! Josiah’s Bootcamp Log

Woo Hoo!  Looking Good!  Looks like a full days work!

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Last week the bootcamp consisted of Dez and I. This week we have 8 people and 2 additional cats!! It is so much fun having a full house again even if it is a little much having three different conversations happening in the same room all the time. lots of snow and new people have made work on the Wofati Greenhouse build impractical, so we have diverted to a much needed renovation of the love shack portable cabin on skids. Originally built in a day, with numerous subsequent additions, the love shack needed new insulation and to be sealed from drafts in order to be habitable during winter months. While removing the interior and exterior siding we noticed that there were many gaps and holes in the walls that allowed wind to blow right through.

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The melt has begun! After nearly a month of predominantly overcast snowy and freezing weather, the sun is gracing us with its lovely golden warmth. The deer have been foraging in unusual places as they run out of food at the end of winter. New bird calls greet my ears while I work, causing me to pause and look for the migrant travellers. Warm liquid water pools amidst the snow and starts its way downhill across the frozen earth. Mud. More mud. It feels like spring today.
The warm weather, coupled with the return of our dear friend and leader Fred, has allowed me to return to the First Wofati Greenhouse. Mostly what we accomplished today was freeing the greenhouse from its deep snow and frozen tarp blankets. Now that we have exposed the structure and surrounding frozen earth, we can once again begin work towards its completion.

scroll down to the bottom for some pictures of saturday's tea ceremony with Clayton, Dez, and Lara. What fun to be with such lovely friends.

Nice pics! That’s an interesting version of board and batten. Usually the boards are 8-10” wide installed tight to each other, if using green lumber, or ‘8 Penney (nail)’ spacing for dry- to allow expansion- then 2-3” battens to cover the gap. I like the rustic look of it but, with the mill, you guys could make tapered lap siding now too, which is more efficient use of lumber and less labor to install, and to be weather tight you only need to caulk the ends at the building corners instead of all those verticals.

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What a great day! I worked at the greenhouse all day and made lots of progress. I'm not sharing any pictures of that though because I stayed up late with Clayton making a video recap of our recent sledding adventure. Enjoy!



I like Clayton. He is a fun dude. It's like the world is a bit better knowing that Clayton is in it.  He has been cooking lots of delicious meals for us this week that he is visiting. I will miss this when he leaves.

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Monday one week ago began with shoveling the 9+ inches of snow off of the greenhouse. The sun came out and we removed as much of the snow as we could before it melted our construction site into a muddy mess. I used the excavator to redirect the drainage away from the greenhouse. I scooped up big puddles and dumped them downhill. We plugged the last remaining holes in the roof and retaining walls by puzzle piecing round wood scraps into and around each other. We removed all of the sharp edges with hatchets, chainsaws, and the angle sander.

On thursday I began gathering cob materials, many of which were still frozen to the earth.

Friday afternoon brought the entire bootcamp out to put a layer of cob over the roof and north wall, the final step before I begin the process of burying this wofati. Writing about it tells only a small part of the story, so here are some lovely pictures

Oh, rounding those edges is a good idea!

Cob partyyyyyyyyyy

Josiah Kobernik wrote:167
here are some lovely pictures

I love the family photo and the dancing one is pretty awesome too!

Thanks for sharing them,

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A new family Photo! (although it's already outdated by one week, sorry). Jennifer and I just returned from a week long road trip to visit family, it was lovely and now she has rejoined the permaculture bootcamp (yay!). Just before I left we installed the mass umbrella on the first wofati greenhouse. It was a bit of a hustle to pull all the strings together to get it installed and golly was it satisfying to see that earth on top! I'm chomping at the bit to get back to work on it. The next steps involve preparing roof edge for installation of the facade and South-facing glass wall, installing the umbrella on the South side, and building the stairway access.

I'm so proud of and inspired by everyone in the permaculture boot camp right now, they accomplished so many things while I was away!