Monthly Archives: July 2014

CollectiveHouse

On Bikes…

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I know. What does farming have to do with bikes?

The real question is, how many bikes do ten people have, and where do we put them all? Usually they go in a garage. And we have a garage. It’s just not that big, even with some of the bikes being for the kids…

I’ve done a lot of biking over the past few years as a volunteer for Port Coquitlam and they store their bikes by hanging them up.  I wanted something similar, but set up so the handlebars don’t collide quite so much.

With a piece of 2×10 on each wall of the garage to anchor to, and two more to make the rack, one vertical and the other horizontal, it looks like this:

2x10s to frame the bike rack
2x10s to frame the bike rack

The hooks to hang the bikes alternate on the bottom edge of the vertical board, and on the forward edge of the horizontal board. Hanging straight down, they don’t have any stress that would cause the hook to wear away at the board.

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The bikes now hang, one up and forward, and the next down and back.

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The kids bikes fit on the floor between the hanging bikes, which is not as ideal as I would like, but it does work just fine.

Some of you might wonder how to get the bikes up so high. Don’t lift with your arms! Start by locking the brake on the back wheel, and pull the bike back so it balances on the rear wheel,  just like it is going to hang. wheel it under the hook you want, still on that back tire. Then put your knee under the bike seat and lift your knee, using your arms only to keep it balanced, and to aim for the hook. Once the front tire on on the hook, lower it till it is resting. Reverse the process to get the bike down. That will save a lot of stress on the back from a fair weight at the end of your arms as you twist to maneuver it into place.

The back of the rack is a good place to store your bike helmets. You  can also use a straight coat rack instead of more hooks.

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Normally we might have put this at the back of the garage, but that wasn’t an option, so it went toward the front. It had to be low enough that it would not catch the garage door, or it’s hardware as the door moved up or down. And also back enough that the door wouldn’t (quite) come down on the hanging bikes.

So, that’s just one more thing we did to fit 10 people into a small space!

 

Scott.

building, Maunderings, Mid Pics, Tour de Farm, Update

On making the property ours…

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I was going to call this “On Construction” but we haven’t really constructed any buildings yet.

But we are getting things done! Really!

With Jasmine’s help we have moved our Big Steel Boxes that I mentioned here back in May when we got the property (Wow! Only 2 months!) onto our boneyard. (Erin already covered this, but still! Berm, yard, gravel pad for the boxes. Plus, our stuff!)

Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.
Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.

 

Now, the first pic in that post was the Sunriver sign at the gate. Well, we couldn’t leave it like that, so with some chalkboard paint and chalk, and a ladder, and Christiana’s artistic flair, now that sign looks like this:

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But wait, that’s not all! We need roads to get places, and we have a creek( really just runoff flowing down a trench) which means we will need a bridge. So, prep for a road and bridge:

Road area cleared down to hardpan for the road base.
Road area cleared down to hardpan for the road base.
Road leading to the creek, down to clay. Room for Roadbase plus room for the bridge!
Road leading to the creek, down to clay. Room for Roadbase plus room for the bridge!

Sounds like lots, and it is, but there is more! Those darn pesky fields keep growing grass! Oh wait, it’s a farm, that’s a good thing. If you can get it into bales. So, a quick call from Tony to Roger Hodgkins, who has been haying these fields for years, and the hay has been cut, dried, turned over and dried some more. Now it is in rows waiting to be baled. Which I hope happens today! To be followed by moving the bales (let’s see if I survive that!).

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Of course, we still have a farm with no hookups to power, gas, water or any of those things. But we do have the ball rolling on that. In fact, We have a well in the process of being drilled right now. The steel casing through the sand and gravel and clay is actually more expensive than drilling through bedrock!

D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
D.A. Smithson and Sons Well Drilling
20 foot drill extenders on the right, drill extenders inside the steel casing on the left
20 foot drill extenders on the right, drill extenders inside the steel casing on the left
The first steel casing, with a drive shoe, in case the drilling hits a boulder.
The first steel casing, with a drive shoe, in case the drilling hits a boulder.

There is also the barn which is being prepped to hold hay and livestock. (Will we have cows?) Christiana ran into a young couple that have done WOOFing, and they helped out by clearing the rotted boards from the barn floor, removing the bee nests, and leveling the dirt floor. Thanks Tomas and Naomi!

Naomi and Tomas, our (sub) WOOFers (since we aren't quite farming yet) helping Tony clean out the barn
Naomi and Tomas, our (sub) WOOFers (since we aren’t quite farming yet) helping Tony clean out the barn
One set of bees that were in the barn, now moved out under shelter from the rain.
One set of bees that were in the barn, now moved out under shelter from the rain.

The bees actually cleaned up, and you might not notice them now. Which reminds me, I have to flag that, so they don’t get stepped on!

That’s it for now, but more to come, as we get there. You know what I mean 😉

Scott.

The Bees have completely moved, so I don’t need to flag them.

Drilling still going, down to the 80-100 foot range…

(updated tags and Categories)

Tour de Farm, Update

Heavy Machinery Makes Things Go

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We’ve had the marvelous and adept Jasmine at our farm, for the past little while, and she drives Big Machinery.

She made us a road!
She made us a road!

Jasmine has scraped away the two inches of soil on top of the driest and least living part of our farm, so we can use the space for materials storage and parking.  She built an earth berm, filled with brush and old wood, so we have a bit of privacy and delineation (dogwalkers like to know where to go, and we made a nice path) in the short term and a decent place to grow things (hugelkultur!) after a wet winter.  We had our containers delivered, on to cement blocks on top of carefully leveled (by Jasmine) gravel.  Of course, the containers weigh an average of 15,000 lbs apiece, and so they crushed the cement blocks immediately and settled comfortably on the gravel.  Due to Jasmine’s expert leveling job, we didn’t need to do any adjustments to the ad-hoc, not quite-as-planned delivery.

Containers, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.
Containers, from the outside, snuggled into gravel behind the berm.
And from the front!
And from the front!

We’re planning to make a roof between them, for a workshop space and materials storage.  Solar panels on the roof, though that plan is still developing and may change.

Having some heavy machinery on site definitely makes things go faster.  We’ve discovered that the bottom-most field, where there isn’t much growing but trailing blackberries, patchy grass, and alders, was used as a dump site for excess rocks and gravel.  “Lots of road-base!”, declared Jasmine happily.

We’ve got a second berm underway, and a proto-goat-yard.  We’ve planned two minimalist access roads (though no road is minimalist with Jasmine around – she has to make sure it’s level, and won’t get potholey or mucky, and probably has to dig down a meter or so and add some of our newly uncovered road base to make sure it will continue to be a road.  “I’m just returning the land to what it was, before those developers messed around with it!”, says Jasmine, “And don’t you want it to look nice?  How about a nice road, here, and clearing out all that brush?”.  She’s an artist with a backhoe, and it’s awfully nice to have her, even if I have to keep convincing her that some of the plants are fine just where they are.