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

BEL #802

First off, welcome to new Boot Harleigh! She intends to be around until August, when she heads off to grad school. Welcome to the team...!

Fellow Boot Matt and I teamed-up this morning to polish off some logs that were left in Arrakis, AKA the parking lot behind the Classroom. Our first sections of wood, snipped up at the buckhorse, were a good start. We were just warming up, though...



Once we were finished, we'd worked our way through several chainsaw batteries (all our chainsaws are battery-powered). This pile of wood will be split a few more times, then stacked at the Classroom, the Red Cabin, and the Love Shack.



Another team was hanging more sunshades over the Classroom, later in the day. When I stopped by, they asked me to have a look at the structure of the support post for one of the three support cables (the only one not connected to a "Bob" weight). Looks like it's leaning a bit inward, and might need more supports. I'll confer with Paul and see what he thinks. I took these two photos as a reference.

This first one shows a bit of checking, and an obvious inward-lean towards the other end of the cable, across the driveway and near the Red Cabin.



This second one shows the bowed cable - as sunshades pull against it, it bends the cable towards the apex of the roof, where the other end of the sunshade is connected. I think adding a bit of cordage to the corners will address this - as that's what we did last year - but I wanted to keep it as a reference.



Meanwhile, prior to checking out the sunshades, I was up at Allerton Abbey with fellow Boots Seth, Stephanie, and Tiernay. While chopping-and-dropping at the Greenhouse, I noticed this massive pigweed. Well, that's what they were called in Maryland, back in the day where these appeared in the community garden. I kept one in my garden plot there as all sorts of insects loved it, and I wanted them to come around and pollinate my cosmos.



Finally, one last (weird) thing. As we wrapped the day, rain started falling, and quite heavily. Instead of walking through it and soaking myself, I decided to hang out for a bit in one of the hammock chairs down at the Berm Shed, recording the rainfall. I ended up recording it in "super slo-mo," which stretched my 15 seconds of video to just about 2 minutes in length. Here's the result. I love listening to this with headphones...



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

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:BEL #802

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Meanwhile, prior to checking out the sunshades, I was up at Allerton Abbey with fellow Boots Seth, Stephanie, and Tiernay. While chopping-and-dropping at the Greenhouse, I noticed this massive pigweed. Well, that's what they were called in Maryland, back in the day where these appeared in the community garden. I kept one in my garden plot there as all sorts of insects loved it, and I wanted them to come around and pollinate my cosmos.

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What plant do you mean by 'pigweed', do you know a Latin name? This plant does not look like what I find when I search the internet for 'pigweed'. I did that search because I was curious to know what is pigweed ...

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:What plant do you mean by 'pigweed', do you know a Latin name? This plant does not look like what I find when I search the internet for 'pigweed'. I did that search because I was curious to know what is pigweed ...

It could have been a regional name because after a quick search I saw nothing of the sort under that same name. As for the Latin terminology, I haven't the foggiest. Sorry!

That looks a lot like mullien to me...

The Seek app suggested it was mullein as well.  It looked familiar and September at the Lab was my first up close and personal memory of mullein (I can't say I've ever seen it around here).

Red-root pigweed (amaranthus retroflexus) is a member of the amaranth family, so has edible qualities.  Our acreage might be less weedy if I'd eaten some of it, that's for sure.

Here's the PFAF - Plants For a Future entry.