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

BRK #489

A snowy Wednesday. In the first half of the day, the temperatures were warm enough for me to immediately plow snow from the roads up at the Lab. The snow began shortly after I started ascending the mountain.



Before I skied back to Basecamp, I stopped by the Truly Passive Greenhouse to collect temperature data and grab this snapshot.



In the afternoon, my main responsibility was to order seeds for our next growing season, which gratefully allowed me to stay indoors most of the time. Ranging from carrots and onions, to berry bushes, to of course apple trees, there's a lot coming to us. Last week, Paul and I went through a couple catalogues, and he roughly doubled the thickness of the catalogues with the addition of post-it notes.



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

BRK #490

Some time ago, I used leftover bark as mulch outside the WilloWonka, one of the willow feeders. Turns out that it was a bad idea, particularly if you want to shovel a clear path to the door.



There's a webinar from Paul happening this Saturday featuring the RMH in the Library. I decided to fill the wood racks so everything would be nice and full. Another benefit of this is that the wood will continue to dry each time the RMH is fired-up, so the wood on the rack will burn faster and more completely.

Here's the before and after:





I also did some thorough snow-plowing all over Basecamp today. Prior to that, I had to reconnect one of the adjustable segments of the tire chains so it wouldn't flop around so much. A nut and bolt later, and it seems to be working fine.



Oh, and here's Stewie. She's up for adoption. If you're in the neighbourhood and would like to take a cat, she's one fancy option for you. Just let me know.



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

BRK #491

First off, a shout out to Clynthia, in Baltimore: one of my penpals. She's an author I met on a writing retreat over 6 years ago, and once I moved out here we elected to stay in touch through letters. She sent me this lovely card with an example of quilling: a method of hand-rolling paper and then arranging the rolls into various shapes. Everyone loves mail, and I think penpalling is an excellent way to keep that train rollin'.



Oh, and I did some Boot work today, too.

The Red Cabin was in my sights this afternoon, and I was in a wood-choppin' mood. So I made sure there was plenty of material to keep it warm in there for the week of the Garden Master Course. Here's the before and after.





I also moved more snow out of the way down by the Classroom. I needed a driveway for the Bad News Boy Buggie, so I set to work on that today.



While shoveling-out that pathway, I realized that I would also need a way to reach our recycling and landfill drop-off berm cells, and even a way to retrieve lumber if needed. So I made a pathway through the snow following the perimeter of the yard in front of the Classroom building. We ought to have very little trouble grabbing what we need. Plus, if there's someone (self included) who wants to make snow angels before it all melts and goes away, there's a convenient spot right in the center of everything that's hard to miss.



That's all for now. It's a Friday. Going to bed early (but of course!). Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!  

A year on - I'd love to see an update on how your hugels  (in your year ago post), are all producing now after arid weather stretches and to snow, also if what you planted as shown in your charts is still going through self-seeding and producing as intended.

I realise other boots may now be looking after them but would love to know if Syour goal of learning more gardening experience has worked as well as you hoped. What are your thoughts on the gardens and your progress towards your goals since then.

Seeing the breakdown of your last year's efforts has motivated me to keep records so I can see how each year's planting is progressing. I'd been totally relying on my phone images and now wish I had hard copied my efforts as the phone was smashed in an accident and the sim card irrecoverable. Note to self, don't rely only on technology for records :-(

Looks like you are learning a whole heap more while winter is upon you and looking forward to more progress reports along the way.

BRK #492

First off: a big shout-out to Dez today. I appreciate you, man.

Saturday is typically the day off for Boots, but Paul had a webinar scheduled for today and I wanted to participate. I shifted the Cleaning Blitz and other Nest Labor tasks to today to coincide with it. I'll take tomorrow for my day of wandering about town.

Speaking of the webinar, the RMH in the Library was the star of the show.



Shout-out to Paul, Eliot, Isaac, Alex, and Peter for chiming in. It was tremendous to see these friendly faces...! Andres was an ace for tech support. Samantha and Beau also helped me out personally in finding a way to connect to the event itself. The live events I've had the good fortune to sit in on have consistently been a blast. I'm looking forward to the next one...!

I looked out the window a bit today, and here's what I saw.





Finally: I picked up some tea blends to add to the drinks station for the Garden Master Course and had time to bottle 'em up today. With the additional teas from the kitchen, my own custom tea blend, and of course coffee, we'll have quite the spread for our attendees.



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