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

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:And two minutes after I posted that photo, Paul advised me of the exact same method of providing a flat surface for that nut and the washers.

Is there a name for the phenomena where, if you are by yourself looking at a problem you futz around and don't get a satisfying solution, but if you see someone else with the same problem an elegant answer pops immediately into your head?

BEL #745

I wrapped up the first half of the Berm Shed repairs this week.

Because of the cramped quarters I was working in (a knee brace on one side, and a house jack that I definitely did not want to touch on the other), I iterated through several combinations of drill bits, extensions, and even a drill and a driver to make it all work.



I still ended up starting on the side with the house jack, and worked my way through one of the posts. I was sweating when I reached the limit of my extender with the short drill bit on it, as the extender and long drill bit placed the driver right next to the column of the house jack. Fortunately, while scanning the opposite side of the second post for any sign of the drill bit penetration, I was in luck! The pointy part of the paddle bit had juuuuuust made it through. Learning this, I could continue from that side with a short clean-up session.

Oh, and do you see that second hole, above the pinhole? Looks like a great candidate for the all-thread, doesn't it? Except the fact that there's a drill bit stuck in there. Another one of my mistakes... Never use a drill bit extender with a cylinder-shanked auger bit, even if it's "just for a second."



Made it through and cleaned it up. If you squint a little, you can see the house jack on the other end of this bore hole.



I trimmed-down the all-thread, and somehow fit it through the second hole without agitating the house jack. I think I actually did move the knee brace out of the way for a moment to make it happen.

But the fasteners are finger tight! I was informed that same day that there's another support for the Berm Shed that needs reinforcing, so I will be starting that tomorrow. Once that one is done, I'll be able to make some finishing touches on the fasteners shown here, tighten everything down, then finally remove the house jack. It's my expectation that once all those last-minute fine-tunings are complete, the Berm Shed will look normal again.



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

Coydon Wallham wrote:Is there a name for the phenomena where, if you are by yourself looking at a problem you futz around and don't get a satisfying solution, but if you see someone else with the same problem an elegant answer pops immediately into your head?

Well, you guys know what you're doing. I'm just a novice, really.

I think that, when translated to English, my middle name means, "Stumbling from one minor success to the next."

Amy Gardener wrote:When I harvest sand/silt/topsoil for use in raised beds or potting soil mix, I spread out the material on a flat surface such as a tarp then water the material so most  seeds will eventually sprout. [...] After 10 days or so, the moist soil can be brought indoors for use as the potting soil without concerns that mystery seeds will overwhelm the chosen seed varieties.
Thanks for sharing your adventures with us Stephen!

Excellent tip, Amy! Thanks for dropping in and sharing. I have to remember that for next season, or even later this year.

BEL #746

A Friday full of physical tasks today. I knew I could push it a bit because tomorrow's a Saturday, and a day off.

Up at Allerton Abbey, A junkpole fence needed repairs. It was another of the older designs - with a free-floating middle horizontal support - that finally failed. An interesting aspect of it was that it failed about halfway through the support, looking like it was dry-rotted. I elected to install a full new middle support on the opposite side of the fence, but keep the old portion intact and just work with that. If it ever falls off, I can simply thread the vertical "pickets" through the new support as needed.

This image shows the position of where I intend the new support to go (in purple-ish).



I made sure to notch-out the thicker end of the support, so there would be more space for nails to take a bite through the support.



In the end, this was a quicker job than I expected. I ended up overlapping vertical pickets where the two faces of the fence met, just because I was concerned about smaller animals still sneaking through. At least this will make it rather inconvenient for them. The new support is on the outside surface of the fence, shown here in purple-ish.



These cats made sure I was doing my due diligence.



In the afternoon I was in a garden-tending mood. I added over a dozen buckets of dirt to the up-and-coming hugel berm for our GAMCOD project entry. Before I returned to Basecamp, I built two trellises for use this year, with neither one using metal fasteners. I think they look all right, and they'll do the job well enough. The sisal twine ought to last through at least one growing season.





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