! Josiah’s Bootcamp Log

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I was mostly glued to my desk today as I absolutely need to get the glass order for the greenhouse rolling. I made some good progress. Although much of my time was spent refining the problem, which is not as satisfying as putting a beam in place. I made some posts out on the wofati greenhouse design thread if you want to check them out and chime in on design.

Sunday is Jennifer's birthday, and I got her some work pants from the folks at Red Ants Pants! She framed the trap door in the greenhouse yesterday, and can attest that making anything square inside a round wood structure is trickier than it seems.

Happy fifth day before your birthday to Jen! That first picture is the homestead version of the "hang in there!" picture:

This is great!

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Such a busy couple of weeks! Four of us moved up to the lab and are living in Cooper cabin! I enjoy living off grid, but it can certainly come with a lot of chores. Many of us who "lived" on the lab in the past still took most of our meals at the fisher price house and regularly commuted down as each bootcamp day would begin and end at basecamp. Our current endeavor is to have a separate, second boot camp that is entirely based on the Lab. Jennifer, Matt, and myself move into cooper cabin and have been making it operable for full time habitation. This has meant constructing shelves, developing kitchen systems, and some deep cleaning.

My computer and cameras were living on the floor covered by a sheet to keep the dust off of them for the last week until Jen and I built a nifty standing desk/shelf to hold them. It is still chaos up here but at least I can get back into my regular videography and BRK posting for the time being.

Lots of progress on the first wofati greenhouse as we wrapped up the installation of the front umbrella and stair access to the door. Jen also installed the decking and built a trap door that needs hinges. The extruded aluminum track glazing system arrived today and I'm excited to delve into the south wall build in the coming weeks. Cheers!

Josiah Kobernik wrote:

desk!

Ooooh, that's gorgeous!

I enjoy living off grid, but it can certainly come with a lot of chores. Many of us who "lived" on the lab in the past still took most of our meals at the fisher price house and regularly commuted down as each bootcamp day would begin and end at basecamp.

Chores do seem to take a lot more time when off-grid than not. Heating water for dishcleaning, hauling water for cooking/washing/cleaning, cooking with wood, etc, all take quite a bit more time. I almost wonder if maybe  it might make sense for those at the Labs bootcamp to have something like 30 minutes less of "work" time and 30 minutes more "nest" time to compensate. That way the increased amount of chore time doesn't eat into your free time. I know when the power goes out at my place, it's a lot of fun...but washing dishes and cooking takes up a lot larger percentage of my day than it does when I have power.

The deck looks great! Just don't drop your keys.  Is that all 2x4s and 1x2s?  I'll update the model.

Kyle Bob wrote:The deck looks great! Just don't drop your keys.  Is that all 2x4s and 1x2s?  I'll update the model.

Haha!  Yeah, a key excluding wire mesh over the pipe openings may be well advised.

The joists are 2x6 and the deck boards are 2x2’s with 2 inches between boards. We ripped 2x4’s in half to save money on lumber, hehe

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last weekend I wandered into the meadow with my eyes wide open. I felt stiff in my body, and hungry in my mind. I walked and ran and skipped and cartwheeled and then flopped on my back in the pines to stretch. I discovered that pine cones exist. They are everywhere in this part of the state and yet it seems that I had not really noticed them before. I set one on top of a log and plucked its spines, each one gave a slightly different tone. I juggled three pine cones unsuccessfully. I realized that dry cones probably burn very well and we were short of kindling at the cabin. I tried to carry as many as I could in one hand and discovered that the spines interlock, allowing multiple cones to stick together. I built an arch.

sometimes I think I just need to play.

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