Josiah Kobernik

The glazing product is called pro-seal. I think it works very well.

I got it from abundant energy inc. Bob is a great guy, awesome to work with and will give you a discount if you tell him you come from permies.com

We do get leaf miners in the lambs quarters and quinoa. I generally only eat the younger growth anyway and the damage is not particularly prolific here.

200!!!

I got pretty hot out in the sun today and had to take a little break in the shade. Luckily there was a hugelkultur nearby so I got some snacks too.



Humidity has been higher yesterday and today and that has made for gorgeous light in the evenings and spectacular clouds. Tonight, Grayson and I made music together on the handpan and guitalele.

Paul likes to tell a story about a Permie who sent some sauna paraphernalia to him when he had first bought the lab. This person gave these sauna tools in hopes that a sauna would be built for them. Seven years later it is finally happening! Sometimes it takes a while for visions to manifest. Just got to keep on working them out.

199

I made three trips to the lumber supplier today and selected more than 150 boards for the rocket sauna build. That should keep them busy for a few days.

The hottest part of the day was spent running the excavator cleaning up the northeast side of Allerton abbey. I am regrading the diversion drain, building a road, and grading out a slope for hugelkultur to be built on. Right now it’s just a big mess in the wake of the greenhouse build and temporary roads for moving the solar leviathan in and out.

Roused out the day with a swim in the river and some after dinner live music with Grayson’s hand pan!

198

What an absolutely delicious summer. I so very much enjoyed all the design ideas that came out of the PDC. At any given hour one could find a student wandering the hillside with eyes wide open, looking for the pattern in the landscape. Many new friendships were made. Now that chapter has closed and a new raucous productive energy has replaced it as the permaculture technology jamboree has taken hold of the property.

Everywhere I went today on the usually quiet lab, I found a group tinkering or designing or constructing or dismantling. It feels like a hive of busy bees.

I mostly was running support yesterday, but this morning I got to work on the greywater system at the wofati greenhouse for a couple hours. A couple of the PTJ students and I talked through the build particulars and came up with some great design solutions. I will try to draw them up and post them in the next few days as I get time. I probably won't get to work on it tomorrow because we need more materials and prep work for next weeks projects!

Erik Pehoviack is a new instructor this year at Wheaton Labs and I really appreciate his highly productive and straight-forward approach. I have been helping him get running on the rocket sauna build and I think it is the only project that is currently ahead of schedule! In fact, I need to do a materials run to the lumber store tomorrow morning because the sauna crew finished all the framing a day early.

197

I spent a lot of time today planning, researching, communicating and accomplishing small tasks here and there.

Thus, today’s pictures are of spiders!

My thermometer in the greenhouse recorded internal temperatures for the last 24 hours.

63.1 F Min
82.0 F Max

I haven’t plugged the vents and had the door open for extended periods while working on it, but it’s fun to think about beginning to monitor its performance.

196

PDC fever is in full swing for me, and I’m not even attending. It is so inspiring to be surrounded by so many will-be designers who are seizing their opportunity to immerse their thinking in complex systems.

I took a break from PDC support and greenhouse work to put some thoughts and questions out into a new thread about skiddable structure design for the upcoming permaculture technology jamboree. You can check it out here.

Put the last first layer of cob on the wall at the greenhouse and worked on notching a facade board this morning before it got too hot out there. I spent a bit of the afternoon heat researching the different types of copper pipe that will best suit the purpose of the greenhouse destratification pipes and have some suppliers to contact tomorrow morning. Yeehaw

John C Daley wrote:Why not introduce some technology and create a steel skid deck that will be strong and not rust out quickly?

We won't use steel because it has a high embodied energy and I can't grow it in my back yard. It is a good idea though for something very sturdy.

We are designing a new skiddable rocket powered sauna here at Wheaton Labs and I am considering trying something new for mounting the structure to its skids.

The dominant method involves cross bracing the skids together and making a flat on the top side of both skids, then screwing 2x4's directly to the skid laying horizontal, as is common for attaching deck boards.

This works well for sheds, willow feeders, and other outbuildings. The sauna is however, an indoor heated space and I would like the floor to be draft and insect proof. There is also a question of structural integrity of the current method for when the structure is moved large distances over uneven ground.

Below are pictures of existing skid to deck attachment techniques here at Wheaton Labs.

195

Jen and I decided to work during the cool of the morning and evening this weekend and take siestas during the heat of the day, which included plunging into some very cold nearby water :)

Summer rhythms are fun. Thoughts of winter are gone. For now.

Working on the greenhouse more today, we finished some trim and got the glazing system weather tight. Then capped the roof edge over the glass with a large piece of aluminum flashing. All that is left now is 5 pieces of facade top cap. Soon we will be onto the growing and greywater.

I’m headed out to a family reunion for a few days. See y’all soon!