Robbie's Permaculture Bootcamp experience

Hey everybody,
  Thought I would post a little bit about my new journey here at wheaton labs. I arrived mid-day yesterday Feb. 12, put away a few things to keep from freezing and jumped right in to join Fred and the other boots.  We worked on the couch patio for a couple hours, then helped Jocelyn in the kitchen for an awesome taco tuesday feast. I am so thankful for Paul and Jocelyn opening their house to us for the time being as we get settled in.
For my first full day we started by prepping the railing and posts for the stairway to the patio. Next we bolted up some knee joints for some extra support then finished the day off by making some seed balls.
As time goes on I'll be more prepared for the picture taking for forums and documentation.

Nice and welcome to permies! I would love to know more about the seed balls

Wow, that's a lot of seed balls!  What's in those?

Julia those are field peas for soil building.
Daron, for the seed balls we got some baking sheets, a sifter, a metal bucket, and a heavy bar with a flat end. You pound the clay in to powder, then sift out the bigger chunks. Lighty mist your seeds on the baking sheet and dust them with the clay powder. Basically repeat the process until you feel the seeds are covered enough to not wash off or be eaten by a critter.

Day 2 at bootcamp
The first couple days in any new environment can be uneasy. I have to say being here with like minded individuals, unique in their own way, has been a comfortable transition from the rat race.
We had a solid full day in the shop pulling nails, screws, 2×4s, 1×4's, and insulation. The 2×4s were joists that we started replacing with 2×6s. Though we're losing 2" in vertical storage space for the mezzanine, the extra support will make all the difference.

Day 3
Still working on the mezzanine. We're installing the 2×6 closer than what the 2×4 was. We had to adjust the measurements around the chimney of the rocket stove to code. Fred went back to the hardware store to get more wood. A chain broke for one of the tires on the truck show we threw some sand down and started pushing. It took a few tries (Paul ran out and helped push with us). So those things somewhat slowed us down but we managed to keep busy and stay productive.
Two new boots joined us tonight from Missoula. It feels good to have Dave and Alexis join the gang.

That's a cool Valentine's walnut!

Day 4
This morning Paul was asking Dave and Alexis what they want out of this experience. It was neat to hear Paul explain about what he invisions and the conversation around that. Whenever he does, I grab something new out of there and find myself constantly learning, adjusting my goals for a better explanation to others.
We trekked through the snow, fell a dead tree mostly to make some mallets only to come back to Paul saying he had greener wood lying around to widdle with. Suggesting that it would be 3-5 times faster with the green wood, we were stubborn and made it an all day event.

Day 5
It was a good day to relax and make a few phone calls to catch up with family. Speaking of catching up, I worked through a session of the life in the soil course that Dr. Elaine Ingham provides on enviromentcelebration.com.
I'm thinking I'll start a thread about her course when I reach the next step of her program to become a soil life consultant. That is if her course still provides it, because I didn't see it on the website today.

Once that was done the snow stopped so Chris and I grabbed the shovels and started plowing. All in prefect timing to join Fred in the kitchen to help with a wonderful colorful meal to end the night.