!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chris' Bootcamp Experience Log

Jay Angler wrote:Chris, from what I read about the Lab's ecosystem, would you consider getting lots more mulch and making the donut twice as wide as it currently is? It looks like there might be a path on one side, but the rest might benefit from even more protection. It would keep the roots cooler if your hot, sunny weather hasn't ended, and warmer this winter. With luck, the little tree will focus on root stretching/expanding over winter to give it and easier time next year?

Thank you for the suggestion, I did so this morning after reading this last night,

Crossing my fingers!

Monday, September 9, 2024: Afternoon

After we got back from lunch, Paul alerted us that the plum trees near the mailbox were falling off with the windy weather that had sprung up in the afternoon.

Stephen suggested that we go down to harvest them later in the afternoon.

First on the agenda after lunch was to start moving some of the dirt from the mudslide that happened last week, so that we can start to rebuild the hugel.  We are hoping that the latticework will stabilize the soil and also  add organic matter as they decay.

Stephen, Ben and I grabbed shovels and got to work. We made a pretty decent dent, but the work was a slog for sure.  It was pretty strenuous and we ended up coming inside for a break at about 3PM.

Stephen and I went down to harvest plums, while Ben continued to water the hugels.

We harvested all of the plums that we were able to, as some were not quite ripe enough.  Some of them were so ripe that they fell from the tree at the slightest touch.  We headed over to gather screens to dry them before heading up to the house.

After putting all of the plums in a box, I was tasked to start processing them so that we can dry them in the rocket-boosted solar dehydrator.

I rinsed them in the sink and got to work.  These plums are pretty small, and it took some delicate work to get them split so that I could remove the pit. I ended up cutting myself a couple of times.  I cut them open, remove the pit and then turn them inside out and place the skin down on the screens.

I wasn't able to finish them all, and had to save them for tomorrow.  I finished by taking the processed plums down to the dehydrator.

Thanks for reading!  Stay tuned for my next update

Tuesday, September 10, 2024: Morning

Good morning, all! Happy Taco Tuesday!

We started out this morning by once again heading over to the Dances with Pigs meadow again to gather more mulch in our continuing task to help insulate the hugels for the winter.

We set up some sprinklers to help recharge some of the hugels from all of the dry weather.

I then expanded the mulch donut around the ailing apple tree again, as suggested.  Fred (former boot camp commander) returned yesterday, and knowing that he has a lot of knowledge about trees, I asked his opinion.  In addition to the mulch donut, he suggested that I water it a lot at one time instead of watering every day.  I'll start to give it a substantial amount of water at the beginning of the week, and let that be soaked up over the week.  He also noticed that there is some new growth at the base, and suggested that perhaps the tree is going dormant until next year.

After I tended to that tree, I watered all of the rest of the trees in the tree valley and the hugels in front of Allerton Abbey.

The pumpkins in front of the Alley are continuing to grow, including several small ones that are just starting.  I hope they make it to harvest before the weather gets too cold!!

After I finished all of my watering, I used the rest of my mulch on any bare spots on the tops of the hugels and moved the sprinkler.

I then walked the perimeter to look at the fences.  The area that Ben and I repaired seems to be solid and staying together well.  There are a couple of spots that may need a bit more love in order to stay together over the winter.

I also checked out the GAMCOD hugel, which has some amazing pumpkins!!!

Thanks for reading!  I'll be back in a bit for the afternoon update.

Chris wrote:

These plums are pretty small, and it took some delicate work to get them split so that I could remove the pit. I ended up cutting myself a couple of times.  

Weird suggestion that my son tried on our small plums this year, although we were making plum sauce, rather than trying to dry them.

He used a cherry pitter!  (I got it years ago from a charity shop.)

A knife might have gotten more of the pulp, but the pitter was waaaayyyyy... faster. We put the pulpy pits in one sauce pan to boil them up and then he used a pair of chopsticks and a slotted spoon to get the pits out.  The skins with most of the pulp went into a larger saucepan and after boiling it up, we put them through my veggie smoosher to grind up the skins and smooth out the pulp.

Regarding pumpkins - ones that aren't going to ripen can be cooked like a zucchini in a veggie dish. I've only got 2 pumpkins this year due to weird weather, so I've got my fingers crossed too. I want *actual* ripe pumpkins for making pie!

Tuesday, September 10, 2024: Afternoon

After lunch, Ben and Stephen headed back to work on the mudslide again.  I was tasked with finishing off the plum processing, as we didn't want them to go to waste.

It took me a pretty good while to work my way through most of them.  After I filled up the remaining four screens to be put in the dehydrator, I also grabbed the rest of the screens while I was there.

I made it most of the way through, and Ben and Stephen came in and assisted me with finishing them off.  After Ben and I took them to the dehydrator to get it started with the rocket boost.

Ben made his way back up to base camp to water, while I started a fire in the rocket-boosted solar dehydrator.  I let it burn for about 45 minutes at Stephen's suggestion, so that it can work overnight in drying the plums.

It is supposed to be rainy (thankfully) for the rest of the week, so I'm thinking we will most likely use the rocket boost technology again over the next couple of days to finish drying the plums.

After I did the burn, I topped off the rocket heater with bricks to extinguish it and headed back up to base camp to get ready for Taco Tuesday!!

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned as I continue my week!

I want to start dedicating a post as often as possible to my plans to homestead in Belize.  I will be leaving Wheaton Labs shortly after the beginning of October before returning to Nashville for about a month, and then on to Belize!

