Reid's BRK

BRK #28

good morning



safety. first.

we started off the day hauling those logs from the tree we felled last week. finally the conditions were right and the logs have been transported.


i found some cool miniature mushrooms growing on a stump




aaaand later in the day we made progress on the second chair. this one smaller than the last, and just as difficult to put together.

i will take the blame for drilling wacky mortises....



nothing 2 ratchet straps and some teamwork cant fix, right?


aaaand it worked!



in my opinion, this is the superior chair. but, only some time spent sitting in both will yield their true worth.



anyways, today i wanted to share a bit about pain. like bodily pain.

on January 11 this year, i injured both my wrists by overusing them practicing handstands. still to this day, my wrists are weak and recovering.

at first, i was fighting my pain. i was frustrated and didnt want this injury to limit what i could do. so i tried to do more handstands, to do things that hurt me. i was hoping i would wake up the next day and they would just magically be healed.

a couple weeks ago i started to really "research my pain" --- learning about what a wrist does, learning what hurts and what doesnt. learning my weaknesses.

a couple notes i have
-pain with ulnar deviation in right wrist
-limited wrist extension in both wrists
-pain with closed fist flexion in both wrists

possibly an injury to my TFCC. but im not trying to "diagnose" myself. i dont need to. pain and injuries are complex.

after this research, ive been dedicating time every day to strengthen my wrists and improve their range of motion. things like -
-grip strength work
-flexion and extension with light weights
-ulnar deviation with light weights
-hundreds and hundreds of wrist circles

i am doing these exercises just to the point before feeling pain- trying to extend my pain free ability. stimulus results in adaptation. so "dance with your pain, dont fight it"

and since getting serious about this, my wrists are already feeling stronger.

i guess what im getting at: "rest" is often over emphasized. yes rest is essential, but you have to start moving again.

i am confident i will be able to fully heal my wrists and make them stronger than before. ive been super discouraged by this injury but im seeing the light.

so i hope to use this platform to share my progress, and what i am learning about healing from pain. because our bodies are pretty important permaculture tools.


anyways that is all. have a great day yall.

Mike Haasl wrote:One trick to shortening chairs, or getting all four legs to sit evenly on the floor, is as follows..

Set it on a flat surface.  If wobbling, hold it or weight it down in the way you want it to sit.  Using a spacer of a desired thickness, mark around each leg.  So with a 1" spacer you'd mark 1" off the flat surface and then be cutting 1" off each leg.  Or a bit less off the short leg if there is one.

I'm noticing that with roundwood furniture like this there is a great deal of 'eccentricity' to the joinery. Pounding and pulling everything into square has led to the legs sitting almost perfectly even on the ground. However any further messing with the framework can throw that off as might variable drying of the parts. My approach to level feet would be to wait until it has been used for a while and allowed to dry out more before attempting to surgically alter them.

Although, if a chair were on the too tall side to start with, cutting them even after all the parts were assembled might make more sense...

Reid Robison wrote:BRK #28

good morning

...
anyways, today i wanted to share a bit about pain. like bodily pain.

on January 11 this year, i injured both my wrists by overusing them practicing handstands. still to this day, my wrists are weak and recovering.

at first, i was fighting my pain. i was frustrated and didnt want this injury to limit what i could do. so i tried to do more handstands, to do things that hurt me. i was hoping i would wake up the next day and they would just magically be healed.

a couple weeks ago i started to really "research my pain" --- learning about what a wrist does, learning what hurts and what doesnt. learning my weaknesses.

a couple notes i have
-pain with ulnar deviation in right wrist
-limited wrist extension in both wrists
-pain with closed fist flexion in both wrists

possibly an injury to my TFCC. but im not trying to "diagnose" myself. i dont need to. pain and injuries are complex.

after this research, ive been dedicating time every day to strengthen my wrists and improve their range of motion. things like -
-grip strength work
-flexion and extension with light weights
-ulnar deviation with light weights
-hundreds and hundreds of wrist circles

i am doing these exercises just to the point before feeling pain- trying to extend my pain free ability. stimulus results in adaptation. so "dance with your pain, dont fight it"

and since getting serious about this, my wrists are already feeling stronger.

i guess what im getting at: "rest" is often over emphasized. yes rest is essential, but you have to start moving again.

i am confident i will be able to fully heal my wrists and make them stronger than before. ive been super discouraged by this injury but im seeing the light.

so i hope to use this platform to share my progress, and what i am learning about healing from pain. because our bodies are pretty important permaculture tools.


anyways that is all. have a great day yall.

Interesting. Thank you for the reminder to 'dance with your pain, don't fight it'. Many people my age (over 60) have pains and try to 'fight' them by getting more rest and using pain-killers ... I don't think that's the way.

Pain is the body's message to the conscious mind that there is an emergency that requires something  be done differently.
I commend you for doing the research and making the change.   If you need research assistants use the link in my signature.

Hans Quistorff wrote:Pain is the body's message to the conscious mind that there is an emergency that requires something  be done differently.
I commend you for doing the research and making the change.   If you need research assistants use the link in my signature.

that is a great way to phrase it!

i cant see your signature, interested in checking it out though. will you send me the link?

