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

BRK #252

A wonderful Saturday. It's been a week since I made it back from my long trip back East, and I felt like there was a lot packed into today.

For starters, I had left-up my old tents on the tent pads for the October event, and hadn't taken them down before the snow had started in mid-November. Of course, they were totally shredded, and it's no one's fault but my own. So I took them down today. I felt bad about telling this little fellow that it was Moving Day. But it had to be done.

(Note: this is a Western Skink, maybe 4 inches long.)



I also had set up Doug for a recycling run. Here's Doug's bed, packed with cardboard and ready to haul out.



The seed starting station has been re-energized. There are more trays of vegetables like cowpeas, kale, and other goodies that might do well interspersed with the rest of the vegetables either here at Basecamp or over at the Lab.





After about six hours of drying, these blueberries and slivers of ginger are dehydrating quite well, all thanks to the sun's energy.



Fortunately, I made it home from errands in time to catch a screening of Idiocracy, which had me rolling. Seeing dinosaurs wearing WWII regalia somehow had tears streaming from my eyes.

So here's to the close of an eventful day. What a lovely view.



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

BRK #253

Today was our Nest Projects day, and I started a new one. We've discussed the idea of giving the cats a nice place to go to the bathroom for quite some time now. As we're planting on the hugels, evidence of the cats' various dumping grounds has revitalized the discussion... So todayI opted to create the nicest cat litter box I could build. I drew heavily from the Alley Cat Allies for guidelines and concepts to implement for this unique cat bathroom.

There are two parts: the litter box, and the shell that goes around it. The shell will keep the weather out so the litter box remains an attractive place to take a dump (well, for the cats anyway).

Here's my initial sketch. I also did a more elaborate one in PowerPoint because of its easy shape-making tools, but I carried this sketch with me all day as a guide.



Here's what I was able to finish today. The basic frame of the shell is complete. I will work on the roof next time, and maybe add more slats to the rear wall.





Finally: I set up a s'mores session at Basecamp earlier this evening. Everyone stopped by for at least a little bit, and I ate plenty of vegan marshmallows and dark chocolate so it seemed like a win to me. I hope to do these at least once for each of the upcoming events this Summer.



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

BRK #254

Monday is back with a vengeance. And it couldn't look any better than this.



I also wanted to give a shout out and congratulations to Batman (AKA Puff) for giving birth to kittens today. She's currently resting in one of the kitty-quariums.



In more conventional Boot news... Wesley and I took care of a fair amount of business this afternoon. We're trying a layer of pea gravel in the Tipi floor this season. Here it is, filling in the space between the flagstones. Once event season is over, we'll have a look and maybe move forward on Paul's old plan to add in a wooden floor. If folks like this treatment however, we'll likely stick with it for a while.



Can you see the grouse? It's tough - and the bird was skittish and didn't want to stand still - and it kinda looks like a fleeing groundhog or something in this photo.



Here's Wesley at our afternoon log-peeling station. There were some leftovers after the BB20 event, and we took care of most of them today.



Finally: walked up to the tent at the close of the day and for a second there, I thought I had some new neighbours.  It's just Rex, our excavator, stopping by to ask for a cup of sugar.



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

BRK #255

So, it looks like Batman (AKA Puff) had four kittens, perhaps? I am only coming close enough to take quick photos, and this one has me wondering just how many are in there with her.



Gardening over at the Lab today, inside Allerton Abbey. I paid a visit to Ye Olde Swamp Castle, the hugel berm I was responsible for last year. I took a look at a few of the new residents since I'd last stopped by. Here's a couple that - as soon as I noticed them - walked away from one another like they weren't just making little insect babies. But I saw you. I did.



Hidden snail in this picture. Can you find it?



Finally: I did a clover-haul of two sections in the front face of Swamp Castle, and it's now sporting corn, onions, and sunchokes. We'll see what I'm able to do with the rest of the hugel as time goes on.



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

BRK #256

Kitten update. Looks like Batman is cool with leaving her kittens alone for brief moments of time. Here they are, piled together in a lump. I think there are four, after all.



It was a rainy start to the day, so we started with indoor tasks. It was all about event prep this morning, and I'll have photos for it at another date.

This afternoon, we headed up to the Lab for a different kind of event prep: gathering supplies for this summer's PTJ. We need several peeled logs for Mike Haasl's staircase project, so we hunted down several of them. In these parts, April through May is peak log-peeling time. What we don't use for the PTJ will no doubt be used for other building projects through the year.

Here's Wesley coaching SEPPer D how to properly and safely fell trees.



After felling came the peeling. I successfully removed an entire sheath of bark from an 8' section of 11" diameter log. For some reason, I was having flashbacks of the time I helped deliver a baby alpaca. ...That's weird.







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