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

BRK #95

It's almost a shame that the Rocket Mass Heater Workshop seems to be overshadowed by the current Kickstarter, because there's so much fantastic stuff being built this week! But hey, being able to afford a new well at Basecamp would be nice, so... I guess we can keep that KS campaign going...

Seriously though, one of the three builds was completed today! The Library will stay toasty warm throughout the winter thanks to the rebuilt RMH in there. It includes a massive stratification chamber consisting of two 55-gallon drums, as well as an exhaust chimney that "kisses" the riser, resulting in excellent radiant heat transfer from the latter to the former. This means fewer cold plugs in general, and less smoke in our faces. Here's an image of the finished inner-workings.



A big team consisting of Isaac, Eliot, Jessica, Nick, and Alexandra finished the build, then started filling the mass with cob and rocks. Here's Eliot slapping in a river rock topped with a big gob of cob.



The majority of the mass is filled with this combination, and only after this stage would pea gravel be added to the top.



I'll add some photos of the finished Library RMH tomorrow, as now there's not suitable light for a picture that does it justice.

There was progress on the other two builds today, as well. Here's Nick using an angle grinder to trim the flange that will connect two drums together for the riser in the Workshop RMH.



Another team was moving forward on the exhaust for the Red Cabin RMH. Here's the main body of the mass with the exhaust tubes included. They'll add the frame, then fill it with cob and gravel likely tomorrow.



Finally: greenery continues to do well, even this late into the season. We're anticipating a hearty harvest of autumn crops, including this massive, pumpkin-sized squash of some kind...



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

BRK #96

It's a late night (helping serve dinner, cleanup, and then Board Game Night!) for the Rocket Mass Heater Workshop this evening, so I want to make this a brief update.

The first thing I noticed this morning when I came into the workshop was a curious arrangement of fire bricks. This was the start of another RMH, but I'd never seen anything quite like it.



There were all sorts of custom-sawed fire bricks, and I was curious to see how they were all fashioned in such a way. Earlier in the week, I'd seen Opalyn cutting bricks with a tile/brick cutting saw, and today, Mark was hard at work on the task.



His end-result was a shorter-than-usual fire brick, with a wedge cut out of it on one side. He then showed me that they would fit together like so:



They're intended to be assembled together to make a channel for heat and flammable gases through the heater. After arranged, the bricks will be surrounded with cob for adhesion and increased insulation ability. Here's an example of what it might look like:



I must turn in for the night... Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BRK #97

Hope everyone is having an enjoyable Friday. It also happens to be my step-dad's birthday today. Happy Birthday, Baker!!!

The autumnal chill is in the air these days. Here's a photo of Grey tending the Season Extender,



Up the hill at the Library, the RMH build underwent a tremendous amount of stress-testing and fine-tuning of the Juice Box design, where the "straw" was lifted up a few inches, as well as the riser. Both of these things provide for a bit more drawing of the cooler air through the exhaust, and an overall smoother - and still very warm - burn. Here's Alexandra and Mark measuring and recording temperatures at the various regions of the heater.



Finally: as part of boot duties today, I took a trip up to the cistern to fill Judy (our fire pump truck, pictured here). Since we were also planning on watering the hugels up at the Lab, I had to make the first return trip to Basecamp with an e-bike. SO here's how I ended up transporting the Paddy Wagon... Ratchet straps can be your friend.



That's all for this Friday edition. The RMH Workshop is still in it's last-minute, 11th-hour, 59th-second construction status, and maybe I'll be of assistance for those in some way.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...! Make the most of your weekend.

BRK #98

Sunday Crappy Laptop Camera Edition...!

(seriously... I somehow misplaced my digital camera and I'm using my laptop to take these photos... Maybe it'll turn up somewhere tomorrow.)

Lots of frost greeted us this morning. So it was time for some mitigation. First up: harvest the sunflowers. Here's a bundle that were up here at Basecamp. The seeds are definitely worth saving, so we'll do the best we can to carefully collect and store them so that next year we can do just as well, if not even better. The sunflowers in particular seem to do well here, at least once they make it over 3 or 4 feet tall.



Though a few plants were damaged by the night's frost - mostly the squash - these nasturtium just outside the Solarium were still going strong.



Finally: upon Paul's recommendation, I added a few tarps to cover the rest of the Basecamp squash so ideally they'll make it a few more weeks.



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

BRK #99

Monday Crappy Flip-Phone Edition...!

(I purchased a digital camera online today, and it should arrive later this month.)

Caleb and I stopped by Allerton Abbey today while checking up on the greenhouse and one of the rigs. To my surprise, one of the sunchokes at Cricket Hill had fallen over, exposing its roots (and its fruits).



"Let me find you a bucket," said Caleb. "See how much you can harvest. Looks like quite a bit in there." Well, he guessed correctly. From a single plant, we harvested at least four gallons' worth of sunchokes...!

This was my first-ever harvest, and I'm pleasantly-surprised. The fact we also waited until after the first official frost to harvest them apparently gives them a more robust flavour profile. Once we cook these up, we'll know. Or rather, someone else ought to know, since I have yet to eat sunchokes. It'll be another first for me.



Hopefully, they won't live up to their nickname "fartichoke," but we'll see. Maybe the way you prepare them has a lot to do with this.

Oh! And also pictured in that bucket is a thermometer, which had somehow become buried in the hugel itself. It just might still work. We can check the soil temperature at different depths with this tool, which might be a useful practice over the winter (in particular with the Season Extender hugel berm, for example).

Meanwhile, I also harvested sunflower seeds for the first time today. This is from one of the sunflower heads I'd picked late this weekend.



The head appears to have an unusual "double-face" to it, where there's a single backing to the flower, but two discrete areas where sunflower seeds were growing.



The seeds themselves appear slightly different from what I'm used to seeing in the packets one would buy in the grocery store. They appear much wider in diameter. Maybe the store-bought ones are a certain variety, I'm not sure. I'll also harvest from the other seed-heads on this same plant stalk, and determine whether it's just this seed-head that has this characteristic or if it's more-or-less the same across the entire plant. It could be this particular variety, for all I know.



After harvesting them all, I intend to sprout some of these seeds, dry some (with the rocket-boosted dehydrator), roast some in a pan, and finally save some for planting next year. This was an impressive sunflower specimen and it would be a shame to not see them come back next growing season.

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