Chris' Bootcamp Experience Log

Gotta love arthritis flare-ups

Yesterday when helping to sever a tree root in the hole for the hydrant, I lost my balance for a second and thought nothing of it.

This morning, my left foot, ankle and knee decided to flare-up with arthritis.  I got out the trekking poles and with the much appreciated help of Boot Commander Stephen, I am still able to do some things.

Pics later!

8/20/2024 Part Deux and Taco Tuesday

As I hobbled around today, I was able to do a few things:

-We removed the rhubarb from the solar dehydrator and put it in jars,

-I harvested some apples from a tree near the FPH, hopefully we can make some applesauce at some point!!

-We gave some much needed water to trees and plants at the lab.  Some squash (maybe pumpkin?) was super wilted, so I focused a lot of water on it and it seemed to look better at the end.  I'll take another photo tomorrow and see how it looks.

After all that was done, Stephen and I headed back to base camp and did the Taco Tuesday thing!

I hope everyone has a great night, and here's hoping I am not hobbling as much in the AM!!!

Day 13: 8/21/2024

Hey everyone, another day at the bootcamp has concluded!

Today we went to Allerton Abbey in the AM, as usual, to feed the cats and water the trees and other needy plants.  One I wanted to focus on in particular was the pumpkins I mentioned yesterday.  Fortunately, they seemed to spring back to life with minimal damage!!

My foot/ankle/knee is feeling a bit better.  Still not 100%, but it will get there.  So tired today for whatever reason.

The afternoon was spent at base camp, watering growies and planting some walking onions around the hugels.  I'm curious to see if the walking onions actually take.

Stephen spread some wood ash around the trees, avoiding the rhubarb.  I looked that up, and I suppose the reason is that rhubarb likes more acidic soils and since wood ash contains CaCO3, it can make the soil more basic.  I love learning new stuff!  I consider myself to be quite the trivia fiend, so that can now be added to my repertoire in case anyone wants to know about rhubarb.  By the way, did you know that the periodic table symbol for Potassium is K because it has its origins in Latin?  The symbol comes from the word "kalium", which itself comes from the Arabic word "al-qalyah", meaning "plant ashes".  In turn, the word potassium comes from the English "potash".

For some reason, I can't seem to embed my photos in the text, so I will add some more photos to the end here.

Before and after pics of the pumpkins, apples that I harvested, kitties and a picture of some very small pumpkins are below!  Enjoy!

Thanks for reading, I'll be back tomorrow for another installment!

Day 14: 8/22/2024

Paul shared some much appreciated info with me about arthritis/gout and things that can help.  I will be giving them a try for sure.  Thanks, Paul!

The day started again over at Allerton Alley, where we watered again to ensure all the growies live!  I was very happy to see that the pumpkin plants have revived nicely, and will hopefully produce some good-sized pumpkins in the fall.  Pictures are posted below.

I also witnessed one of the cats pull a snake out of the side of a hugel and run off into the woods with it!  I couldn't see what type of snake it was, but it was most likely a garden/grass snake.  It also wasn't very big.  I guess they didn't want to share with the other cats  More cure baby kitty pictures below btw

On the way back to base camp for lunch, we stopped at the broken hydrant again and made some more progress.  We are close to the level we need to be to discover what is going wrong with it, hopefully we can get it handled before the weekend.

Paul showed us some gardening he has been doing at base camp, and some possibilities for future improvements to the hugel right behind the house.

After lunch, we reassembled the picnic table (see below), moved some other things around and then watered at base camp for the rest of the afternoon.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for tomorrow's update

It's been a while since I posted, and many things have been happening here at Wheaton Labs.  

I'm going to start logging from last Friday, August 23rd in the next post.  It's been a busy 6 days since I last posted.

Stay tuned for the updates!!

Friday, 8/23/2024

We started the day over at Allerton Abbey as usual, feeding the cats and watering trees and such.  The pumpkin vines I was able to revive are expanding, and the broken tree is flourishing (pics below!!)

The kittens were in rare form today, prancing about and wrestling.  It's good to see them growing up and starting to eat solid food.

After finishing up at Allerton Abbey, we went over to the hydrant near Cooper Cabin.  We dropped off some food for a kitten we saw earlier in the day.

