Posts Tagged ‘design projects’
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.
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Beyond Me
For me, building our chicken coop was a stretch. I’d never tried any construction project of that magnitude before, and I was choosing to work from found materials and without a blueprint. It was a small miracle it turned out as well as it did.
Now, Cyndie is telling me we need to modify it to have a divider that will allow us to introduce unfamiliar birds to the existing flock of three. Today, a functional version of her vision is completely beyond me. I have no idea how I will secure all the nooks and crannies with chicken wire to a point where two unfamiliar flocks of birds will co-exist for a while in that one coop.
On to something I can do. Yesterday, I put the old F150 to work doing double duty. First, it was a road trip to the cities to pick up a load of unwanted used pavers from a staff member at the day-job. Drew was nice enough to offer them up for free if I would go to his place and make them disappear.
I had a plan to use them on one of the muddy spots on our trail through the woods. Before I could get to that step, I needed to reclaim a pile of rock that I had stumbled upon when creating a path to the new chicken coop last year. There was an old rusty box stove in the woods that I believe was used to boil syrup. It looked to be generations old, and the area around it had some old busted cinder blocks and a pile of landscape rocks.
Those rocks would serve nicely to fill a spot in the trail that tends to puddle, so before setting the new paver pieces in place, I wanted to transfer the rocks.
The chickens showed up to help, but were almost too eager to get after the creepy crawling creatures revealed when I scooped a shovel-full. They were more interference than they were helpers, but they sure are cute to have as company.
While the hours of the day vanished, one after the other, I hustled to get the pavers moved out of the truck. We had an appointment to pick up a load of hay around dinner time.
Hoping to minimize the handling, I wanted to transfer from the truck to the ATV trailer so I could deliver pavers directly to the path in the woods.
After a cursory two trips of distributing pavers, I had a good start on the trail, but needed to stack the rest up by the shop for use at a later time. The appointed hay hour was fast approaching.
Given this morning’s new assignment with the chicken coop, I am thoroughly enjoying the mental ease and physical feasibility of yesterday’s projects. New hay is stacked in the shed and pavers cover the muddy trail.
Next time it rains I’ll be excited to walk the enhanced surface of the trail at the bottom of the hill.
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Relative Something 