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

BRK #159

Monday, the week before the Garden Master course. We're excited about hosting guests again, and doing our best to polish the Classroom as well as the Red Cabin before our guests arrive.

Caleb and I teamed-up to continue work on the Classroom Chandelier. First order of the day was to plane the plank and smooth out both sides. Here's Caleb on one end, me on the other, and the planer and plank in the middle.



Once that was done, Caleb sanded things down a bit, then drilled holes with the hole saw for the light fixtures. The discussion now is how to wire things to both make sure the circuits are complete, and also to ensure that the wire itself is heavy-gauge enough to support the voltage required for all the components. There are a couple ways to approach it, though since time is limited I hope an agreement can be reached sooner rather than later.



While Caleb was busy with the plank, I rigged all the support cables. We backed-off our original plan of screwing eye bolts into the joists and timbers, instead electing to loop cable round them. This avoids any permanent changes to the wood, and preserves their support strength. The supports I hammered-in last week aren't bothering anything, so they're still there. We can always revisit that option for the next version of this Chandelier, and they may be useful.



Up at the Red Cabin, Grey and Daniel finished the cob work on the Rocket Heater's new manifold, and called in Caleb and me for work with the oxy-acetelyne torch. It's a fantastic, powerful tool that demands your respect and care. Here's the chunk I cut out of the barrel:



...And here's Caleb in there, giving the torch a try, refining the hole I'd started.



In the afternoon, we did a dozen little things that, when combined, pushed the Classroom into much better shape. Grey ground the coffee for next week (so now the Library smells excellent!), Daniel scrubbed-down the chairs with our upholstery cleaner, I washed dishes and shoveled more pathways through the melting snow.

The team also assembled our rig toolkits: bags of miscellaneous tools, each being stored in our rigs and various buildings. They were a worthwhile purchase that I'm confident will be useful time and time again in the future.



Finally, two last photos. Here's a panoramic of the mountains today, covered with heavy clouds. Today has been a warm day (easily in the low-40s F) and it actually began raining this evening.



And the last one for today: Grey assisted me in raising the tent again...! It's so warm today, and it's forecast to be warm tomorrow, so I'm debating on whether or not to sleep in the tent tonight. Paul gave each of us a fancy and very warm alpaca wool blankets, so although the tent stove isn't functional right now I'll likely be warm enough with the extra layer. You may not be able to see much in this photo, but it's the overhead light shining from inside the tent door.



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

BRK #160

I ended up running around a lot more than I expected today. However, since the bulk of it was in preparation for tomorrow's Day of Fire, I am still pleased.

But to back up a bit: close to the end of 2021, at a group dinner with friends, we all decided to put together "secret messages" for ourselves to open a year later. We scribbled a brief message on a piece of paper, folded it, and then "locked" it closed so we could only peek at it at the proscribed date, a year later. I opened mine today.

Here's what it looked like prior to opening it. Anyone who had ridden with me in the car and used the passenger seat's sun visor might have had this fall in their lap during the trip, as that was the storage space all this time.



Here's the opened message. In the event you can't read it so well, it reads, "I will be gardening for at least six months." Well, if we count the month of October - and I think garlic, potatoes, and sunchokes certainly count - then I met this goal of mine.



Now, to today's tasks... Apart from a pre-lunch meeting with Paul and an afternoon of driving my car all over the place, I had a chance to work with Caleb for some time on the Classroom Chandelier project. I think he calls it the Slab-delier? Has a kind of flow to it... Anyhow, the wiring was today's focus. While Caleb was soldering, I was prepping the various light fixtures for connection via series. First the wires were split, as seen here:



Then the wires were soldered together. Caleb is striving for a measure of perfection here and so he was welcome to tackle this task, with me as an assistant. Once he was fully-prepped, I busied myself with sharpening dull hatchets. No telling when we'll next be out there harvesting more dead-standing for firewood... Or green wood for big-ass plank projects.



After my travels across Creation today, the car is full of about 400 lbs. of sand to provide traction to both vehicles and people, and our fridge has some s'mores fixins, sausages, and fake-hot-dogs. Faux dogs?

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

BRK #161

Happy Day of Fire to you...!

First things first... "Out with the old, in with the new," as they say. Merry Xmas, Paul!!!



Second: Caleb's Slab-Delier is up! Some tweaking is all that's needed to make sure it's over the table and at the height we want. But everything works, everything is safely secured, and people will have a nicer view of the food during events. This has been a fun, enlightening project for everyone involved, and I'm excited for the chance to do something like it again.



Now, on to the Day of Fire celebrations. Much of the afternoon was spent doing heating-related maintenance and tweaks along with some more event prep. However, we also cleaned-up and fired-up the Bun Warmer, a Rocket Heater whose exhaust doubles as a sturdy bench, found out in one of the Berm Shed cells next to the Classroom. We hung out and ate fire-cooked snacks and brats.

The gang's all here... Daniel, Grey, Paul, Caleb, SEPPer Julia.



...Even Choco. He smelled something cooking, and definitely made it clear he would gladly take in any snacks we were willing to pass along.



Polydough Pigs in Blankets...!





Vegan s'mores...!



Spiced, mulled apple cider...!



We chilled out there until well after sundown.



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

BRK #162

Not "batting a thousand" today, but I'll take it. Some days are better than others, and sometimes you need the contrast to tell one from the other.

First half of the day was at Basecamp. Once we fiddled with some of the connections and adjusted the cable lengths, we all sat back for a moment to admire Caleb's new Slab-Delier, in the Classroom (Daniel is also pictured here). I think it's a great addition, and despite it being the first version of this lighting solution, it's still impressive.



In the second half of the day, I stumbled around the Lab with the tractor. While running solo, I moved the trailer from it's visible-from-the-road location, here...



...to it's new, more-secluded, in-fact-surrounded-by-trees-on-three-sides location. At least in the winter, it's not visible from the road, which is what Paul would prefer.



Finally: yep, looks like I went full "Mad Max" + "Winter Wonderland" today. This is on the Tractor, returning from the Lab with a wintry breeze directly in my face.



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

BRK #163

The final day before the Garden Master Course begins. We're all excited!

First off however, speaking of event prep I wanted to give a shout-out to Grey today. He's done a lot of unique, valuable tasks this week in particular and they payoff has been impressive. I think they'll make the event that much more special for the attendees.

Here's a photo of Grey building the first version of the "oven hat" on top of the RMH in the Love Shack today. This is an experimental design, with the objective of simultaneously directing heat out to the room (in this case, a tiny cabin), while also acting as a mass: absorbing heat to be released later.



Grey's also been a cob-master for the Red Cabin's various adjustments and improvements over the past several weeks, not just building but also reporting-back about temperature stats over time.

For fans of hot beverages at this weekend's Garden Master Course, Grey also assembled the tea and coffee station in the Classroom. Don't say we lack variety.



So: Thanks, Grey!!!

For my part, I did a little o' this, a little o' that to assist with event prep today. For instance, here's the parking area behind the Classroom. Upon Jeff's suggestion, I took the tractor out and did a thorough shoving-off of all the collected snow. There's now plenty more room for our guests this weekend.



Finally: I'm also working on a couple more wood-burned signs, these being for the dish-washing stations. To remind folks of how to use the sinks, these signs will read, For Water, Use The Foot Pumps. Thanks! It'll take some time, but I think they'll be helpful. Plus, I enjoy the process of making these signs anyway.



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