PEP Badge: Oddball

Nice job, that's a lot of work!

To deal with kitchen and yard waste, I needed to build a compost bin. The ideal would be to compost in beds directly, but those haven't been built yet. Originally, I was going to break down the pallets and rebuild them better, but the wood quality on these ones was too low. The boards kept breaking apart as I pulled the nails. That's why the top rear of the finished bin looks like that.

All of the nails and screws were repurposed from the broken pallets and a few loose screws left by the previous owner in the siding (no idea why they had them sticking out of the side of the house). We decided to add a half pallet to the top since water from the downspout was hitting the pile too hard and that disperses it more effectively.

It isn't fancy, but it does the job and holds up to the strong winds we get. If I continue to use a compost bin, I'll eventually build it better.

Using a threaded rod as the axle on my chicken coop ended up tearing apart the base.

I removed the broken parts.

The whole axle was replaced with EMT and some small sections of PVC as bushings and spacers.



I drilled a couple holes for some cotter pins.

Good as new.

I made both a bridge and a teeter-totter today! Both were made without any power tools and from materials found naturally on my property.

Stream with no bridge across it

Convient hemlock that fell just a few feet away!

Sawing the tree

Three logs, all sawn by hand

Braiding and weaving trailing blackberries to lash the logs together

Finished bridge!

Bridge is safe and stable--the kids gleefully ran across it!

The bridge is probably not as long lasting as other bridges, and it would have been better if I had peeled the logs. The lashing will likely need to be renewed in half a year or so, but there's always blackberry vines around, and it's pretty quick and easy to do. I like how this bridge was made entirely with hand tools and things located within 20 feet of the stream!

Next, I went and dug out the other half of my three log bench

Log cut in half for three-log bench four years ago

This was obviously too heavy for me to carry. I managed to shove it around for about 15 feet, and then realized I should take note from the ancient people, and get some logs to roll it on. This worked really well! Both my kids took turns pushing a few feet, but most of the 100+ feet was moved by me.

My son showing how to push it along rolling logs!

Next, I got the biggest log I could find, and start carving a rounded notch.

hatcheting away on the knotty piece of cherry wood

the finished notch. Yes, I should have removed the bark everywhere, but I plan on getting a bigger log soon for a better fulcrum...and the kids were anxious to play!

Playing on their new teeter-totter!

I'm sure someone bigger and stronger could do all these things a lot faster than I did, but I'm still proud of myself for managing it all without help! (Technically the kids "helped," but not for long or very efficiently. Part of the project is teaching them how to do stuff, anyway, and that takes more time than just doing it myself!)

I made a drying rack for our family cloth system about a year ago. I wanted to air dry all the items, but hanging every single piece of toilet paper available in this home up on the line just drove me insane. A colleague gave me these racks for free, they are from a wardrobe. I made a little roof and burned its function into it It says "dryer", which is the same word for the electrical dryer in german. Roof is reused as well, came from somebody's shed. I can throw everything in there and the wind cannot blow anything away. They get optimum air flow from all sides

Built all these garden beds from someone's shed we tore down and reused (even the screws) and lots of pallets. So we basically lost our mind getting all those nails out.

Me again, attempting to make an archery target bag. I have been setting aside empty feed bags (most all are plastic unfortunately) for this and finally had enough. I wadded up all the stiffer plastic ones in one of the woven ones and put it into another woven one and so on. I sewed the top closed and attached some targets to the front. It turned out pretty good. Much better than shooting a hillside, in my humble opinion XD

Made Erica's milk paint (borax water + yoghurt + the black powder from chimney sweeping) for my first ever homemade paint

Here's a fun little project! My kids had cleared out a little fort in our woods and were turning it into a home. My son was pretending to play a piano, so I grabbed differently-sized maple logs from the wood pile. Maple is nice and dense, and I'd noticed a few years ago that it makes a lovely sound when smacked. I lined them up from highest to lowest note, leaning against a log. This made pretty good sound, but it could be better!

So, I wove them together with blackberry vines harvested from their fort area, and then wove some more to attach it to the tree and reinforce the weaving to make it more durable for kids who love to hit it hard for (they hope) louder notes.

Soo my bike seat was near it's end of life. Took a walk to my local thriftstore to find some second hand leather and dismantle my seat to cover it again with a new cover material. Maybee 2hour with the walk to the store.