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

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:Yeah, I think I recall Daniel mentioning something about tannerite. I'll report back soon.

Sounds like the message got a bit mixed up along the way...

BRK #321

It's a bit late in the evening compared to my typical posting time. So it goes. It's a Monday, right?

The Heat Protocol was activated today. Temperatures reached over 95 degrees F by lunch time, so among other protocol-specific tasks, we were filling the Kiddie Pool immediately after lunch today.



I finally picked up a clear photograph of the foreboding spider protecting its egg sac on one of the kindling crackers. Not sure if I want to forcibly relocate them just yet...



Here's a new garden hose, sleeved with a flexible stainless-steel coil. After using it one afternoon, I rate it an 8 out of 10. Pros: yep, it's unable to be kinked or knotted. The spray nozzle shipped with it seems very effective, as well. Cons: well, the hose itself has a narrow diameter so if it shares a hydrant with another hose (via a Y-splitter, for example), it seems like pressure is underwhelming. We'll see how this hose behaves over time.



Finally: Summer Events guest Valerie found these abandoned nests while I was climbing around on the roof, re-attaching an errant chimney to the Classroom. Very cool surprise.



Also: thanks to Mike, Daniel, and Tage for their willingness to spend time this evening to play one of the card games I'd designed. It's appreciated guys! Hope you enjoyed it.

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

BRK #322

And a Happy Taco Tuesday to you...!!! Wrapping up Week 2 of the SKIP Event here at Wheaton Labs.

I woke up like this...



Some details from the Moon Gate build along Serviceberry Terrace at Basecamp:





A spider update: yep, it's a Black Widow. Maybe an inch in diameter. It had a second egg sac that it was guarding here.



Finally: my bag strap became un-stitched...! I ought to fix this before the weekend with some heavy, heavy duty thread.



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

BRK #323

Today I'll show the saga of improvement on the sun shades by the Classroom. To sum it up: we had a "first draft" that covered the Classroom building, though Paul also requested (and event attendees also requested) sun shades to reach out over the open area in front of the Classroom so it would be shielded from the afternoon sun. Well, we didn't have a chance to make it happen until later in the event season, and on top of that we weren't able to successfully shield anything other than the building. The cable was too high for us to reach by conventional means (somewhere in excess of 30 feet high), and we struggled with our first pass at it. Today we wanted to put this one to bed.

Here's what it looked like at the start of the day today.



We started by laying out all the remaining sun shades.



Here's the "metal rats' nest" we originally used to attach the sun shades to the main cable.



Here's what we ended with after thinking through our approach for a few minutes.



Here are Tage and Dez, both revamping our attachment method for the sunshades to the cables.



For the sun shade attachments to the lower cables - which happened to be further away than the actual length of the sun shades - we simply used some paracord and lashed them at the appropriate lengths. We then took a simpler approach: tow lines are attached to the sun shade furthest-away from the Classroom. Since all the sun shades are linked together, the entire assembly moves along like one massive curtain as we pull it along the cable using long sections of cord. We tied the cords in place at the post (and in the case of the main cable, to the tree) to secure them. We'll make observations for the next few days/weeks to see how the whole thing fares during adverse weather.

Finally: here's what the sun shades look like now. To have shade in the front of the building is a vast improvement, particularly at about 3pm.



Next season, we'll have sun shades facing both directions so that there's more passive cooling inside and outside the building. There's also talk of more trees surrounding the parking areas and the sand pit, though that's likely better saved for another time...

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

BRK #324

The final days of the SKIP event are upon us. Lots of the projects are coming to fruition, including "leftover" and incomplete PTJ projects. I spent some time following Mike Haasl and guest Daniel as they roved about Basecamp.

Here's Mike showing me how to make fine adjustments on the thickness of a tenon that might be a bit too narrow to fill its mortise (or is that a mortise that's a bit too narrow? I forgot). This is for the Log Stairwell project he facilitated for the PTJ.



Here's Daniel inspecting the Moon Gate as we began removing the form that hollows-out the circular passage inside the wall. This was an exciting moment.



Mike and Daniel later teamed-up to add the spindles to the banister of the Log Stairwell.



The above photos are all stills from video I shot today that I'm submitting for possible future video projects. I'm eager to share the whole thing, but I don't want to be accused of revealing spoilers.

Meanwhile, things are growing well over at Allerton Abbey. I'm pleased to see corn ears emerging after the heat of the summer. We still have a bit over a month to grow, so I think this is a good sign.



And there was this little fellow trying to cross the road. Good luck to you, pal...



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