Trace's Bootcamp Experience (BRK)

Hello! I'm Trace

I arrived to Wheaton Labs yesterday as a fresh boot, and now have experienced one full day here.

I was first introduced to Stephen, who fetched me from Missoula, and later met Paul himself! Currently we and like 20 kitties are the only ones here.
Paul and Stephen have been so patient and helpful with welcoming me to this space to live, work, and play, and answering my 10000000 questions. We were all excited to see a thunderstorm that evening!

I'm so grateful to have arrived in this beautiful place, and to use and work the facilities that have been built by people before me.
I remind myself to be patient with myself in a new environment. As I settle in, i'm looking to make progress and find joy in routine, appreciating even the smallest of things.

Morning, first day of bootcamp


Breakfast


After eating breakfast and feeding the cats breakfast, we began planting. ITS THE FIRST DAY OF PLANTING!!!
We planted potatoes, kale, and radishes in the hugels throughout the property.

Day 4
Today Stephen and I carved out paths on the taaal hugels at Alerton Abbey, fixed some lights, fixed sections of the junk pole fence, and I lit my first rocket mass heater successfully!  The exhaust really is almost nothing on a good heater.

I learned that nails should be toenailed to nail the pole to the pole.

Day ended with Stephen making donuts with poly dough. Glorious. Thank you to the previous boots who made the peach jam.

Its Friday!!
Today we relocated logs to a pile, planted potatoes and made more paths.
Tonight I'm staying in the little red cabin for fun.

🥞🙏A Saturday of rest has been heavenly, although I am still using it to learn all I can about permaculture, just more of tea and computer lectures and conversations, and less trench digging.

Soo many kale, sunflower, and other sprouts are coming up from last year, which is inspiring cause that was literally no extra work. We found this out today when Samantha was showing me how to deal with green manure grasses when planting, which is remove them from the competition, or cut them down if there are already sprouts.

(I am taking an online PDC I got for 18$ on udemy, which isn't official anymore since it is from 2005 but I extremely recommend it to anyone cause it is hilarious and chalk full of information and sometimes even makes me cry. Today I learned about food forests and trees. Cover crop, pioneer legumes, long term legume trees, fruit trees, 90/10 support fruit at the beginning and reverse it by the 10-15 y mark.)

A question came up about whether native Hawaiians did sports cause they had so much leisure. The answer by Geoff was of course, and everyone in the world can have leisure and live in absolute abundance, but not you guys, you have to spend all your free time promoting permaculture before the world burns. So there you have it!

I found a lot of enjoyment going on a bike ride today through the mountains.

Goodnight 🎤😘

After planting
I made hummus for lunch
After lunch we felled some trees

Today we planted sunflowers everywhere and
Black spark caught a bird.

Today was extra beautiful as it had snowed at night only up high, and the morning sun made the pine trees shimmer with water droplets, dripping also.

New Boots are here! Ben and Brian. We saw some Elk and felled some trees today.

Breakfast
Van
And Western Larch?

Thanks, Trace! And welcome to Ben and Brian! New boots means more permaculture greatness is on its way.

Thursday

Friday!

You guys are the best! Saana and I worried about the upcoming Allerton Abbey rental. Thank you all so much!

Tina Wolf wrote:You guys are the best! Saana and I worried about the upcoming Allerton Abbey rental. Thank you all so much!

You are welcome!

Saturday.
Today was filled with Pancakes, catching up with family, a looooong Sauna, and a Maleficent marathon in the Wheaton labs movie theatre. It is such a good movie series! I liked that they got themselves out of the pickle of endless war without anyone winning! I feel like Maleficent when I spread seeds sometimes. Her kingdom looks kinda like Wheaton labs with all the pointy green hills.

Sunday

This day marks three weeks at Wheaton Labs as a boot. I've learned a lot and am ever grateful for all the conversations I learned so much through with Paul, Samantha, Brian, Ben, and Stephen. Thank you to Paul for opening your land and kitchen to me to frolic around and plant some shit.

I spent the day fixing bikes, running the season extender (learned from Paul to triple prime it and that the exhaust goes through the barrel to heat it up for correct airflow), and going on a bike ride to the tippie top of the mountains to observe and meditate. It was nice not having to peddle for ten minutes going down the mountain!

Although there is a lot of reasons to stay at Wheaton labs, I have decided to continue my journey back in Minnesota. So I'm leaving tomorrow. I'll keep a blog about that somewhere else on this forum as I will be working full time transforming properties of friends and family and would love tips, advice, help, and encouragement!

As part of the Wheaton labs experiment, I can confirm that getting to Missoula takes about one hour hitchhiking (carbon neutral.) Anyone else is welcome to conduct more tests on this to make it more accurate. It also is an opportunity to spread permaculture. Now one more guy knows what it is.

Until next time!!

Thank you to whoever gave me pie. Makes me feel loved:)

Hey Trace, thanks for everything you did at the Labs! I hope the things you learned inspires all kinds of permaculture innovations in your future.

Yes, thanks for posting and being in the boot camp!  I'm sure they'll miss you and we'll miss seeing a slice of life at WL...

Hey Jeremy and Mike, you are welcome! Thanks guys for following me and the thread!

This is where I will keep posting on Permies. You'll find my full time projects back home in Minnesota and maybe a little more.

https://permies.com/t/255681/Trace-Minneapolis-Area-Food-Oasis

Thanks.