Better habits can seem hard to create, but today Will and I talk about how average people like ourselves can be better at doing stuff, aka, Getting Stuff Done.
I roll my eyes at a lot of these articles that list out the top 5 ways you can make better habits, or how the Über People of the world get stuff done. Most of us are not able to live on 4 hours sleep and wake up at 4 am to start writing a business plan.
I wake up and have to walk the Labradors. Which I am totally fine with. I like walking the pups with my wife.
So with this caveat in mind, Will and I go through an article on daily habits of high achievers. We talk about those we can relate to and how no one is perfect. Right?
Will does admit to his bad habit of drinking soda, way too much soda.
Will and I also talk a bit about the meditation app that is good for depression, Headspace.
And of course, being solar geeks, we talk more about small solar panel projects, because we can.
Eric: Hey, how you doing? Thanks for downloading the show. My name is Eric. This is GardenFork Radio. thanks for coming back. There's more and more people coming back. That's kinda neat. if this is your first time here, this is me, Eric, the kind of eclectic DIY guy. I mean whatever comes into my head, I make a video about, and this is the companion podcast, which is an even more all over the place. it's not just a woodworking show, it's, it's more of a backhoe and solar panel show actually. And speaking of that, well Wallace from the weekend, homestead is here. Hello sir.
Will Wallus: Good morning. How are you today?
Eric: I'm good. I'm intrigued by two projects you've done lately, so that's why I thought, why don't you come on the show? And then we both read this one article about daily habits that separate high achievers from everyone else. So I am not a high achiever and you are,
Will Wallus: well, I appreciate the compliment. Thank you.
Eric: Or at least you like mainline red bull or something.
Will Wallus: You know, you just got to get up in the morning and decide what you want to be that day and then work on it all day long. And if you don't make it try again the next day.
Eric: Well that's the thing I think, I don't know where I read this, but I'm, you know, I read some of these, some of these minimalist podcasts and you know how to be better. We're at the world and gets tough done and there's been this movement, I'm sure. I think a lot of these tips and hacks are just kind of re circulated every 10 or 15 years and this one is don't have a list of to do things, have one thing to do and get that one thing done. So it's very similar to your saying get up and start.
Will Wallus: Yeah, I mean, just decide what is the most important thing that you have to do, whether it's someone's relying on you or you're relying on somebody else or you know, something that you have to do because something else has to happen or something you want to finish because you started it the previous day and, you know, just keep working through it and, you know, bring the people in your lives along with you on the journey in it. It, it always works out.
Eric: Yeah. So I struggle with getting things done. I am easily overwhelmed. my sister was visiting and we went to the grocery store. This might be too much information, but I will share it anyway. But I, I cook almost every night. We rarely order food for delivery. I just, I just think it's important to cook. And my sister was visiting and we went to the grocery store and I never know what I'm going to make. I rarely do. And I just kind of look around and go, Oh, maybe I could do this or this or that. And I kind of started to, I wouldn't call it a moment of anxiety, but I would just say I couldn't make a, and my sister didn't know quite what to do. And she's like, well, why can't you just make a decision? I'm like, cause I can't, I'm just having a meltdown in the grocery store.
Will Wallus: You don't want to make the wrong decision.
Eric: Right. So I don't know why I went on this tear, but, Oh, but then there are these people that you read about in the magazines and on the blogs and these new, these life hacker kind of sites about how they get everything done. And I, I think more of us are a hot mess than we are the super efficient people,
Will Wallus: you know, and I know you say that, I can get a lot of things done and I'm, I'm pretty organized. But you know, in all reality, behind the curtain, you're exactly right. Everybody is a hot mess. I mean, I have things that are going very well. I have things that are not going very well and you've just got to, you know, look at things. And I go back to [inaudible] and even looking at this list of the 25 things that they have on the list. Number 25 is, you know, visualize success. I think I said this a dozen times on this podcast and, and when I talk about things in my videos, visualize what the end result is going to be. If you're going to bake a cake, visualize that cake in your head and think, okay, here's what that cake is going to be.
How Will does better habits:
Will Wallus: And then work backwards to the point that you're at and that will give you your to do list of things you need to do to get it done. And then you don't miss anything along the way. And projects, anything in life really falls back to that one. And that's probably the one that I, I think about the most is I think about what I want the end result to be or what I'm trying to achieve and then just work backwards from it. And is there going to be variations and deviations along the way? Sure. But as you're going down that journey to succeeding at whatever you're doing, you just have to learn to adjust and you can't be rigid. And because of that, that's how you can be more successful at, at different things throughout your life. Whether it'd be a big project, a small project, something you need to do in the morning or something that's a life goal for yourself.
