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

BEL #757

Today we bid farewell to Auren. Best of success on the next leg of your adventures...!



More work was done with the GAMCOD 2025 hugel. We'll definitely be planting it by the end of next week.



After being buoyed by their success with the roundwood chair yesterday, the team considers building their own. Initial measurements and considerations were made today before wrapping-up their first week as Boots.



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

BEL #758

It's a Sunday, and time for a Cleaning Blitz and some Nest Labor. Being as though we have quite a Boot team right now, I was able to relax a bit and actually work on something other than maintenance tasks. For today's Nest Labor project, I took a spare t-shirt from the Free Shelf (someone had cut off the sleeves, and I figured no one was interested in taking it for their own use after that), and transformed it into a cleaning cloth for the Fisher Price House.



I cut the remains of the shirt into two halves, and took one of them, folding it into a roughly-square shape. I then added pins all around the edge, then started stitching the edges together. I felt like hand-sewing would do the job well enough, plus today I just felt like getting into the zone without the help of the sewing machine.

After my first break, the edges of the cloth were starting to take shape.



It's not quite a "zokin," or Japanese-style cleaning cloth, but it's large enough and thick enough for most of the jobs I can think of for inside the House.



I wanted to have the folded insides of the cleaning cloth stick together, so I stitched across the surface. I think these are called "basting stitches?" The goal is to compress the multiple layers of cotton cloth together, reducing stress on the various bits of thread when someone wipes, scrubs, or wrings-out with the cleaning cloth.

With this amount of basting stitches, I think it ought to hold together just as well as some of my earlier cleaning cloth efforts.



I have another half of a shirt I can use this week, though I think for that one I'll have a go with the actual sewing machine.

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

BEL #759

Things are popping up all over. I'm pleased the growing season begins now.

We laid out our first can of Willow Candy today. We spread it thin, as the trees aren't sufficiently awake just yet to make use of it. However, the babies down the hill from here may benefit, and a definite upshot is that I led the team through their first change-out of Willow Feeder cans.



We're also due to receive a shipment of new tree saplings. That means it's also time to make some Sepp Holzer Bone Sauce.



To move forward on the Chicken Paddock project, we need to make a bunch of junk pole fences and gates. The team was hard at work on this today, practicing with new tools. Here's Seth (left), Geoffrey, and Jared/JP. Geoffrey was our go-to Log Wizard Guy today.



We transformed jacked-up Rock Jacks like these...



...into useful, working fence supports like these:



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

BEL #760

Here's the latest Wheaton Labs GAMCOD 2025 update. The hugel berm is complete...! Shout-out to fellow Boots Auren, Chris, Geoffrey, JP, and Seth for making it happen.



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

BEL #761

Lots of building happening today. One of my personal highlights was seeing the roof of the dog house being framed-out and attached over at the Bark Park. Shown here are fellow Boots Geoffrey (left) and Seth.



There's a spot over near the Love Shack cabin where Paul wants to make it possible for people to park their land whales/RVs. It's called Fukuoka Flat. We've started adding sand to the rock-infested surface. After one tractor-bucket of sand was deposited, it looked like this:



We added and spread a lot more sand, and moved out some of the more formidable-and-still-portable rock. It currently looks like this:



We also rebuilt some of the failing fence behind the Fisher Price House. Here's a section in need of repair:



We dismantled it, re-nailed it, then re-assembled it. I think it's looking much better.



Nearby, fellow Boot JP and I repaired two rock jacks flanking a struggling fence panel, and now things are looking good.



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