Let me clarify by saying that it is not my property or homestead, but I have been recruited to help build it.  In fact, the lady who owns it is who sent me here and got me started on the permies website.  I know that Belize is a completely different climate from here, but I came here to get my feet wet with permaculture, get "infected" and get in better shape.  So far, so good!

Anyway, on to the point of this post.

I know that she has many ideas about things that she wants to build on this new homestead besides the obvious things like solar power and water catchment.

One of them is this awesome idea for a firepit that was recently showcased on a Youtube video.  Here it is, in case you missed it:




So, I visited the Sauna (another thing she wants to try to build, btw) to investigate the vortex fire pit.  I hope (but do not yet know) that there is enough stone on the ~52 areas to build this with, and I'm excited to give it a go.  I will indeed make mine taller as is suggested in the video.  I LOVE the idea of not having to have smoke all in my face when I build a fire  I attached some pics of the pit below as well.

Anyway, I though that I would throw this out there as something that I am planning to do down there.  I will be posting many things here in hopes that people can steer me in the right direction as I continue this log.

As i mentioned before, I hope to raise bees at the very least and am about to start reading the book that Paul allowed me to borrow so that I can finish it before I leave.

Good night, all!  I'll be back again tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 11, 2024: Morning

We started out the day as usual, except for the glaring realization that Roy (the Ford Maverick hybrid truck) had a flat tire.  Instead we loaded up the RAV4 to head up to the lab.

We fed the cats, and we took along a LOT of alfalfa pellets to distribute amongst the tops of the hugels.  It's time to insulate and prep for winter, and the alfalfa pellets will help enrich the soil for next year.

We also set up sprinklers in the front and back of the lab.

I concentrated on spreading the alfalfa along all of the hugels (and on top of the greenhouse), while Ben and Stephen hand-watered trees and hugels.  It's supposed to rain today, but color me skeptical

After I had given about a 10% coverage of alfalfa to the hugels, I decided to move my sprinkler to another hugel.  However, it was at this point that we discovered that there was very little water pressure!!!

We ventured over to the pump house for the well, and sure enough, the pressure had dropped to ~8 or 9 PSI.  It's also not seeming to hold pressure.  Stephen has detailed it in his log and made a video about it.  Fingers crossed we get it fixed soon and that it isn't a large issue.

After we restarted the pump, we headed over to Copper Cabin to take measurements of Leviathan (solar trailer) and the saw mill in preparation to move it to near Ant Village.  Stephen took down the measurements that Ben and I made and we were off the the new location.

We spent a bit deciding where we will want to place Leviathan, the saw mill and a new wood drying shed.  We made the measurements (even using the Phythagorean theorem ) and marked them with some wood from one of the old "skeleton" canins that were reclaimed.

When we arrived back at base camp before lunch, we decided to take a look at Roy's tire so that we could attempt a repair after lunch.  Fred had aired up the tire and moved Fred to down by the shop which was great.

We discovered a screw in the tire (almost in the sidewall and decided to attempt a plug after lunch.

More coming up in this afternoon's log!!!  Thak you for reading!

Wednesday, September 11, 2024: Afternoon

After lunch, Ben and I started on getting Roy's tire fixed while Stephen fired up Toots to go to the recycling center and the landfill.  Before he left, he tasked us with checking out some snow tires that fit Doug (a small truck that Roy replaced).  They were at the boneyard.  Ben and I headed up to check it out.

We got there and found the tires, but they were unfortunately totally the wrong size and would not work on Roy.

Time for Plan B: the spare.

Luckily it was a decent-sized tire.  It was not a full-size tire, but also not a donut.  We prepped to change the tire, after we consulted the manual to make sure we removed the spare correctly  I'm glad we did, as it was kind of annoying.

We got all that done and then checked all the other tires for proper pressure.

After finishing that, we decided to take the tire from Doug back to the boneyard.

After we got back, we distributed alfalfa pellets to all of the berms at base camp to help grow the soil.

After that was all down we decided to check on the sand barrels to see which ones needed filling up.  Somehow they were all full!!  We did decide to treat the wooden tops with linseed oil before putting them back on the barrels,  Ben and I took care of that and prepared for watering, as the rain had still managed to elude us except for a few drops here and there throughout the day.

Ben took care of the trees near the Willow bank and I took care of the hugels surrounding base camp.  As we finished up watering, the glorious rain finally decided to show up and it is still raining as I type this!  Hooray!

We will see if the forecast holds, but that takes some pressure (no pun intended!!) off of us getting the water at the lab back up and running.  It's supposed to rain plenty more in the coming days.....We will see!

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!  Not quite as many pics this afternoon

Feel free to ask any questions that you want, by the way. I'm an open book and love to interact!!

BELIZE question time!!!

One of my biggest concerns with going to Belize to homestead is that there are a TON of bugs and other creepy-crawly critters that all want to bite you and give you diseases.

I have decided that BT granules may be the best bet for mosquito control, but what about ticks?

I want something that is of course eco-friendly, but will either kill the ticks outright or just keep them away.  

This goes for humans as well as animals.

In the future, we hope to have guineas and/or chickens that may help with this.  However, when I go there in a little over 2 months, I will not have that option.

We also have access to an infuser, so we could possibly infuse various oils as well.

Suggestions?

I've heard that bugs don't like oily atmosphere because it clogs the pores in their carapace and they overheat. For example, you wouldn't see bugs around an oil change place.

I don't know if this is practically useful or just interesting.