Eric: I'll read a quote, it's from inc magazine and I'll put it in the show notes here. It says, the process of visualization is a key part of my daily routine when I'm in bed, in the shower, excuse me, on my way to work. I'm constantly visualizing important calls, meetings and presentations. By playing out those big moments in my head and picturing myself succeeding, I build confidence and I'm able to perform at my best. And that's from ELL, grey of Besky who's the CEO of Maya systems, which I don't know what that is, but anyway, someone that is successful I guess. But yeah, I, I visualize what it's going to look like and I think about how I'm going to do it. And then it's interesting when I'm doing it that that process can change.
Will Wallus: Yeah, and that's the thing I think with a lot of people get caught up on is they get caught up into all the minutia and the details of different things and then when they get, they get set in a rigid path and then all of a sudden a water line breaks or some part is missing or you know something happens along the way to finishing whatever you're trying to succeed at and then they get stuck at that point and they can't get past it. You have to understand that on any journey you're going to have challenges. As long as you're flexible in the process of getting to the end of that journey of whatever it is you'll be successful because you'll make it through. You won't get stuck and I think that's where a lot of people get hooked up on on that one is they're like, Oh, I met this point and I can't get any further. Well let's just work our way around it.
Eric: One of the other things I liked here was start your day switched off. I find there's a lot of value in getting a process set up each morning to clear my head and tee the day up unencumbered by distraction. I avoid email and phones first thing, taking time off to start the day calmly and I exercise every morning to activate my brain and get energized each day. And that's something that everyone can do. You don't have to have a personal trainer for that, you know? I know, I know people look at their phone in bed and I'm not, I, you know, I'm like, I'm not in bed with them, but I just, I can tell because I'm getting messages from them and I'm like, I don't, I don't look at email until the middle of the day.
Will Wallus: So here's a question for you. I think it's like number one, number four and number nine, all say Tea and you just said the word tea. And I'm thinking, okay, Eric's getting teed up for the day. He's making tea. Why do you drink tea instead of coffee?
Eric: Oh, you don't want to see me on coffee! It's, the caffeine is too strong. I have found that the caffeine helps, when I have, when I'm feeling depressed, which is often, and we're going to talk about that actually pretty soon here, but, I love coffee. I absolutely love how it makes me feel, but it makes me feel like there's 110 volt extension cord plugged into the back of my neck, you know, and my brain is sizzing, but I'm like , I can't live that way. So tea has enough caffeine to keep me teed up a bit as for a lack of a better word. But coffee is too strong.
Will Wallus: Interesting. You have a 110 hookup and I have a 220 always hooked up. Right. Three-phase. So,
Eric: and then depressants didn't work for me. what worked for me was a exercise meditation and a little bit of caffeine.
Will Wallus: Do you still use, I know on a couple of podcasts ago, maybe about a year ago, you were talking about the Headspace app. Do you still use that or do you use an app to do
Eric: Oh, I love Headspace. I'm a Headspace evangelist. It's changed my life. So yeah, it's you know, you just have what's called monkey brain. I call it the hamster wheel. And it, I'm able to, I don't have to turn it off, but you're like, you learn to not pay attention. That crap that's going on, that your brain is cranking out. And you also learned that you as a person are not your thoughts and your feelings. You can, and you learn to let go of those thoughts and feelings instead of them running through your head at 4:30 in the morning. You know? So yeah, the Headspace app is great. It is not cheap, but you know, what's an hour therapy cost? You know, it's like, I think the Headspace app is $90 a year or something, its taught Andy who started the app, taught me how to meditate, let me know that it was okay to have thoughts in your head. You're never going to be, your head's never going to completely empty. And now they have a whole section on sleep. And I have a friend who can't sleep at night. Then I'm trying to get them to use the app, but he thinks it's too like hippy woo, you know? And I'm like, no it's not. It's just, you know. So that was a long answer but there you go.
Will Wallus: I'm curious. The article is at 25 simple habits that separate the, the successful achievers from everyone else. I'm curious if we posted this, what everybody else's comments would be on which ones they liked. I mean I said I liked number 25 and you were talking about number four and number nine. I'm curious what everybody else's feedback would be on this.
