May 3, 2025

This week I continued with my rainwater collection problem. I found a design online that I thought would work for me. I needed some very tall bamboo sticks and I attempted to reverse engineer the design (see picture below).

It took a couple of attempts to get the bamboo structure right, but I eventually kind of did it (see picture below). It wouldn’t hold though, when the structure folds down / drops down, its basically impossible to get it back up while keeping all the sticks tied together. I gave up on this solution. I’m quite proud that I figured out the logic behind the way the sticks were arranged, but its just too much of an engineering mess and not sure if this would actually be any more stable. 

My final attempt at a hoisted tarp solution, will be trying to make a umbrella shaped willow structure. I started it this week, but didn’t have time to finish. I’d ordered about 40kg of willow sticks so have a lot of weaving runway! Who knows if this will work out, I don't have high hopes, but at least I want to try it.

current status

One project that did go my way was a willow obelisk. These will be to cage / support my tomato and bean plants in the garden, I put the first one around my goji berry, which grows like a wild mess, flopping everywhere. The obelisk has actually transformed it into something nice looking. I am hoping for some berries this year.

I’ll be making several more of these, one for each plant. Then a few can go on the field for the passion flowers, which should vine up a trellis. Very happy with the obelisk, they look really neat and not too difficult to make. I don’t have a jig where I can sit in place and turn my work as I go, so I have to crouch and move around the structure as I weave it. A bit of effort, but worth it. 

I did some weeding around my garlic and onion plants on the field. The weeds seems to grow back quite quickly, so this task is probably never ending, but my new tools did the trick. Then my field neighbour let me borrow his mini tractor to mow some of the long grass that’s suddenly growing like crazy. I need to find a grass cutting solution soon as it’s getting difficult to walk around. Not ideal. More details on my faber forest update.

The two stick chairs that I made a few week ago are now in the field, looking great. I even made a third one for my garden. It’s just so simple. More details on the project update.

My next wood working project will be this small Japanese rocking chair that I found online, will be trying to replicate it. Have bought wood already, so stay tuned for that. I’m enjoying these simpler / contained projects that let’s me focus on a few techniques and finish it in one or two days. 

Finally, knitting is chugging along. I’m still on the first sleeve, using one strand of mohair, it’s slow work because the mohair is so fine. I’m kind of on autopilot with this one.

I'll be away again this week, so a pause on everything but knitting. It's welcome as I was doing too much the last few weeks.

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