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

BRK #82

Started off as a rainy Thursday, ended with a pleasant autumn-ish evening, complete with dinner and board games.

One of my first tasks today was refueling a couple of the vehicles. One of the trips back to the Lab was during some wild rain: the sun was still in the sky, but precipitation was aggressively falling down.



Another interesting happening was that I was stopped at a rail crossing. Never saw double-stack containers in my old town (Baltimore, MD), though for my day job I would tell people about them all the time. Today was a first up-close-and-personal look at them.



In the second half of the day, I had another first: bone sauce application. Grey and I  cracked open a jar and set to spreading it on the trees outside the fence at Basecamp. Congratulations Sepp Holzer: you've succeeded in making a substance for which the more I smell it, the less I like it.



Finally: it's David's final week here as a SEPPer, and as a farewell gift to us, he decided to make dinner and dessert. Thursday evenings are also our board game nights, and everyone stuck around to play games once our bellies had been full. Here's an occasion when two games were being played at the same time.



Thanks for being here David, and for being such an interesting, curious, and industrious guest! You will be missed.

That's all for now. Thank you for reading, and make the most of your day...!
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BRK #83

It's been a Happy Friday here at WL. Lots of work being done, visiting plants, and then celebrating friends moving on to their next adventure. Fare thee well, David!

Today started off with lots of log-peeling up on the Lab. We're on the home stretch of preparation of the logs to attach to the walls of the Pump House. In the afternoon we returned to the Lab and did some irrigation around Allerton Abbey.

The season is changing, no doubt. It's now completely okay for me to state this, as there was a maple sapling that was changing colours. So I wasn't the first to say it and we won't be jinxed...! Here's that maple:



Insects are also doing their best to grab all the nutrition they can from the plants that are still alive - including those potentially-prize-winning sunflowers.



Back at Basecamp in the afternoon, we did our requisite bucking, splitting, and stacking. I hammered so much on one of the splitting logs that it broke apart. You know you've done a lot of splitting when the grubs start crawling out...!





The end result: well, I have to agree with Paul that when the firewood racks are completely full, they set off a remarkable aesthetic. To know that I've been part of the team to make it look this "complete" is satisfying.



Thanks for reading, and make the most of your day...!

BRK #84

Moving House Edition...!

So I bought a large, rather expensive tent.  It arrived in the mail this week, and I hope to move in by sundown on Sunday. This is in preparation for attempting to live in a tent year-round. We'll see how the experiment ends.

Meanwhile, here's Step 1: pick a spot, and measure a circle roughly 18 feet in diameter. That's more than enough room to fit the tent completely. Mark the circumference with stones you find along the way.



Step 2: begin clearing out obvious stones and knapweed. Use the stones you've dug out to clarify the boundary for your tent. Do not disturb any habitat beyond the perimiter (as in, don't dig out more stones than you absolutely have to).



Step 3: use a heavy rake to work out more stones and level-out the areas you pock-marked while excising stones. Brush all the debris you don't want under the tent to the edges.



To be continued...

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

Hi Stephen, Thank you for your updates. Your new tent sounds exciting. I just bought a 4-season tent in case I ever make it to bootcamp (I like my own space at night). I had a warm autumn first night in it, but I live in a small place and struggled to find somwhere to hang it to dry out. I’ll figure it out though. Maybe I’ll try some wild camping in Norway… Best, Gemma

BRK #85

Moving House Edition...! Part 2

Step 4: Bring out the tarps! I picked up two medium-duty tarps to provide more protection from ground moisture. I spread them over the prepped tenting area.



Step 5: Lay out the ground mat/groundsheet of the tent, making sure to orient the doorway to where you want it to be facing. This is essentially the floor of the tent, and provides another moisture barrier. This particular model's groundsheet can be fastened to the upper canvas tent portion with heavy-duty zippers.



Step 6: Speaking of which, bring out the canvas upper portion of the tent, line up the doorway with that of the groundsheet, then - starting at the back - connect the two pieces of the tent together with the zippers.



Step 7: Since I used so many darn tarps, I spent a bit of time tucking the edges and corners under the groundsheet at this stage.



Step 8: Realize that setting up a tent on a rock ledge is a bad idea, particularly when you start trying to hammer tent stakes into the ground.

Seriously: I would probably have given up on this site were it not for the invaluable help and persistence of Fred, who bought out all manner of tools for us to use. Thanks, man!!!

First up, a drill and a masonry bit. This worked okay, but the diameter of the bit was larger than that of the tent stakes and besides, it caused what I felt was too much wear-and-tear on the drill.



Next up: the electric jackhammer. This one did the trick! Here's Fred taking a turn with the machine.



Here's me with the jackhammer. It had been a couple months now since I had a chance to use this (we had been clearing out a trench for a water-line coming out of the cistern at the Lab), and it was nice to become reacquainted with it.



Since things weren't ideal, we had to aim our jackhammering towards the center of the tent at an angle. Holes were punched to a depth of about 8 inches (the depth of the tent stake).



We then tamped-down on the area, and then hammered-in the tent stake. Both steps were done with a heavy metal mallet, and included the occasional hammering-straight of a bent tent stake or two. There were still a lot of rocks down there, in addition to the rock shelf we had to perforate.



Step 9: Raise the tent with the single, central tent pole. Yep, think of this as a smaller-sized, old-skool circus tent.



Step 10: Hammer-in the guy-lines surrounding the tent (including using the jackhammer on a few choice spots because you know, rock shelf). Insert the door frame. And you're done...!



It's been erected today, and I plan on moving in officially tomorrow evening after boot work. Again, Fred is The Man and it wouldn't have happened without his help and positivity.

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