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

Your 'WilloWonka' sign is a real work of Art!

I think I'd be happier about finding the grubs rather than importing them to the tent and not knowing they are there.  

Since you love having a smartphone, there is an app called Seek from iNaturalist.  It can help to identify organisms of various types.  As I understand, it's a citizen science project and on the web site discussions around identification of submissions can occur seeing as the app can't always identify everything.

I wonder if finishing them with oil would be a signal to the grubs to go away.  Of course, charring could also work for that, but it may make the shelving units a bit more challenging to use without staining everything that touches them.

I'm with Inge - well done on the sign.

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:BEL #781...


Finally, a question. Our band saw caught on a knot, and then jammed and bent while in operation. I can't bring myself to throw it out, since it's still plenty sharp. But it's so bent that the kerf of the blade is greater than 1/4th of an inch. I bent it back into shape as best I could by eyeing it up and not using special tools, but I am still concerned that it's crooked and/or twisted in some way. Is testing this blade the next step? Is it recommended to -not- try to repair/refurbish band saw blades? Any suggestions?



...

At this forum one guy points out running a bent blade may "wear the tires on the wheels unevenly and that they are harder to replace than a blade".

https://www.lumberjocks.com/threads/can-you-fix-a-bent-bandsaw-blade.89122/

BEL #782

A Monday in May, and we're back at it. Lots of healthy rain over the weekend to help the seeds while we were away. We had two WWOOF Week participants stick around and want to stay as Boots, and that's great.

Speaking of which, fellow Boot Shawn and I were at work in the Bark Park today, chipping away at the main gate. We removed one of the gate posts, dug a wider post hole with the electric auger, then dropped the new post in place.



I continued work on the gate itself in the afternoon. Thanks to Fred's previous video help, I'm crafting an angular support for the inner portion of this gate. Again, shooting for tenon and mortise joints to hold it in place. We'll also have junk pole "pickets" nailed on the gate, so with all that support I think the gate ought to last for a while.



At the morning meeting today, I told the rest of the team, "If we bring back some walking onions, I promise I'll process them and put them all in a soup." So they bring back four buckets full of 'em.



In other news... Looks like the landslide is shaping up as hoped. Lots of taproot species growing in there, primarily daikon radish. Once the greenery is all established there, we'll trim down those posts so they don't wick away as much water over time. But for now, they provide some crucial support and can't be removed without consequences.



One last image for today. After Seth and I started work with the Shower Shack last week, we noticed that this temperature/psi gauge was leaking water. "It's like a lava lamp," I described during today's morning meeting. I uninstalled it today, re-wrapped it with teflon tape, and reinstalled it, to no avail. Something inside the gauge has broken/failed, and it seems like a replacement is in order.



This Boot Team is a solid bunch of good, hard-workin' folks. I'm grateful for all of them.

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

BEL #783

Happy Taco Tuesday to you...!

Tonight's Taco Tuesday dinner was pretty good, but last night's onion soup was delicious...! The team harvested four buckets of onions, and in the evening we all had a good cry while processing them. I sauteed them and then cooked them up in the InstaPot, along with a few sunchokes for good measure. Fellow Boot Matt had stir-fried some morels and oyster mushrooms, and those were served along with the soup. We're comfortable in saying that we had an absolutely delectable meal that was 99% sourced from Wheaton Labs yesterday evening. Nice work, all round.

Here's a photo of more walking onion chives drying in the kitchen:



Plenty of varied tasks today. The Boot Team built trellises, sharpened and tested chainsaws, and of course did a lot of gardening.

Here's what things look like when we direct-sow into the hugel berms. We make sure to label everything so that everyone knows that something's planted there, and knows what to look for when sprouts come up.



I returned to one of the original hugel berms I'd worked on during my first couple months here. Facing the county road is a berm I called "Basecamp Too," and this year we are re-activating it. Fellow Boot Catherine has been adding corn to the top edge, and today while she was practicing with a chainsaw (...way to go!   ), I stepped in to add more mulch and corn seeds.



Here's what I brought with me back there: corn seed, sunflower seeds (not used yet), and some organic alfalfa pellets. These are sold as animal feed - and I remember feeding them to alpacas back in the day when I was on the east coast - but we add them to the soil as a nitrogen fortifier. A trusty hori hori knife is also pictured.



Fellow Boot Jared (pictured on the left) mentioned that one section of a berm he was working with was looking a bit deflated. So we cheered it up with a dozen buckets of dirt and two layers of chop n' drop mulch. It could stand to have a little more TLC, and I think we'll be able to address that tomorrow.



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