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

BRK #538

Just a little snow this morning...



By the afternoon, it was all but forgotten.



Some of the tasks Trace and I sorted out today were related to the DogStar. The floor's trapdoor was replaced, so there's reliable footing over it and it's easy to open and close it. Additionally, there's an outdoor shed that looked absolutely pitiful. Trace and I overhauled it today, and I'm feeling much less ashamed of its condition now.



I have a lead on some cedar shakes... Maybe we can add those to the roof? I wouldn't be caught dead adding used billboard tarps to it again... Clean-up of all that dried, shredded plastic was a royal pain. Natural materials FTW...!

Finally: we prepped more potatoes that arrived late yesterday afternoon. Friday, we'll put these in the ground.





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

Katie from the PTJ has a source of cheap cedar within an hour or two of WL.  Lemme know if you are interested in their contact info.

BRK #539

Ooof... Made my own poly-dough frybread tonight. It was a mistake. A tasty, tasty mistake. At least I had the sense to stop halfway through the batch of dough. I'd die happy, but I would still have died. No bread tomorrow.



This little kitty is Peaches. She's almost one year old. This past winter was particularly tough on her, and we think that her ears and part of her tail disappeared due to frostbite.

She could be considered kind of a sad case, but I must assure you that impression holds only skin-deep. She's quite the scrapper. For example: at breakfast (their one effortless meal for the day), she'll dive face-first into the kibble, spread-eagle her front legs, and claim the entire feed dish to herself. As she chews, she bares her teeth to the side, perhaps in another move of intimidation to any nearby fellow (?) cats. In looks some people may say she's odd, however in attitude everyone would agree she's undeniably hard-core.



Mean cats are the ones I like the best. Peaches is growing on me.

Meanwhile, Trace and I were busy with Boot tasks today. Here's a repaired section of junk pole fence at Basecamp. They're a bit tougher when building on a slope. Everything wants to lean sideways.



We also planted more pecan tree seeds at Basecamp.



We repaired three light posts (version 1), and made three more light posts version 2 (pictured here).



Finally: here's a project in my sights for tomorrow. This section inside Allerton Abbey's fenced perimeter needs a serious clean-out. Lots of hunks of scrap wood and a massive, knotty, gnarly stump are sitting there, triple-dog-daring me to do something about it. Well, I think that's what Fridays are for.



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

I wanted to include this in my previous BRK post, however the file is a bit larger than the typical photo (it's a 22Mb animated GIF) and I didn't want to jam things up.

Trace and I were also busy clearing and redefining the pathways at the hugel berms over at Allerton Abbey today. Here's one of them that I finished today. You can run along its entire length without struggling for balance.



We've been working hard on improving the pathways around all the large hugels, particularly so because of the number of guests we'll be hosting this year. No good would come of leaving the paths narrow and precariously slanted. It takes time, but it's worth the effort.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:[b]

Maybe these are lupins? They're the loveliest flowers on the hugel berms just outside the Library.



...

Hi Stephen.
Those are Bluebells.

Don't believe them for a second Stephen- that's just what they would say. I happen to know that that hugel is a key stop on the Lupin Express...



[edit: not to be confused with input from a respectable botanist, I had reason to suspect the original ID was at least partially drawn from a Monty Python sketch, and this response was framed in that chaotic absurdist mindset. I'd agree with the hyacinth ID if I had any sense about me.]