Monday, July 28, 2014

Bluets

First blueberries! Poor bush isn't happy but here's three berries!

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Harvest. July 10

Lettuce and cucumberages

Staple hinges July 17

Recently when showing some friends how I make six-board chests, I made one up for myself. It's a bit shoddy, I was paying more attention to my students projects than my own. As I didn't want to put expensive hinges on it, I thought this would be a good time to try staple hinges.

Staple hinges are basically two pins of metal wire that are hooked around each other, one side being driven into the lid, the other the body of the box. They are made long, so they can be driven clear through and turned into the wood.

To make them precise would require a great deal of fidgeting. The exact shape of the loop, the distance between the legs of the pin, and lining up the pilot holes to accommodate the offset are all things to watch out for. The hole in the lid do not line up with the holes in the body. I'd expect that leaving more play it it would make it less fussy, I'll have to do a few more as practice in order to get it right. I have no idea how old this type of hinge is, but it is quite primitive.

It is also difficult to hammer over the back side without partially driving the staple back out. All in all I made quite a mess of it, but it was quite a good learning experience.













Friday, July 11, 2014

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Mr Weed

The endless chore. At least it looks like you did something



Clay processing

So I poured the water off the black clay. It is fairly firm already. I'm not sure if it needs further refining, I'll put my hand in it maybe tommirow.

I poured the water off the garden mud too, but this I poured into another container so see about evaporation. The garden mud is still very runny.



Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Playing in the mud

Out of curiosity I decided to subject my garden soil to the same processing as the stuff dug from the bank. It's in the second large jar.