Eric: Well let's put this on the Facebook group. I'll post it in our show notes there and you can all email us [email protected] about that had, if I was more organized, I would have posted this ahead of time before we did the show. But my other thing is, okay, two thoughts here. I have worked with very wealthy people and very famous people in my life and they are just as much train wrecks as everybody else. And then there's some of them that are laser focused and as soon as I meet them, I can tell that they're like that because they almost look right through you and they're moving onto the next thing. it's very interesting to see that. But I think articles like this are filling space in a magazine or a website and they get a call called a listicle. It has, you know, five ways to be better at this or whatever, you know, and they, they trend very well. They get shared a lot. I shared it with will, you know, and I was like, Hey, let's do this. So, and that, you know, we're, we're not, everyone can do these 25 things and some of them are really like obvious, like get outdoors for physical activity. So we're reading them, but don't you in your car or on the, you're on exercise bike, don't feel like you have to do all these 25. Figure out what works for you. And share that with us: [email protected]
Will Wallus: I'll have to say, I mean I'm glad we picked this article and not the 10, things you need to do to get it in the perfect body for the Christmas season. Cause I mean I was working on that one but I'm glad we picked this one instead.
Eric: Well, Rebecca, our dietitian kind of gave us hints about what to do about that. You know,
Will Wallus: I was interested because I posted that a, a piece about the drinking soda in the garden fork discussion group and I thought, you know, I was just trying to do it a little as a joke, you know, cause they just, it's, it's my bad habit. I, I have a bad habit. I'd just throughout the day I'll grab a can of Coke or you know, a Sprite or some type of carbonated beverage and I just drink it. That's of any of my bad habits. That's the one I, I have a really hard time breaking and a lot of people had some good suggestions on them and I've tried a couple of them this week and it just, it just isn't the same. I don't know what it is, it's just maybe the rhythm or the habit, but you know, when you're around that kind of stuff all the time, it's just really easy to pick it up and go. So I appreciate everybody's feedback on that. But it was a, it's a habit. I think I'd have a hard time breaking.
Eric: Yeah. Like I try not to eat a lot of sugar and part of that is I just don't keep cookies and snacks and stuff in the house, so, but yeah, so, anyway, Rebecca is the garden fork dietician. She was on the show last week or the week before. very interesting about eating better and really simple ways to eat better. So do you have, do you want any, you do you have a instant pot recipe for rice and beans? Cause I'm the ones I'm finding I'm underwhelmed by. So I'm curious if you all have something I'm going to hear from. I know we're going to hear from Kevin who is, the quiet force behind garden fork radio. I liked, I always would get a followup, email from him about all sorts of interesting stuff. So, Hey, real quick here, I was wondering if you wanted to join the garden fork email list.
Now for stuff other than better habits:
Eric: I wanted to jump ahead because on Facebook, on your weekend homestead, Facebook feed and Instagram feed, you posted that you were digging a trench. Was it around a driveway or a building?
Will Wallus: both actually. I have, a garage that was built into a Hill, oddly enough where they did the concrete block around the outside and then the earth was up against the building and then they, they put a roof on top of it and I've always had water in that building always. It's just, it's, it's always there and I'm like, okay, we need to fix this. And in the process it's interesting but we found out that the building had actually never, that concrete block was never attached to the slab. So the earth pushed the block across the slab in some spots, six inches into the building. Yup. Over the years. And when we dug it out and it was a lot of hand digging, I think myself and three other guys hand dug for two days with five gallon buckets, getting the dirt out of there cause you couldn't get equipment in there. And we found out that the reason why the water was getting in is the earth had filled up along the building and then pushed the building over. So then water was getting underneath the block. So we needed to fix that. So that's what that project was.
Eric: And you know what's pushing that is, is the water freezing in the winter? Yup. Because water expands when it freezes and it is very powerful. I had to replace the front wall of my little house upstate. The, the wall just blew in. You know, it just is, it just literally pushed into the basement with cinderblock tumbling and it was like that for years with water running in the front. And that was a lot of work. So I actually have a real fascination with hydrology and drainage and I have a video about French drains, but I was always curious why it's called a French drain and I can't really find any, even like Wikipedia doesn't have much of a background story on that, you know?
