KW-04 Six years of this silliness.

and some tomato house progress

Today, six years ago, I came to the barracks for the first time. I was living in Zürich at the time, and my then-girlfriend and I stayed in the Worst Airbnb in the World (official!), and got a taxi up here the next day. I was able to find the place by landmarks I recognised from pouring over satellite photos.

The taxi dropped us off and agreed to come and pick us up two hours later. We kicked around in the snow for about a quarter of an hour, waiting for the agent to turn up and show us around.

After about 15 minutes, he did, an we explored extensively,

I instantly decided that the old canteen would be where I lived, called it The Loft, and started making plans for what to grow where.

The Sportplatz was going to be the orchard, but has instead become the centre of outside entertainment, the firepit, pizza oven and croquet lawn, and the orchard was going to be “more orchard”. Other than that, I seem to have mostly accidentally done exactly what I thought I was going to. The vineyard will be hosting the piggies next year, and will probably never been used to grow grapes, but it is still called The Vineyard, so that’s a win. I’m not sure what the Monkey House was going to be. Probably an indoor climbing wall, and I definitely am still thinking about the zip line and the swings.

Present Day

It has been a cold week, and no mistake. The first half was dominated by freezing fog, and then the sun came out.

On Wednesday morning, I saw in the fresh snow trails of the usual rabbits and cats, but also loads of deer tracks, and for the first time ever, hedgehog!

By Friday, all of the snow melted, without the thermometer ever showing positive numbers, and the solar panels broke all records for electricity generation, hitting over 100% of their rated potential. They are supposed to be able to drag 400W out of the sunshine, but peaked at 404. I put this down to them being mounted at the perfect angle, and it being really quite chilly. Ironically, heating up a solar panel makes it less efficient. Chilling it to minus 5, apparently, allows it to exceed all expectations.

Tomato House Update

For the complete house, I need to make eight of each of three different roundwood main parts, and probably 16 braces. And then the roof, the design of which I am still mulling over. I’d rather like to do either some sort of da Vinci bridge affair, or a self-supporting reciprocating roof, but neither of these really work on a long thin building.

When I started, I was doing one part a week, and I’m getting faster every day. I’m pretty sure I’ll get up to one a day. Which is not the same as seven a week. I still have to cook and eat and do laundry and get firewood and fix fences and a million other things. The plan is still to prefabricate all of the pieces, and then just slide them together in situ. The concrete base was made last year, and I embedded bricks into the front side of it at a 20 degree angle to support the beautiful wooden frames windows that I saved from a house demolition two years ago.

Things take their own sweet time around here.

The Tomato House Factory in all the glory that I can muster without a fisheye lens or any clever lighting.

I’m still very much of the opinion that it will be finished by the end of February, which is just about the right time to optimistically start growing tomatoes. And then, I’m going to make the outside shower block and who knows what else. I have the bug now.

And, I’m inviting you to come and get it with me. Learning a new skill is mostly learning the tools and the patience specific to it. If you wanted to give it a go to see if you like it, then come and try it out with me at the barracks. I have all the tools here already, and an almost infinite amount of roundwood, all nicely aged and ready to go. We’ll spend a weekend together making A Thing using only hand tools and traditional techniques. Take a look here:

https://www.thebarracks.de/event-details-registration/timber-frame-construction

And once again, it has rolled around to pig time already. If I finish here, I have just enough time to do the voice over before I go and tend to them, so rather abruptly, I shall request that you have a lovely week, and look after each other, and I will see you the same time next time.

Your loving
Pirate Ben

xoxo