, and though I have turned compost heaps before, it has not always been "successful", i.e. resulted in a warmer compost afterwards. I was not sure it would work this time either, as it is september and temperatures are dropping (around 10 C max temps during daytime). Last year, a compost heap was turned in october, and that had no effect at all.

This time, however, it worked!

The recipe was:

lots of water

lots of green fresh material (compost activators): nettles, ground elders, japanese knotweed leaves, black currant leaves, and some grass that came along with the nettles

breaking up all lumps

and mixing the material well.

It took me a full day of work in total, spread in bits over a week, as gathering material, breaking up lumps, and mixing properly took a lot of time. I guess it would have taken some time for an expert too...but then, an expert would have avoided the whole issue by remembering to water properly so that is very much noted for the future. (and if you wonder - the bins have roofs because of the rain, to avoid becoming anaerobic.)

Note: Compost might not be in line with the PEP values, but maybe Otis would appreciate? Due to the wet, cold climate here, mulching with uncomposted materials lead to lots of slugs. I still do it in some areas (around potatoes and berries), but around vegetables, finished compost works much better. Also, I kinda like the compost work. Looking after the heaps feels a bit like looking after farm animals. That's not weird - is it?

The Sand badge for Animal care has a BB to "build a nice birdhouse for a specific species of bird" and I already did that BB here. And as far as I can tell, none of the animal badges accept duplication, and there is no animal care oddball category, nor a roundwood woodworking oddball category, so I'm posting my roundwood bird house here. If there is a better place for it please let me know.

For this tree swallow bird house I started with a 10 ft Western Red Cedar log. I peeled the bark off and hollowed out one end, made easier by the fact that it had some center rot. I cut the top at an angle and ensured the inside depth was 8 inches.  I drilled a 1.5 inch diameter hole such that the top of the hole was 6 inches above the bottom of the cavity.  I cut a section of cedar with larger diameter to use as the roof and left the bark on.  I used a router to route out a groove to match the top of the log so that the roof sits down over the top of the log like a hat.   To hold the roof on, I repurposed two metal brackets, cutting them to fit under the roof overhang and drilled two holes in each to accept screws.

I hand dug a 2 ft 6 inch deep hole with a manual post hole digger and dropped the log in the hole with the bird entrance hole facing south as recommended for tree swallows, and screwed the lid on with easy to remove screws (metal roofing screws) for easier future cleanouts.

I’d like to apply for my first wooden Badge:

permies.com/p/1321548 - 1 point
permies.com/p/1331933 - 3 points
permies.com/p/1333304 - 1/2 point
permies.com/p/1341097 - 2 points
permies.com/p/1344338 - 3 points
permies.com/p/1406752 - 3 points
permies.com/p/1508208 - 1/2 point
permies.com/p/1525608 - 1/2 point
permies.com/p/1525687 - 1 point
permies.com/p/1560231 - 200 points
permies.com/p/1566022 - 1/2 point
permies.com/p/1571505 - 1/2 point
permies.com/p/1572467 - 1/2 point
permies.com/p/1577980 - 3 points
permies.com/p/1586431 - 7 points

Total = 226 points

Thanks to everyone helping me get these badges, most involved lots of conversations in the forums. And thanks to everyone who debated and approved.

I'm posting this here in the Oddball section because I don't have any images of myself holding up a beginning/ending clock in order to qualify for the Community BB.

What I did: Gave three 20-minute talks + guided tours of our garden over three separate dates to a total of 90 people.

I'm also a writer by trade, so I wrote up the experience on my Substack here: https://brunettegardens.substack.com/p/that-time-90-people-toured-our-garden

I was invited to be a tour host by our local chapter (largest in the country) of the national organization Wild Ones. They chronicled the event here: https://stlwildones.org/june-2022-gathering-highlights/

For both of the publicly-listed tours, we demo'd our Sun Oven as well.

And here are some images.

Thank you!