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:
Interesting. Thank you for the reminder to 'dance with your pain, don't fight it'. Many people my age (over 60) have pains and try to 'fight' them by getting more rest and using pain-killers ... I don't think that's the way.

Inge, thank you for your comment. Cheers!

BRK #29


this morning Caleb and i finally put together chair 2.0.

we had the frame of the chair, and the slab that is meant to be the seat.

so i cut the slab into a good square, and planed it so the entire thing is roughly the same thickness.

after a lot of drawing lines and specialized cutting, here is the seat.



this seat is appears more sophisticated than chair 1.0. the first version (see BRK #25) was just the slab fit right on the chair.

soooo we drilled some holes, put in the dowels. aand there was a chair.

so for some finishing touches, work with rasps and angle grinder powered rasps cleaned it all up. check it out:



its glorious. the alpha chair. smaller in size, beautiful seat, in all its roundwood glory.

once the wood dries, there will be more work in sanding everything down. and there is debate on whether this chair should be adorned with a butt shaped imprint, or a cushioned pad.

all in all, i am extremely satisfied with how this seat turned out. some messy saw cuts were cleaned up with rounded corners and some rasping.

100% wood.

we have all learned a lot making these. i suppose sometimes you have to make a 1.0 version to know what the 2.0 needs to be.



and this afternoon consisted of a myriad of smaller projects. moving things around the lab, and shoveling snow. the big picture is that there will eventually be a new well added to basecamp. but that is a longer term thing.

here is what it looked like, Stephen knee deep in snow.



all in all, satisfied with how the chair turned out. feeling good about the warmer weather and less snow than before.

have a great day permaculturers!

BRK #30

repair cafe day!


the last holiday of the season, which means today we will be repairing broken items from a dedicated shelf at Wheaton Labs. all the while doing things people do in cafes, like drinking coffee and eating scones.

this morning i worked on sorting the items on the shelf based on their repairability.

definitely,..... a mess.




in the afternoon i decided to repair a garden rake with a broken handle.

so..... first i had to detach the head from the handle. i used a mini hacksaw to cut off the existing rivet.



what a sick tool! cuts through metal with ease, and its so cute and pocket sized.

aaand i got it out!



soooo the next steps i failed to photograph. after some strugggle and different tools, i was able to remove the tight fitting metal neck from the handle.

then i sourced a thick straight piece of wood from the lab. i shaved off the bark with a drawknife. i opted to use a thicker diameter handle than before. this is because i am using a softwood, and obviously the current thickness handle wasnt cutting it.

so i used a drawknife to reduce the size of the edge, then hammered on the neck.

after that, i drilled through the wood to fit in the rake head, and drilled through the rivet hole.

after lots of shoving, it was all lined up.

the last step is to put a new rivet to hold the head in place. we have a couple "official" rivet guns, but i wanted to try a fun route i learned once.

i searched through rusty nails and pounded one through. cut it short with the hacksaw, with some extra material. then i pounded the extra material flat, so that it prevents the nail from being removed.

here it is.



not pretty...my first time doing this. but it should work. the metal "neck" was definitely a weak material, and i kind of flattened it.



yeah the neck was extremely damaged in this process, but i believe ive created a rake fit to last any apocalypse.

and here it is!



satisfied with the result.

then i remembered i needed one last revision



i rounded the back of the handle, for more comfortable grip. i used the angle grinder with rasp wheel for this and a rasp.

but seriously. giving this rake head another life, along with a homemade look that is stronger than before.

after that, Stephen and i prepared dinner, which is what you would eat in a cafe. i made some decadent foccacia bread and also pesto, a miracle considering it was within an hour and a half.

the meal was 10\10.

repair cafe day has me thinking about entropy. man made systems are prone to entropy, and will degrade over time. the more complex the system, the more likely to break down and the more difficult to fix.

basically its much easier to fix a rake than a solar panel. in permaculture its wise to rely on simple when it comes to manmade systems. simple systems can be easily repaired and wont break as easily.

its also wise to have every function performed by multiple elements. for example, solar powered electricity with a backup generator.

on the other hand, natural systems become more resilient with increased complexity. a monoculture of potatoes can be wiped out with one blight, but a diverse food forest is equipped to withstand drought, disease, and changing conditions.

some food for thought! have a great day permaculturers!!

BRK #31

good morning!



this morning the belt sander mystery was finally solved. one broken bearing was inhibiting its proper functioning.

Caleb was hard at work removing the bearing, i was enjoying the firework show.



in the afternoon Stephen, Jeff, and i puzzled over a trailer that is half buried in snow. the goal is to free the trailer in order to move the excavator. lots of ideas were invented, but in the end this job might be bigger than our abilities.

while we were out there, this picturesque tree family asked me to take a photo.



so.... a day of much puzzling and planning! but the boots are itching to get some stuff done. im hoping we can pull off a library paneling blitz tomorrow.

there really isnt much to share today, so ill keep it brief.

but only time will tell, and you all will be the first to hear about it!

i cant see your signature, interested in checking it out though. will you send me the link?

Sorry about that, I checked on my android phone  and there is no signature line in the mobile version.
Check on a computer or the purple moosage in your in box.