Will Wallus: Yeah. I mean really what you're offering water is the path of least resistance cause it'll, it'll take whatever path you have out there. So the idea of a French drain, I don't know the origins of it, I mean probably somewhere in France or something, but the garden fork historian will tell us that. But the, the idea is basically having a area where water can seep into a place and it has an easy path to get out of that place. And that's what we did. We dug down 18 inches along the building and then about 18 inches out and made a cavity below the slab all the way around, put some pea gravel in and then put fabric. Most important, you have to put a fabric in there to keep all the little particulates out of it and then put the tube tube in with the, another piece of fabric over the top of that and then just pitched it the right way all the way around the building.
Will Wallus: And then we went all the way along the side of the driveway cause it always flooded along the driveway also. So I wanted to give kind of a little ditch to get the water out of there. And the hope is, is that it dries out that space cause that garage is eventually going to be my shop because I've committed and I'll have it in, in the ether here and garden fork that I've committed to building a new garage for my wife next year. So that the deal is, is that I could do some work on the current garage to get the water out of it so I can use it as a shop and a maker space. And then she will get a new two car garage in the spring.
Eric: So let me read from Wikipedia. A French drain is a trench filled with gravel or rock or containing a perforated pipe that surface water and groundwater away from an area, a French drink, and have perforated hollow pipes along the bottom to quickly vent water that seeps down through the upper gravel. French drains are primarily used to prevent ground and surface water from penetrating or damaging building foundations or as an alternative to open ditches, our storm sores for streets and highways. So yeah, basically it's a trench and then in the bottom of it you put some gravel because the gravel has airspace around it. And then a drain pipe that has usually holes drilled along the bottom third of the pipe. So there's a trough in there and that is covered with some sort of filter material. They sell like a sock. It looks like a really long tube sock that you can slide over.
Eric: Drain pipe and water seeks the easiest path. So if the water is in dirt and it finds that, Oh, there's this open space, it will follow that. And you can, most people try and do it like I think a quarter inch per foot or so as far as a pitch and make it go somewhere or you can put it into a dry, well if you're working with a flat area that you can't drain away, I mean the drywall is like a three foot wide hole in the ground that's four or five feet deep and you fill it with a rock that has again airspaces around it or they make dry Wells out of cement and plastic. It's a big open barrel with a top on it and you will pipe the drain pipe into that dry well. The water collects there and slowly percolates into the soil.
Will Wallus: Interesting item on the drywall. for a person who's considering it, I suggest taking a five gallon bucket, filling it with water, digging a hole, and then dumping water into that hole. And what'll happen is you have to see how fast it drains away. If you come back two days later and that water is still there, you're probably going to have to put a solid floor in that drywall and put a pump in there because the water doesn't what's called perk tester perk away from the area that the water is in. So if you are having an interest in doing something like this, a simple test would be dig a hole in the ground, dump some water in it and see how long it takes before it drains away. If it takes a long time, you might have to think of some more aggressive things to do versus if it drains away right away, you, you could probably get away with the easier route.
Eric: So when you dug away from the back wall, the cinder block garage wall, did you then put a waterproofing material on the garage, the cinder block wall before you filled it back in?
Will Wallus: Yeah. Actually I completely forgot to even take photo or video of that part cause we were just kind of cruising along. But have you ever seen the material they use for rubber roofs? You know, I had a big, I have a rubber roof. Okay. So I bought a 20 by 20 sheet of that and then we cut it into, I would say probably 24 inch sections. So now I have these long strips that are 20 feet long and are two feet tall. And what we did was, we hammer drilled along the top of the block and basically put a skirt on the building and then draped that rubber material along the edge of the block. And then along the seam of the foundation down underneath to the bottom of where the French drain is. So then any water that comes towards the building will come down on the wall, hit that and they get directed into the French drain versus directed into the building.
Will Wallus: And then we took something called Roof Jack. It's this bucket of tar material, which by the way wear clothes that you don't care about cause you will never ever get this stuff off of there. And we, applied Roof Jack to the underside of the building and then we stuck the rubber material to it and made basically a little redirect on the side of the building. And that rubber was pliable enough that it went around to all of the oddities of the block because after 50 years of that block moving, it's not nice and smooth. It's very jagged and, and a wavy and that a rubber just adhered right to it and the roof Jack made it stick and now the whole underside of the building is sealed, which will hopefully keep even more water out.
Eric: I think the material you're using is called EPD M the roofing material could very well be, it's also used to line the bottom of a shower stalls and stuff. Have you put it like a tile shower? Stalin?
