PEP Badge: Oddball

And, since 6 Oddball points qualifies you for the Oddball Sand Badge, I hereby grant you--Michael Holtman--the Oddball Sand Badge! Congratulations!!!

Whoah!!! I wasn't sure if this was odd enough or ball-y enough! Thank's y'all! Yes, I can load it on a Trailer, but it is well over 4,000lbs. I guess without the guidance of specific BBs, we should consider oddball projects to require very thorough documentation? Maybe the oddball badge could use a podcast? Is it possible to support a single artifact on patreon?

I'm looking after four orphaned lambs for the next three weeks. Two of them bottle/bucket feed really easily, the other two need help to stay focussed on drinking.

To do this, I coordinated things with my friend who needed a lamb minder while she was away, learned to mix up their formula, and get it to the right temperature, and to feed the right amount to them while trying to avoid waste, moving the lambs from their pen to the feeding area, observing the two that feed well to see what they look like and how they behave when they're hungry and not hungry, and helping the two smallest lambs to get their mouths on the teats, while sometimes putting pressure near their tails to encourage them to drink.

Maybe 0.5 hour or 1 hour of learning?

Michael Holtman wrote:Maybe the oddball badge could use a podcast? Is it possible to support a single artifact on patreon?

Patreon doesn't work that way.   But there is a new thing called bountey.com - maybe there?

Kate, can your video go up on youtube or vimeo and then you embed it here?

I'd like to submit our Little Goose Coupe (aka Goose Hoose, aka goose house). My husband and I split the work 50/50 (we were working together when the kids were playing happily, and at other times one would work while the other cooked and watched the kids). I broke down the pallets, cleared the land, dug out the foundation, put up the siding. We both installed hardware cloth and mixed and applied earthcrete. I figured out most of the design, and we worked together on the screwing, hammering, sawing boards, putting boards in place, installing roofing, etc. Yes, there's more pictures of my husband than me...because he didn't like taking pictures

The only wood we purchased for this project was the gable siding. Everything else was heat-treated pallet wood or wood that the previous owner had left lying around. This cost us, at most. $100, including buying new big boxes of screws.

Before (can't see the area thanks to the giant thistle, but there was salmonberry, blackberry, thistle and grass where we put the goose hoose.)


Beginning to clear out the land


The foundation dug out and we compressed the earth on the sides by having one person hit the wooden board and the other person hold the earth on the other side.


Mixed cement into the earth, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow and put in the hole dry


Packing down and leveling the earthcrete foundation


Wall up, attached to the existing structure


Wrapped hardware cloth around two sides and under the house, and then put another layer of--stronger--earthcrete on top. Got it in place first, and then watered it down and kept watering and smoothing until it was done. I also put the earthcrete under the pallets to support the pallets and make them more sturdy.


Earthcrete done and hardware cloth wrapping is visible. (hardware cloth is to prevent rodents from gnawing their way in)


Trusses done


The siding installed (I hammerd it on with finishing nails)


Metal roofing being cut with tinsnips (and reminants of the pallets I broke apart in the background)


Roofing on!


Door open!


Patty and Clyde, out two new geese!

Next, I submit my Herbal Hugel Spiral of Randomness

I don't have a before picture. I did all the work myself--unless you count my little helper. It was made entirely out of salvaged materials: urbanite, old firewood that rotted, cinderblocks and pots that were left by the previous owner, and soil from elsewhere on our property.

It was planted with 13 different herbs, and more have been added over the years. Bold are plants that are still around from the planting 4 years ago. Italics are those that didn't make it past a year or two. Normal font are those that I've added.

Chives

Parsley--has reseeded every year!

Chamomile Reseeded for two years and then stopped

Echinacea

Borage Reseeded for two years in the spiral, and then somehow reseeded in my son's garden but not in the spiral...probably because I accidently weeded it out thinking it to be foxglove

Tarragon

Sage This has taken over

Lemon balm This has taken over

Basil --this sadly did not self seed.

Thyme I also added some creeping thyme around the base of the spiral, in hopes it would help suppress the buttercup.

Rosemary -- First plant died in the winter. Replanted two years ago, and it's survived two winters and still going strong

Salad burnet-This has taken over

Oregano

Garlic Still going!

Chevril--started from seed two years ago

Lovage Doing well enough that I've been able to gift multiple starts to people

Basil mint-- not very basil-y at all! I was hoping for a perennial basil. This did not suffice.

Lavender Not thriving, but not dead yet, either.

Self-heal and Trefoil planted themselves, and I've merrily encorporated the nitrogen fixer as well as the wild medicinal.

This summer I only watered the spiral once, and that was just because I'd divided the lovage and it got stressed from that+the lack of rain for months. It's very low maintenance, only requiring some weeding where the buttercup and grass try to grow in. I chop and drop the trefoil.

Anyway, pictures from as I was constructing it:





Pictures before I planted



Two months after it was planted:

3



For more pictures and documentation over the years, visit my permies thread: https://permies.com/t/44289/Herbal-Hugel-Spiral-Randomness. When I went about making my spiral, I was saddened by the lack of updates on people's spirals. People always showed how they looked before planting and a few months after planting, but there were no updates as to how they performed overtime, so I wanted to make sure with my herb spiral, that I kept it updated so people could see how it performs over time. It has the good, the bad, the ugly and the pretty!

Here's the spiral today--I barely weed it, and it shows. Most weeding is just chopping and dropping the trefoil that grows there, but it also needs very little care and provides me the herbs I need in one convenient place, with no material cost. Today, I decided to give it about 30 minutes of maintenance. I do this about 2 or three times a year--that's it. Other than that, I harvest. Very little work for lots of reward!

Before/After weeding

The silicone spatula that I got as a wedding present, had it's plastic handle break. So, I went and got some nice strong holly to make into a handle.

I didn't know if this counted as "put handle on a tool" badge bit, as most don't consider spatulas "tools."

I also carved myself a hair stick at the same time.

Now I can scrape those last bits of food from my pots and pans and bowls, and keep my hair up!

I did a bit of remodeling.  The house we bought had a simple layout which really constricted you as you entered from the garage.  Walking straight ahead, you'd hit a door to the basement. To your right is a wall with a coat rack, to your left through an opening, was the kitchen.  There was a long load bearing wall that ran between the basement stairs and the kitchen and it really made the kitchen and that entry area feel tight.

So, I simply removed the load bearing wall.  Piece of cake!  Not really...  The ceilings in this house are low (7.5') so a beam running under the ceiling joists would be too low.  Cutting the joists to insert a beam flush to the ceiling seemed too risky for my snow load and the home-made construction of this house.  So I elected to put the beam in the attic and suspend the ceiling joists from it.  A 24' long, 16" high, 3.5" wide beam.  Hmm, how to get it up there without cutting the joists...  We were re-roofing the house anyway, so we cut a huge hole in the roof and slid the beam in.  

Supporting the beam required adding several 2x4 posts at each end and blocking them down to the beam and posts in the basement.  

The photos show a lot of construction work and improvements, but for the purposes of this BB let's just consider the work of planning the project correctly, putting the beam in place, supporting the roof, supporting the beam, removing the load bearing wall and patching back together the drywall.

I had help getting the beam into the attic and jacking each ceiling joist as I nailed on the joist hanger in the attic.  But 90% of the work was done solo or with an adoring audience.

Thanks Paul!  I believe I've achieved Straw level.