Posts Tagged ‘design on the fly’
Cooking Compost
Does horse manure attract flies?
Yes, it does.
It also cooks at over 160°(F) given the right conditions. Just the right amount of moisture, air, and shape of the pile trigger the microorganisms to go wild. Unfortunately, at that temperature and above, the microbes start to die off and the pile can go inert.
I did a little cooking of my own in the hot sun yesterday, working in front of the hay shed. I’m cutting up old cedar boards ripped off our deck to make a small woodshed for up at the lake place.
I’m creating a kit of cut boards that I can fit in my car for transport up north where the plan is to assemble it in place. It’s a little tricky because I tend to make design decisions as I go on my building projects. I’m wrestling with the mental challenge of envisioning each step in advance and knowing what pieces and precise dimensions I need for each step in the process.
I anticipate the assembly will stretch over several different weekend visits up north. As if we need excuses to spend more time at the lake in the months ahead.
.
.
Taking Shape
We are getting close. This weekend we got wallboard nailed on the frame of the chicken coop. That closed it up except for the people-door (because we ran out of pieces long enough to use for that opening).
Elysa and Ande stopped by, surprising us with a visit yesterday. They provided some key assistance toward getting all the gaps filled. It was a bit of a Tetris game to match the boards and the spaces over the studs.
Just having additional hands to hold something in place or hand me another nail helped immensely to keep things humming along. My process involves a lot of pauses to plot several steps ahead and then measure, mark, and cut the pieces.
I had a limited number of large boards that I was trying to match with the best possible spaces. When we didn’t have a long enough piece available, the alternative was to use multiples of the shorter boards. There were a lot more of them from which we could choose.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In one of our design-on-the-fly decisions, Cyndie and I decided to have two horizontal hinged openings on the wall of the nest boxes. The lower one will open downward and create a little shelf to place cartons while collecting eggs. I decided to use the space above the nests, where there will be a slanted board to keep the chickens from perching, as a small, angled storage area.
The upper opening will be hinged at the top and swing upwards to provide full access to the cubby space.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
When we excitedly got one of the boards mounted on the backside, I realized I’d forgotten about cutting the slot opening for the access door to the poop-board. Now I’ll be doing that after the fact.
That’s the kind of thing that happens when you are making things up as you go along.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Decisions Aplenty
By the end of the weekend last night I was mentally exhausted. The chicken coop project was an exercise in repeating waves of cascading decisions. It was giving me a headache. Or maybe that was coming from the muscle fatigue in my neck and shoulders from all the power tool use overhead and at odd angles.
Over and over again I found myself trying to determine precise dimensions, proper positions, ultimate functionality, potential environmental stresses, and likely physical pressures the structure will face.
How high should this be? What support should this have? Will this withstand stormy weather? How will I attach the next board? How will we enclose all the odd openings of our panel roof design?
If all that weren’t complicated enough, by the end of the day yesterday, when I couldn’t get the roof framework equally centered on all the walls, it occurred to me why all my calculations had me constantly confused. Building with scraps of salvaged lumber means working with a lot of warped, bowed, and twisted boards.
It was a great exercise for tempering perfectionistic tendencies.
“Close enough” became a common refrain that grew increasingly easy to accept.
There were so many little steps involved in finalizing the framing of openings in each wall and securely fastening the 4 walls to each other that I ran out of time for the ultimate reward of screwing the panels onto the roof. We got close, but finished just short of that milestone.
Guess what I can’t wait to work on when I get home from work today.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 