My bicycle needed maintenance.
I needed to get my bicycle off the ground to do it.
Maintenance stands cost moneys.
I had roundwood lumber lying around needing to be used.
I made a roundwood lumber bicycle maintenance stand!

It's not perfect. I need another arm or maybe a strap to keep the orientation of the bike steady. But it worked well enough for me to change the front shifter cable!

These are the logs I started with. The three straight ones are probably J. cypress. The curvy one is mulberry from pollarding my mulberry tree. They are all peeled and dry.


I split one of the cypress logs to make legs of even length.


Then I shaved out round tenons to match my 24mm auger size.



I drilled mortises with my brace and bit and hex bit holder. Getting the angle right here was tricky, but mostly eyeballing worked well. I used the leg with the tenon sized set against the main pole to judge, and then I traced the tenon angle with pencil. Then I used my eyes to follow the pencil lines while I drilled. Trust your senses.



Checking with my round tenon guide. This is the best tool for roundwood work I've made yet, after the shave horse of course. (please ignore the units being wrong...)


One leg in, from here I checked the angle on the second leg the same way.


Two legs in, standing tall and proud. I love the curve.


The arm tenon is cut square so that it can't rotate in the mortise. Everything is held in with friction and gravity and everything can be removed with a few pounds from a mallet. The wood is all dry and being used outside so I doubt I'll see much movement, if I do I can adjust it with shims and wedges later.


This is the stand mostly finished, except for a peg to keep the bike from sliding into the post.


Bike hanging on the finished stand. The curve of the mulberry post lets the bike sit almost directly over the center of gravity, making it very stable. Somehow that was intuitive in the design, but after the fact it seems remarkable.


It probably took me about 4-5 hours in total, more if you count the original time I spent peeling the logs. I only use hand tools, so it takes me longer to do things than people who use power tools. I think professional green and roundwood craftsmen often use hand tools too though, maybe a mixed bag. The mulberry is from my property, the cypress were leftovers from the forest thinning lumber I got from a friend. All the wood shavings became mulch in my garden paths. No blisters, cuts, or injuries at all this time! I must be getting better at this.

Upcycling and repurposing a piece of furniture to improve the use and function of my small refrigerator and add storage to a small space.

SUMMARY:

Problem:  the height of my nice compact refrigerator and freezer was difficult to use without back strain and had poor visibility for items in the fridge without awkward bending.

Solution:  source a thrift stand that was the right size, structurally strong enough, inexpensive;  repurpose it as a kitchen piece and install.  

Permaculture aspects involved:
- support local thrift shop
- repurpose furniture destined for landfill (this piece was on its last mark-down)
- minimize water usage
- use up paints and materials on hand (no new purchases for project)
- salvage hardware for later use
- improve design and efficiency of living space

LINK to FULL thread with pictures and DETAILS:  https://permies.com/t/197558/permaculture-upcycling/ungarbage/Repurposing-thrift-store-side-table

My personal time and labor was around 4 hours for this,  including shopping, cleaning, finishing, and installing.

Now my fridge is at eye level instead of counter-top level and the difference in the access has been exactly what I needed to make this smaller refrigerator unit work!

Some sample before and after photos from the thread:

I ordered my first recurve bow (Also the first bow I have ever owned, though I have borrowed other's gear) and I didn't want to pay for a leather quiver right now. So I decided to try and make one. This project took, I would say roughly two hours maybe and I had to do a lot of learning in the process. I wanted to make it out of tree bark but I discovered that it is really hard to peel the bark off in one piece at the wrong time of year. So, yeah, note for the future: it is important.
Since bark wouldn't work I used an old pair of jeans I had. I wanted to be able to use it as both a hip and back quiver and I wanted to have those cool fringes on the edges (These actually had a interesting use and were often on coats, bags, and other things. Oh the things you learn from your learned sister! ).

Now this is my first oddball post and I am not fully sure if I understand how the scoring works so I will not ask for a number of points.  Thanks everyone! Now my bow just has to show up. XD