KW-23 Picks from the archive
Greetings from the barracks, and can the summer start now?
What week is this? What day? Losing all sense of time nestling in the tree-lined tupperware of the Barracks island is such a thing that is is almost a cliche. But when I say that this week has been a mysterious aberration of clocks and calendars, you would probably be right in believing that it is was really weird week in time.
I have been writing a lot, and reading a lot more. I have been continuing with my progress through the Idiot’s Guide to DaVinci Resolve, which I think I probably mentioned last week, and it is still the buzz that it was then. Loving it.
In the garden, and in the spirit of my continued indenture to the project, I have racked up a good average of 25,000 steps a day, except the day when I cycled to somewhere a long way away to pick something up, and the bike exploded on the way back. Apparently, if you are wearing a wrist-based step tracker, it doesn’t track steps when you are walking up and down hills, through muddy forest paths and holding on to the handlebars of an overladen bike. Not enough bouncy movement, I guess. So that cost me a couple of tens of thousands of data points. Nerds will sympathise.
Tomatoes are going in, pig food patch is well underway, bean poles are going up, and greens are filling the greens bed. What I did not do this week was take a single useable photo for this Book of the Barracks.
What I did do, was look back over the last 200 chapters of the newsletter, and pull out some of the moments from history. Here is a collection of slow progress and the development of the barracks and the book of it. I hope you enjoy looking back. There are too many for a newsletter length sort of a thing,
Will I ever grow food for the pigs?
The first time that I wrote optimistically, almost confidently about being able to grow enough pig food next year was in October 2021
Starting the newsletter, before it became the Book of the Barracks, was about glimpsing behind the scenes, giving a bit more insight into the process. It was also about raising money for pig food. Here we are, five years later and much has evolved in my understanding of what I am doing, why I am doing, it, but the need for pig food is still the biggest challenge.
Twenty Subscribers!
Also in October 2021, the 5th edition saw our numbers swell to 20. 21 if you include me, which I guess you should.
There was one occasion where there was a big uptick in subscriber numbers, and I am sure we will come to that somewhere later in this list, but other than that, our numbers have grown very slowly, but quite consistently. Never really speeding up, the graph is a pretty straight line. I think I like it this way. It feels more sincere, more earned.
The longer format
I had forgotten how short the first few newsletters had been. By January 2022, we are getting into the more familiar length, although I have experimented with different sections over time.
My 50th Birthday
The newsletter itself was not the most original, inspiring, informative or fun one that I have ever written, but the weekend of my 50th was easily the best weekend I have had at the barracks. Many people came, and many more sent well wishings.
I have a funny relationship with birthdays, that you might have thought with all this practice would have settled down a little. And maybe it has. But there was nothing about this one that wasn’t just perfect.
The Rave
Going through all these old posts reminds me of a truth I have known since day one, but sometimes slips away from me when I al thinking of the important things. This place is better with more people here. Community is everything, and not progressing that particularly effecitvely makes me sad. But it is nice to remember the times when it did buzz with activity and usefulness. It’s already just over two years ago when we had that 24 hour party. That was a nice weekend.
Suddeutsch Zeitung.
This will be the issue when many of you came to the newsletter - when the SZ Magazine did a piece on the barracks. Still the best photo ever taken of the pirate. Still makes me look super old! Oh wait. I am super old!
100 issues!
I didn’t even realise it at the time, but the 100th issue of the Book of the Barracks (which was still called the Newsletter then) was the one where I first mentioned the Collapse Laboratory. This year is going to be the third and best version of it. You should come!
Sometimes the potager looks really nice
There isn’t anything very special in this selection, but a very nice picture of the potager looking lovely. I had some really excellent helpers last year!
The appetite of a pig. Of three pigs
In this newsletter from October 2023, there is a delightful little video of the pigs running around a field full of food. I thought that it would take them a week to eat it all. If I had harvested it and fed it back to them, maybe two weeks. But I thought it would be more fun for them to dig it all up themselves. They polished it off in less than 48 hours. I still laugh about it from time to time!
I still think this is the best title I have ever written for a newsletter:
The rest of is it fine. But I love the title. I’m still not sure why :)
We will return to a more regular Chapter next week, with much to report from the wonderful world of growing vegetables, feeding pigs and complaining about the weather.
Until then, I hope you enjoyed a look back over the last 200 issues of the Book of the Barracks, and here’s to the next 200. Oh god!
Much pirate love
Your Pirate Ben
xoxo
This one reminds me of that TNG episode where Riker gets infected with a parasite and needs to relive all sorts of memories while lying in sickbay.
Fascinating looking back. Xxx