Matt's Permaculture Experience (BRK)

Post #1

Hey everyone, my name is Matt,  I'm interested in pretty much everything that's going on here, so you'll probably see me jump around on a lot of different projects haha. I joined the Bootcamp back on March 7th and it's been a wild ride haha. I've mostly been trying to get my feet under me and along the way I've been taking pictures with the plan of posting to the forums, but I haven't been able to do so until now since everything been so busy haha.

Right now, I'm planning on posting every day, but I can't guarantee that what I post will be from the same day that I'm posting. My goal is to post a couple of highlight pictures/videos from the day and a brief update, then on Sundays I'll make a slightly larger post including a link to a google photos album for the week so that anyone who's interested can view the many random pictures and videos I'll be taking throughout my time here without me having to wait for all those media files to upload to permies and or youtube. But who knows, maybe I'll change things up in the future. Here's the photo album for this week! https://photos.app.goo.gl/1aV81UYGrihPPtZh6

So anyway, I've been all over the place this week. On Monday, I worked with Chris on putting up some siding on the outside of the love shack (no pictures), and that went well. In general, the progress on the Love shack has been really good, though I haven't been very involved since the small amount of work I did on Monday.

On Tuesday I worked on the mill with Fred, and that went a whole lot less well haha. As we were replacing the bearing and gear and getting the motor lined up for a test fit of the position of the belt, the electrical house broke. The plastic mounting points for the box broke and we ended up needing to put that project on hold while we ordered a replacement. If you're interested in that, see my post here for more details https://permies.com/t/157328/permaculture-projects/Broken-Mill-Housing. Our replacement box should arrive next week and I plan on helping get the mill back up and running once it's here. Anyway, since the mill project had ground to a halt, I ended up helping Fred work on adding lighting to the shop (no picture). And that was just the morning. During the evening, Dez, Logan, and myself moved a bunch of bolts, screws, and nuts from the shop at Basecamp up to the box truck in the Boneyard on the Lab (Pictures!). That night, I decided to try out taking pictures of the night sky with my phone, I liked them, so they're in the album. They look like just black pictures unless you click on them.

Wednesday was more working on wiring up lamps with Fred (still no pictures) with a dash of driving to Missoula to pick up a drill and see if one of the tool guys there could fix our mill. As you may have guessed from the fact that we are ordering a new electrical housing box, the answer was no. But hey, I got a drill we had sent up there previously for repairs, and the drive to Missoula is pretty nice in my opinion.

Thursday morning I worked on building rock jacks with Chris (Pictures again!). That was a lot of fun, it was the first time I've ever used a chainsaw. Man, those electric chainsaws are fun. I was thinking about getting one before I came here, now I know I need one haha. After lunch, I went with Josiah up to the Greenhouse and did some shoveling and picking plastic out of the dirt, woohoo! I actually don't mind that kind of work and it also gave me time to chat with Josiah which was fun. Plus, I finally had a good reason to try my phone's timelapse function for the first time and I'm loving it. Check out the timelapse of Josiah using the excavator and occasionally the two of us shoveling.    

On Friday I spent the morning designing, picking out, and cutting boards with Fred for the A-frame storage structure we will be using on the lab to store a big stack of glass panes we've got sitting in the shop right now (Pictures!). In the evening it was back to shoveling at the Greenhouse with Josiah, but this time Chris and Dez came along. I also got the chance to start learning how to use some of the camera gear we have to hear and that was exciting! I had no idea how tiring holding a camera was though haha, It's definitely going to take some time for me to get used to filming. You can see I got two more time-lapses of the greenhouse on Friday, but I haven't had the time to edit them, so You can enjoy the raw footage. Me and Chris ended up staying late to help Josiah get things wrapped up, you can't see all the work we did though because my phone died during the timelapse haha. You should get to see some of that footage down the line though whenever Josiah gets it ready for the kick starter since he also had several cameras filming us.

On Saturday I climbed up the volcano for the first time and decided to take a timelapse of the line of sunlight moving across the mountains to the west, I really like the last few seconds when the light finally reaches the camera. It's absolutely beautiful out here, especially in comparison to Kansas haha. I am kind of missing thunderstorms though. I've heard from friends that there have been quite a few since I've been gone. The rest of Saturday and Sunday was spent working on getting some steps made from round wood for the bunk I'm in right now. Before the steps, the tiny ladder would hurt my feet a lot to climb, but now the steps feel great and I can go up and down the top bunk easily. They are a bit janky though since this is the first time I've made anything like this haha. That being said, I plan on making some steps for the other bunk next weekend if some other project doesn't take my fancy first.

