KW-11 Early Spring Planning

Three things I like about writing lists...

This has been a productive week at the barracks. Daytime temperatures rose to double figures most days, and then we wake up again to a pretty hard frost and birdsong. It looks like it is going to cool down again a few degrees, which is good. Last year, the fruit trees woke up far too early, and were knocked back again by an entirely predictable frost last in May and everyone lost their tree fruit.

Random picture of a bird.

This year, I would love some tree fruit. It makes such a difference to pirate, visitors and pigs.

The infinite Tomato House

Progress is strong. The first tranche of basic pieces is almost complete - with just two more to go, I think I can mostly say that they will be finished this week. After that, it’s time to start on the more complicated, compound cuts. The two sets of pieces divide themselves nicely into groups by the first lot being predictable and repeatable. I can cut them all blind, stack them away and know that they should all more or less slot together. The remainder of the work is defined by the vagaries of the pieces. The random warping, twisting and bending that makes working with roundwood so interesting in the first place demands that the connecting interstitial sections can only be accurately cut once the assembly has started.

I’ve been calling it lego. It’s more like Meccano.

The cuts themselves should be pretty easy. I’ve planned it out in my head that they are mostly a sort of compound lap joint, and they should mostly be cuttable without too much structural chiselling (just some rounding off of joints, probably). But my head gets things mixed up and who knows what unconsidered adventures I have before me?

I do know that while I’ve been sawing and hammering away, I’ve had plenty of time to think about the roof. I think that the best thing to do is to try to keep it complex, varied and higgeldy-piggeldy. In contrast to the walls, which I have a very beautiful, but simple, architectural idea for. It will require a circular saw, but I’m ok with that. The frame is being made entirely with man power, and its final form will reflect and celebrate that. I think the contrast of a powerfully straight-lined facade dressing the structure, is a part of the structure, but looks almost embedded in it will look fantastic. Sadly, I do not have a circular saw.

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

In the coming week

Now that there is more to be done than chop wood, haul water, feed pigs and eat beans, it is time to start writing down plans for the next seven days. By the time we are deep into spring, efficiency and progress are really only possible with quite granular thinking, but for now it works quite well to write a few headings, and to pick from them.

Maintenance stuff: Clean the machines, change the oil, tighten and replace nuts and bolts, that sort of thing: The cultivator, the lawnmower and the bike.

Building things: Keep going with the tomato house. Progress is solid and doesn’t need extra direction. It would be great to end the week with a test-fitting in situ. The heat exchangers need to go up as well. Build the frame, and prepare the area for it. This is actually quite a fun and interesting project in itself which I’ll try to talk about soon. I want to do some work on fences for pigs, but I’m not compelling myself to do any of that this week either.

Sowing. At last! Into pots will go pumpkins, courgettes, celery, celeriac, leeks, aubergines. Second sowings of lettuces. Maybe some cabbage family stuff. Chilis and okra. I really should get the onion sets in the ground as well. I was chatting to a bloke in a shop who took me to the back room and loaded me up with maybe a dozen nets of onion sets and charged me 2 euros for them. I weeded the overwintered garlic this week. I found more than 60 little shoots in amongst the winter ground cover, so I think we’ll be ok for garlic next year!

It all looks a bit desolate. That is more to do with the quality of my camera than anything else. But look! Sunbathing piggies!

And that, I am afraid was a very boring non-chapter in the book of the barracks. I shall endeavour to do something more exciting in the coming seven days. It has actually been a pretty peaceful and pleasant week. I got some rays on me, did plenty of work, kept up the yoga-before-breakfast, but no explosions and really nothing to take photos of. I’m struggling to find a cover photo. I guess by the time you actually get this, I’ll have found something. Maybe I’ll put in a random picture of a tomato or a bird. If I did do that, now you know why!

And with that mystery to myself, yet to be concluded, I shall sign off and thank you for sticking around

Be lovely to all things, especially yourselves and until next week

Your loving Pirate Ben

xoxo