A Story About A Boot (BEL)

Monday Day 8
Realizing I am posting about the previous days’ activities each time I write one o’ these entries. So thinking about switching to posting in the evening. Tomorrow I will start that new ideer: til then, here’s what happened yesterday.
Got in an 8 mile run in the early morning. My headlamp went out about mile 6 so I navigated by moonlight the last few miles.
We cleaned the house and then split up to get chores done—I split wood and prepped cardboard for the house rocket mass heater.
I went into town on a quest for organic coffee (mission accomplished).
A SEPPer arrived named Garth! We all watched Argyle and ate popcorn (tho I bailed early cuz I wanted to finish reading my book).
Pix are from a trail run I did a while back in WA. Shrooms and trillium.
Bis später!
Liesel

Today I got in an early morning run—and was nearly taken out by a gang of deer. Who was more startled is up for debate.
For morning Boot work, we cleared one side of a berm…readying it for planting tree seeds tomorrow. Then more work on the last window quilt for Allerton Abbey.
After lunch we collected wood from a neighbor’s burn piles. And more window quilt work for me.
Then Taco Tuesday dinner.
Fini.

Yesterday (Wednesday Nov 6) was a half-assed holiday. (Apple Day…um, I think that’s the title). Anyhoo, it involves apples.
To start the day I harvested kale and then we prepared it for dehydration in the Arrakis dehydrator. Later we split up—I worked on the Allerton Abbey window quilt, Garth worked on poly dough for bread, and Stephen helped Fred salvage more wood from the neighbor’s burn piles.
We came back together and had lunch. Then we tramped over to the berm we’d cleared and we planted tree seeds. The sun was out and we whistled while we worked like Disney dwarves. We completed our task and headed back to the main house and started making appley baked goods. Dinner was delish—apples rule.

Productive day yesterday. Firstly, we harvested sunchokes—cleaned and prepped them. I made garlic infused EVOO and used that to season (along with salt/pepper and rosemary) the sunchokes and added sweet peppers. Threw all that into a slow cooker and set time for 24 hours. Will see how they taste at dinner tonight.
B, I finished the last window quilt for Allerton Abbey! Whoot Whoot!
And III, we bucked wood we rescued from the neighbor’s burn piles.
Es macht Spaß!

We went on a mini tour of Wheaton Lab and saw the groovy cabins there.
Also, put in the last window quilt at Allerton Abbey—which turned out to be a bit short. Had to trouble shoot and re-measure the window. How’d that quilt shrink? Back at base camp I began work on two bolsters to add to the sides and bottom of the quilt. Will attach those next week and problem solved! Everything is a learning curve and I am enjoying the adaptation and creative solution efforts.
We tried my sunchokes at dinner. I used a slow cooker and let them cook for 24 hours. I really liked the flavor and texture. Didn’t experience any gastrointestinal blowback. I’ll have to check in with Garth and Stephen and see how they fared later today.
Got in some good wood chopping in the afternoon—and was kept company by this wee guy. He’s very vocal.

I got a WWOOFing gig in WA! I am on my way to my next adventure. My gratitude to Paul and Stephen for teaching me many things and being all around awesome!
May your path be on a trail of pollen!
Signing off,
Lisa

Hi Lisa,

Loving your first week experiences, don't know how I'd go with the cold being from a warm temperate/sub tropical area.

The window covers look a great idea so I'm going to try using mine for blocking out light as I like complete dark for sleeping; I love things that have more than one application.

You've covered quite a few interesting and varied jobs for your first week and learning from Boot Stephen and having Paul on hand must be fantastic, lucky woman. Looking forward to following more of your adventures.

Best of luck.  Memories of our SEPP week came back.

So, if you add mint to a cucumber tomato salad, you get Jerusalem salad (as it is called in Jerusalem which we had the privilege to visit in 2019).  It is a favourite of mine.

It's nice to see progress being made on the bermslide area.

The night sky there is truly amazing.  Since we are based in the city and the light pollution is incredibly nasty (and the street lights have been switched over to LEDs, so things seem brighter than I recall from a few short years ago), we are lucky to see a few stars, let alone make out constellations.  At Wheaton Labs, we had trouble making out constellations because there were so many other stars that we typically don't see in our light-polluted environs.

Thanks for sharing your time at WL.