Will Wallus: Yeah, no, it's a, it's an interesting material and the trick with it, and I learned this from the guy at the home improvement store was he said, I know that you're working in an area that's kind of cold, leave it in your house and let it stay warm, cut it and then go out and install it. He said once it starts to really cool down and if it gets cold, it gets really hard to cut and it bends and sometimes it'll crack and it'll have brittle spots in it if it's a cold when you put it on. He said if you put it on and it's warm, it works a lot better. So that's what we did. We left it in the sunroom for, you know, a day or two to really warm it up and then it just, it kind of just stuck almost like saran wrap to the building.
Eric: Yeah, they use it also to a waterproof around windows. When you're putting in a new window, you know, you've got the w the frame, the two by four frame of the window hall. You put this material all the way around. I learned this from this old house and then you put those slide the window in from the outside and then you put more material around that window and it works quite well.
Will Wallus: Yep. They actually make rolls specifically for windows that are like six inches or eight inches. Why this stuff was huge. I mean it was a two person lift to pick up the container because it's supposed to cover, you know, 200 square foot roof and we cut it into little strips but you know, it's it, they didn't make a material for what we were doing, so we just found a material that would work.
Eric: You know, my other thought here is that you use that kind of black slinky pipe, right? Yup. But I'm on my French drain video people. There are people that complain about that pipe saying that it deteriorates or crushes very easily. And I've never seen that. But I'm wondering if anyone out there knows about that or do you?
Will Wallus: Well, I will say that I had that same concern, but the one thing that I looked at was where we were putting this, if you ever looked at any of the pictures that I posted, the space between the garage and the house or the, between the garage and where the earth is, is so small, the likelihood of anybody walking over the top of that space or vehicles driving over it or going through a yard, it's never gonna happen. So when we got around to the outside where the edge of the building is, and then all of a sudden I went down the driveway, I changed from the slinky pipe to the plastic pipe, the solid stuff where people would be walking. So that then I actually saved myself probably about 30% on the project by putting the slinky pipe in around the area where nobody would walk an old you putting the hard pipe in where people would be. So it's one of those things where I just, I don't wanna say cut the corner, but it was one of the things to keep the, the budget in line cause we just, you know, can't necessarily just make everything super expensive. Sometimes you have to take the easier path and it works just as well.
Eric: Oh the Wikipedia page here is a pretty detailed, I mean usually Wikipedia is like talking about English history or something like that, but whoever, whoever edited this thing did a deep dive on French drains here.
Will Wallus: Someone is a French drain expert out there and they're like, I'm in charge of the Wikipedia page.
Eric: Yeah. It because literally it was edited on September 20th, 2019 that was the last time it was edited. So that's like, Holy cow, maybe I should put a link on this page to my YouTube channel.
Will Wallus: You know, I never really thought about using Wikipedia for a DIY projects to look up at history or look at information. You know, I'll, I'll do some searches online on Google and stuff like that. But I had never really thought to do a deeper dive into the house. And the wisest, something known how it works before you even get into it.
Eric: One of the footnote references is to a book called guidelines on the construction of horizontal subsurface drainage systems.
Will Wallus: Right. That's a page Turner. That author really writes some good stuff.
Eric: Yeah, I got that. One of my, nightstands. Yeah.
Will Wallus: Perfect.
Eric: the garden fork radio podcast is brought to you by the garden fork patrons. Those are people that really liked the show and make a monthly contribution. I don't know if you've heard of Patrion before, but that's the service that we use for this. You can sign up for $3 a month, $5 a month, 10 really whatever you want. if you are strapped for cash, do not send me cash. Okay. But, you know, $3 cup of coffee, $5 is not a latte. I don't drink lattes. But, anyway, what I do in return is you have my eternal thanks. And I also post some behind the scenes stuff. photos of stuff I'm working on. I have, I call it the woods walk. I'm usually in the woods, but just about every, I do an audio recording, it's like a custom podcast for my patrons.
Eric: And you can listen to that by email or I think you can do an RSS feed or it'll show up in the Patreon app, which is I think a really cool app to use to keep up with garden fork and coming when I get my active to set it up is video. So some, some exclusive behind the scenes video stuff of what I'm working. Like I worked with my tractor this weekend and I didn't make a video about it, but the garden for patrons knew about it, you know, so, so it's that kind of thing. I moved a lot of, well there was a dead white pine. We cut up and I had to move it and the tractor was working very well for that. Anyway, information about that is in the show notes to the show here. You can go to patreon.com/garden fork and check that out. I would appreciate you considering that. All right, back to the show.
