The Earth Oven series: foundation base hearth thermal mass first drying fire and door arch insulating layer and chimney Patching up, and first pizza! So far, none of the Earth Oven preparations, the foundation and the base, have had nothing to do with heat. Which is, of course, what the oven is all about. Heat becomes …
Category Archives: garden structures
Earth Oven, Phase 2: the Base
The Earth Oven series: foundation base hearth thermal mass first drying fire and door arch insulating layer and chimney Patching up, and first pizza! Wow, third blog post today! Be sure to scroll down! Today we finished Phase 2 of the Earth Oven works, the Base. (Yes, we had a busy day today.) For Phase …
Earth Oven, Phase 1: The Foundation
The Earth Oven series: foundation base hearth thermal mass first drying fire and door arch insulating layer and chimney Patching up, and first pizza! For our wedding anniversary DH took the day off so we could start building our earth oven. Yes, that was our anniversary present to one another. People tell us we’re the …
Chicken Work
My parents are here and two of the projects that were mainly my dad’s are the chicken coops. The new small coop needed a roof: The big coop needed an extra run: Â The new part is that still blonde wood box and the front part. Their run space has more than doubled. I hope …
New Little Chicken Coop
The two new chicks – Oreo and Nocty – are hale and healthy and growing like the weeds, a little over two months old now. They were cooped up in a large crate on the porch at night and in the “table coop” for most of the day. I liked neither, the latter not predator …
We’ve Got Wheels!
So our Community Garden plots is 40′ x 30′. That’s a lot of beans to sow. As I was thinking of how best to keep our lines straight, the spacing and depth consistent, I conceived of… THIS The Dibble Wheel(s)! Tada! My friend R came to help me chop up a dowel and screw all …
Rain, Finally: BIG WATER
Spring is supposed to be wet. Here in Wayland, Spring often means flooding in many basements and parts of town, sometimes even busy intersections and the public library. But until today it hadn’t rained for weeks. Drought is a relief from flooding and mud, true, but it brings fire hazard warnings, and having to  use …
Irrigation, Coming Up!
Why get one if you can get eight? My friend R and I rented a 14-foot truck and drove quite a stretch to pick up eight of these. Only seven fit, and that with some wedging. Turns out that “14 feet” includes the useless little “attic” above the cabin. So we’ll be going back to …
Applying the Pattern Language (ii): Inviting Entry, Making Connections
Back to patterns! Having a plan for the slope has re-opened my mind for the immediate front: the balcony, the level stretch of garden up top, the top of the driveway. This is what it looks like right now: I already analyzed one of the more general  problems: the negativity of this space. There are some more specific …
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Soil and Water Works: Hugelswales
It cannot wait to get started in the garden, in particular to start the big Soil and Water Works. I want to plant stakes and dig dirt and maneuver wheelbarrows and roll rotten logs downhill. I even want to roll some of them uphill, that’s how desperate I am to get started. For today I …