!! SEPP to Boot: Stephen's Experience (BEL)

BEL #687

The bulk of this particular Harvest Week afternoon was spent with rhubarb. The kitchen was crowded the entire afternoon.



Of course, the team put out some delectable rhubarb jam. We have six more quarts of the stuff. One of them we left "natural," while five others we added a bit of hibiscus powder to lend the jam a lovely deep red hue.



While the team was up in the kitchen, I went back to the rocket-boosted dehydrator to add our surplus rhubarb to the trays. We'll expect the rhubarb candy done by the end of the week.



Another thing we harvested today was some pine pitch. It turns out that using paraffin wax yesterday was a petroleum-based misstep. So our firestarters in the future will feature this rather miraculous substance as a key ingredient. It also has some antibacterial and wound-treating properties as well.



Not a bad day, all told. The week is half done.



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BEL #688

Here's this week's GAMCOD update. We've harvested our first pumpkins this week...!



That's all for now. Thanks for watching/reading, and enjoy your day...!

BEL #689

Another video update today... This one is our first attempt at making Bone Sauce. Just as I suspected: even when making it oneself, it is thoroughly disgusting.



Today is also the end of Harvest Week...! Thanks to Chris, Ben, Sergio, Leesa, Kay, Kiki, and of course Paul for making it happen.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading/watching, and enjoy your day...!

BEL #690

Catching up on some photos from Harvest Week. It's been a load of fun, and I'm grateful of everyone who came out to assist us this past week.

Leesa and Ben had investigated the Bee Hut and looked around for any usable beeswax, though we didn't want to take any fresh wax. Here's the inside:



Leesa and I went back later in the week and took a closer look at the frames, confirming that the bees were long gone.



We extracted the wax to use later. We filled-up a 4-gallon bucket with what we found.



Here's a photo of our bone sauce location, after the cooking fire had cooled off... Just before cracking open the mud seal around the edges. This bone sauce is the worst fragrance to which I've ever willingly subjected myself.



For each major project we undertake, I end up scrawling out a diagram to describe it to the team. To "batten down the hatches" on the yurt, we needed to attach two wool panels for the walls. To ensure the wool panels won't sag and bunch-up on the ground, we needed to thread some rope through holes we punched in the top edge of the wool panels, then cinch the rope like a belt around the roof of the yurt. The result is that the wool panels will hang down above the level of the ground, and so long as the rope holds, the walls will stay in place (and the yurt will stay insulated).

(Sergio added "watermelon seeds" to the segment of the diagram in the upper left...!)



Here's what the wool panels looked like after we threaded the rope, then attached the two panels together.



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BEL #691

Big thanks to Jennifer B for acting as our Ringer this week and next...! She and Ben spent time investigating the Lab's water system today, troubleshooting the pressure motor's inconsistent behaviour. Plenty of other electrical system updates, installations, and renovations are also on the agenda. Thanks again for spending time with us, Jennifer!

Meanwhile, back at Basecamp... While irrigating over at Far Arrakis today, I noticed this stack of mushroom caps. Are they old oysters, or actually a brown variety?



I don't think I've included a photograph of our full sweet potato harvest just yet. Well, here it is: they're small and wriggled. I do think it's important to note that this was the first time we'd grown anything at all in the Greenhouse in over a year, so the soil that was in there was baked and devoid of pretty much any organic matter. The remediation we'd done prior to planting those sweet potatoes converted the dirt into passable soil, and considering the conditions I think this is an excellent outcome. Next season, we'll build on this, with more organic materials and a budding micro-biome, instead of working with nothing but sun-bleached dirt.



This plant is apparently called Orpine, or "witches' moneybags." Not sure how it ended up with such a curious nickname, but I'll take it. Anyway, it's one of the few flowering species this late in the season and so it's crowded with dozens of honeybees, solitary bees, large flies, and even moths looking for some nectar.



It's rare that I spend time at a campfire all alone and not catering to anyone else for a moment. This was one of those times. I had come out to Far Arrakis to check on the Bone Sauce we were cooking, and stoked the fire to a full blaze. It was a very pleasant moment. I think I'll be doing this more often through the winter.

(the campfire part... not the bone sauce part!)



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!