2021 Apprenticeship: Ancient Pump Logs + Shou Sugi Ban Cold Frame

 
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The 2021 Apprenticeship covered a lot of ground. Projects we worked on, and highlights included:

  • Built a sandbox for the local school — including a timber framing session for the students, in order to make the box.

  • Designed and built a huge shou sugi ban earth-sheltered cold frame with sunward/angled sides

  • Built new watercourses, waterfalls, and step pools in a pond system using pump logs that hadn’t helped water flow in about 200 years

  • Broadcasted seed mix on eroding local landscapes

  • Made nut propagation beds, planted trees, divided perennial pollinators and medicinals, run with a currant hedge

  • Pollarded black locust in our original oak savannah,

  • Attended on-site and online consults

  • Had lots of fun, got really wet and cold, jumped in ponds, sweated in the sauna, breathed lots of fresh air and woke up immune systems, shared a lot of laughs.

 
Ben Falk