We succeeded in auguring and digging down to about where we think the connection is located for the hydrant.  WE are making slow but steady progress.
g trees and hugels.  The cats were in rare form on
After lunch, we checked out the washing machine at the house as it has been throwing error codes.  Stephen and I disasg trees and hugels.  The cats were in rare form on sembled the whole thing and cleaned out all the areas that drain.  After reassembling, however, we still had the same code

For the time being we are sans washer until we get it up and running.  We think we will need to replace the drain pump at the very least.

A productive and tiring day before the weekend!!!

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Just a note about this last Sunday, as I used a vintage washing machine for the first time for a nest labor task.  SInce the main washing machine is down, we will have to rely on that for laundry.  That's incentive to get the other one repaired for sure!!

I can see why the invention of the modern washing machine was such a great invention!!

Monday, August 26, 2024

Today started with looking up parts and ordering them for various projects: Judy (truck) and the washing machine at the FPH.  Paul also had an ingenious idea to use a shop vac in our hydrant project.  We are definitely going to try that out!!!

We got the drain pump and the tub bearings for the washing machine, as well as a fuel filter for Judy ordered at the very first part of the day.  They should be here later this week, so we should be able to proceed with repairs shortly after.  

After that, we headed to the lab for tree care and gardening over at the Abbey.  These pumpkin vines are doing quite well, and I'm happy to see the progress that the vines and the pumpkin have made since I started watering them more.  I'm hoping there will be at least one pumpkin that will be able to be harvested.

I also spotted a lone sunflower on top of the first hugel on the left when entering the lab.  I've started paying it a little more attention as well.

After lunch we stayed around the base camp for watering along the berms and Apricot Alley.

After we finished up some watering, we looked up some recipes for applesauce so that we can take advantage of the apples I've been collecting from base camp.  We found a simple recipe, and just happened to have apple coring/slicing/peeling tools here!  More on this in a bit.

As an aside, we have a SEPPer coming tomorrow and wanted to prepare the Red Cabin.  After prepping some fuel from our massive backlog of burn pile boxes, I learned how to prime a rocket mass heater for the first time.  It went really well, and I was amazed at how easy they are to operate once you learn the basics.

After the cabin was prepped, we headed back to the house for a coring extravaganza.  You can see the "fruits" of our labor below.  We ended up with some decent apple sauce after a suggestion from Paul to add some maple syrup to the apples before cooking them up in the instant pot.

Thanks for reading, and see you again soon!!

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Today was mostly watering in the AM at base camp after heading to the Abbey to feed the cats, followed by labeling some stakes where future steps will be placed on the hugel in the back paddock and then picking as many apples as I could back there.  At lunch time, we did a little prep for Taco Tuesday and headed back to it.

After that, we headed over to the Abbey for a quick gardening and watering session and on to Cooper Cabin's hydrant!!!  The shop vac idea from Paul worked amazingly, and we finally got to the bottom of the hydrant.  When we found the connection, we discovered that it was spewing copious amounts of water.  This necessitated going to the other hydrants on the lab to open them up to decrease the water pressure, as well as to shut down the well pump to facilitate repair.

After we got that all done, we headed back to base camp where we discovered that a treat that Paul order for us had arrived at the post office.  We headed over to town (my first time there) to retrieve a wonderful huckleberry pie!!!

After we got back, we finished up a few things to prep for later in the week and headed back to the house to cook Taco Tuesday.  The SEPPer arrived as we were finishing up, and they were able to join us for dinner and some amzing huckleberry pie (with ice cream) for dessert.  Thanks Paul!!!

Thanks for reading and I'll be catching up to today in the next post!!

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Finally catching up to today!!!  This is also my 4th week here as a boot, which is honestly crazy to think about.  Time is flying!

The SEPPer arrived yesterday evening and they journeyed over with us to the Abbey for watering.  Since the hydrant is down (should be back up soon!!), we had to carry some water jugs over to give the cats and plants water!  While Stephen worked on the hydrant, the Sepper and I watered around the Abbey.

After that, we headed back to base camp for lunch, and decided to core and slice up apples to dehydrate them in the rocket-powered solar dehydrator.  We got them all prepped with help from the SEPPer, then fired it up and the wait now begins.

As we had a strange cold snap overnight (that will be gone tomorrow!!), we also decided to fire up the rocket mass heater in the Solarium.  This will help keep the kitties warm tonight.

After we got that done, the SEPPer was leaving and we wished them happy and safe travels back home!

I think we will hopefully finish the hydrant tomorrow, and then maybe we will have better water pressure at the lab!

Thanks for reading, and I'm going to try to keep this current now!  Thanks for the patience as I get in the groove here.