Well, that's it for me! I'll leave you all with this cool video of the light hitting my mug of tea in the morning, enjoy! https://photos.app.goo.gl/9RPxUxaGgxhMLjz48

Yes! Welcome to the BRK, Matt! Excited to have you posting and loving your post format... week 2 let's gooo

Post #2:

Woo Hoo! I've managed to post two days in a row, it's a new personal best!

Today, all of the boots piled out to the lab for a junk pole harvesting party. I discovered that there are few things as satisfying as just knocking limbs off of trees for hours at a time. Also, be sure to wear safety glasses, as I got hit in the face by said flying limbs at least four times during the 3 plus hours of junk poling. Nothing serious, but if I hadn't been wearing safety glasses it could have been a very bad time. I have a timelapse of most of our time out there there, but I won't be uploading that until later in the week because of upload speeds (Starlink, please help me). However, here's a couple pictures of the site where we were harvesting poles from.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/xKwAsPhxf8Wxu1UL7
 
https://photos.app.goo.gl/38Vx3qytSVNSK3VU9


In the afternoon, me and Chris set to work finishing the A-frame structure for storing the pile of glass we have sitting in the shop. We had to make a few extra cuts since the work me and Fred did last week, but we got it done. A lesson to the wider world though, Jig Saws were not made for precision work haha. Especially not in the hands of novices like me and Chris. There were many angles that had to be fixed with a chisel thanks to our (mostly my) spectacular jigsawing skills haha. That's definitely going to be a skill I'll need to either work more on or find a solid way of working around.

Anyway, Here we are assembly one side of the structure:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HxNF9gTq6PjCMwiTA


And here is how the finished structure came out!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/juYKV5UR4GxGv5Fg9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/MhA8ea8DV5gcdmdJ9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZXkAG9U2bKsXWw2D6


That's all for today!

Matthew Stone wrote:
In the afternoon, me and Chris set to work finishing the A-frame structure for storing the pile of glass we have sitting in the shop. We had to make a few extra cuts since the work me and Fred did last week, but we got it done. A lesson to the wider world though, Jig Saws were not made for precision work haha. Especially not in the hands of novices like me and Chris. There were many angles that had to be fixed with a chisel thanks to our (mostly my) spectacular jigsawing skills haha. That's definitely going to be a skill I'll need to either work more on or find a solid way of working around.

I heard y'all had fun with the jig saw. lol I'm sure there will be more chances to use it in the future to improve all of our jig saw skillz.

Post #3:

Another Beautiful morning in Montana! https://photos.app.goo.gl/Pu5hDkTex6jtqS7W9

Today was a real hodge-podge of tasks. There really wasn't one task that took up all my morning or evening. In the morning we loaded glass onto the trailer to transport to the lab tomorrow while the roads are frozen and solid to travel on. We also put on our glass storage rack and stored a few bits and bobs from the Shop that will be coming up to the boneyard with the glass. Here's the trailer all loaded up: https://photos.app.goo.gl/X3m5DakRQgboTjuX7

After that, we loaded a whole bunch of boards onto Ranger Dug and took those to the love shack since they will be putting in those boards for the wall soon (no pictures).

Once that was done Chris, myself, and Kyle set to work on switching out a flat tire on one of the wagons. Here's the wagon with the wheel off. You can see the wagon in this picture, along with all the clear space we just made! https://photos.app.goo.gl/8cnkMajFJg3gEoC49https://photos.app.goo.gl/8cnkMajFJg3gEoC49

Don't be deceived by its size, this tiny tire took us to town haha. It took half an hour of prying and pushing to get the tire into place along with the use of wooden wedges and a pry bar. In the end, it took all three of us working together to finally get the tire on right. Here's Chris pumping up the tires: https://photos.app.goo.gl/chhuES1PEKF7ahuB6

The rest of the morning was spent tidying up the shop.

In the afternoon, Fred, Chris, and I went to Allerton Abbey and planted a whole bunch of peas. Alas, I did not take any pictures since my fingers were covered in mud. Once we wrapped up the seeding, me and Kyle (who was originally working on the Abbey doors) worked on making a path out of pine and spruce boughs so that it wasn't a slip and slid in the mud for anyone walking to the Abbey.

Well, that's all for today, be back tomorrow!