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

BRK #62

What a way to wrap-up the work week! It was a fun Friday. Again, we flipped the typical schedule so the less-demanding gardening tasks for the latter shift, and the handiwork in the cooler-temperature first half.

Hao, Caleb, and I continued work on the junkpole fences. Another section was repaired, including a rock jack that was completely rebuilt from scratch. Here's a snapshot of Hao and Caleb taking care of business: measure twice, cut once.



We're excited to see lots of green over at Allerton Abbey's hugel beds, particularly when it's been so hot and unforgiving in the afternoons. Today was no exception. However, we did our two full runs of water (close to 1200 gallons) and did a lot of individual attention. Here's a shot of a well-established alfalfa plant. If you stand still in front of it, after a brief moment you'll see dozens of examples of life as tiny brown moths (Rusty Tussock Moths?) flitted from one tiny purple blossom to another. There's another alfalfa shrub also in the Abbey grounds, and it's another lovely sight.



I was doing a bit more chop-and-drop at Cricket Hill, and stumbled upon this much-more-normal-sized daikon radish. I'll snack on this likely on my Saturday errand-run car trip.



Finally, Dez snapped up a few handfuls of mustard seeds, both dried and green. Here's what a dried mustard looks like. I didn't know this, but mustard seeds come from long, narrow pods about the diameter of a toothpick. There are about 6 to 8 tiny mustard seeds in there. Green ones are tasty, and the dried pods are similar but have a more-bitter aftertaste. (sorry it's a bit blurry)



Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BRK #63

Woke up to dry air, but a distinctly foggy, hazy morning.  The day progressed and the air grew thicker with the smell of Toasted California. So this is what it's like to experience blow-over from wildfires, I thought to myself (for the first time ever).

It was a new experience for me. Here's the sunrise.



Completed the day's errands then attended and took notes with a brain trust over at Cooper Cabin to sort our next steps for completing/polishing that property. Us boots will be busy for quite some time. Here's a sneak-peek.



Finally: the power went out Saturday afternoon. "So anyone want to play Bunco?"

We had a rousing, six-player session that lasted until it was dark and the motion-detected lights were what illuminated our dice throws. Kinda thought they should have named this game Throw Dice And Yell. We had a lot of fun for that hour. (and eventually the power was restored)



Thank you for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BRK #64

It's been a productive start to the week: the pump house project continues, the junkpole fence repairs were completed (well done, Caleb and Hao!), and solid progress on Fred's trench project. I worked with Fred in completing the trench to length, moving the water line into the trench (including a detour round a rather large tree root we didn't want to cut), and then began the process of refilling the trench with all the soil we had removed. It's funny how quickly a trench fills back in, at least in comparison to how long it took to dig the damn thing... Here's a shot of the trench-filling in process, across Fred's driveway/path.



The second half of the day was all about gardening at Basecamp. The team was on-point today, and we were able to complete three full water-runs, with close to 1500 gallons of water being spread throughout the trees and hugels. While inspecting all the plants, I see that the volunteer squash is producing fruit. The first is still going strong, and now a second squash has appeared...! I'm anticipating some excellent additions to pasta and sauce in the near future...



Finally, I must issue a correction. The massive, beneficial plant in the road-side hugel I'm responsible for isn't a King... Please accept my apologies, Empress Mullein.



Caleb and I finished the day with some fine-tuning of the gear shifts on the ebike he uses regularly, the Crimson CrimCycle. Likely some more details on that as things develop.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BRK #65

Maybe it's the smoky air, but today was a weird one. I noticed things were going awry when I spied a kitten climbing the scaffold supporting Asparagus History X...



Yellow jackets were climbing on the wrong side of the sunflower blossoms.



Finally, I snapped a photo of a pair of sunflowers at Swamp Castle. One of them was so tall (likely over 8 feet) that it couldn't even fit in the frame.



(or maybe I'm just a terrible photographer)

Thank you for reading, and enjoy your day...!

BRK #66

Another smoky, hazy day. Still adjusting to it personally, though it seems like I'm not the only one. I keep hearing, "It was a lot worse last year," so I think I still have some adapting to do. Can't shake my complex feelings about the phenomenon, but I suppose it just takes time.





Running with a light crew today, as a few boots were feeling worse for the wear and had to rest. Wednesday is a projects day anyhow, so I teamed up with Caleb and today we tackled a number of worthwhile jobs. The tractor and the excavator were lubricated. We felled a couple trees that were shading some of the solar panels on the Lab, did a little hauling, and finally we created a "chimney cricket" for the top of the classroom roof. The day was ended with some watering of the primary hugels at Basecamp.

Regarding the chimney cricket, we started by creating a few triangles with scraps in the workshop. Our geometry muscles flexed and we came up with a fairly-decent specimen of isosceles triangle.



Next, this was added to a frame, and then a test fit was made on the roof.



We then covered it with sheet metal, and secured it to the roof panels. The goal is to divert heavy snows from damaging and/or knocking over the chimney stack. Obviously this will be tested when we have some significant snows, hmm... Next week?

In lieu of a picture of the finished product, I present to you a snapshot of Hao spying us from the roof's edge.



Thank you for reading, and enjoy your day...!