Eric: So the last thing I was thinking about is you were building another little solar system with a insulated battery box.
Will Wallus: Yes. Yes. A solar panel system number two is a one I'm working on right now and my maker space slash garage, there leaks. It doesn't anymore. It's been dry ever. ever since we've done this. But we also haven't had any rain cause it's 10 degrees outside right now. But that's a whole nother topic. Yes. no. So I, last year I built a box that how's two batteries in it and I used it to run my solar panel system up in my pole barn where in Wisconsin it gets cold in the winter time and batteries, they don't mind the cold, but when it gets, you know, 10 degrees outside or 30 below, it gets challenging. So I was trying to think of how do I make a space where I don't want to heat the whole pole barn, but could I heat a space for the batteries?
Will Wallus: And what I did was we built an insulated box that had, insulated a foam, two inch paneling in it on the bottom of top and all the sides and basically made a miniature Yeti cooler, if you're familiar with that brand of super insulated cooler. And then I have sealed batteries that don't off gas that I put inside of that box. Well now I have those by those batteries contained in a small space. I'm trying to think, well how am I going to heat that little space cause you don't want to put something that has a flame in there and everybody because then you have to deal with fuel and so on and batteries warm. Yup. So I came up with this little trick and so far it's been working really well for us, which is actually stealing something from garden fork. You guys had a video about using the seed, starting electric mat.
Will Wallus: And so I bought one because I was going to start some seeds and I never started them ever because they just, for whatever reason, I never got to it. And, I had it in the garage so I hooked it up to what's called a kilovolt or a kilowatt, which is this little meter that reads how much power something's using. Cause when you have something in solar you will always need to make sure you know how much power is being used and what the draw is because you don't want to overuse your system. So I plugged in the seed starting mat and I let it run for a couple of days to see what the test results would be of how much power it used. And it didn't use very much power. So then I took an idea from another garden fork post that you guys had about thermostatic switches, which is an electric switch that only turns on when the temperature falls below a certain temperature.
Will Wallus: And I put the seed starting Matt and that together and put it inside of the box. And then I put it out on my driveway for a week in January in Wisconsin. And I put a little thermometer in there that read the high temperature and the low temperature inside and out. And what it did over that week was it was 10 2030 below outside, but the average temperature inside the box over that week was 30 degrees. Oh cool. Now I have a super insulated heated space and I looked at the power usage and it was less than a 10 watt light bulb. So in all reality, that box was able to hold the temperature and my batteries had so much power in them and my panels would refresh it at such a rate that I would never run out of power because ultimately there would always be some sunlight to charge a little bit to make up for the light bulb that would be used inside of that space. And so I've been, I've now had batteries that stayed above temperature for the last year in my pole barn. Fast forward to today. Now I'm making the second version of that for a project I have out in the woods called pine cone camp. I'm putting power out there and I've kind of come up with a new design for the box to do basically the same thing.
Eric: Sweet. Yeah, I saw that and I was like, I don't know, I just kind of am big into solar. So I was like, Ooh, Ooh. Another thing to build.
Will Wallus: Well, here's the interesting trick on this one is I wanted it out in the woods and I was trying to figure out a way, do you like clad the outside of the box with some metal or do you, you know, put a some vinyl siding on it or something to protect the box? Because the one in my pole barn, it never gets wet or rainy or anything like that because it's inside the building. This one would be outside in the elements and I happen to be walking through Costco and I saw one of those, I don't know what they're called. LifeProof or lifetime benches that you'd put like your cushions in for your patio furniture.
Eric: Oh yeah, those outdoor I D they're from this, they're from the boating community. They'd been transferred to the backyard. They're like a waterproof storage tub.
Will Wallus: Yeah, it's like a a a locker, like a, a little bench locker thing. And I measured the inside of it and I figured out that I could fit the battery box and the equipment inside of that box. So I bought one and I'm modifying that plastic box cause that's for the most part Rhoden proof for the most part. Yeah. And I'm putting the plywood box with all the installation, everything inside. So out in the wilderness it'll just look like there's a random LifeProof box, you know, sitting out in the woods and when you open it up inside will be all of the components for the the solar panel. And then I just trenched in from underneath where all the wires go out to the building. So it just looks like a little yard box out there. But actually houses the heated battery container for the solar stuff.
Eric: Well good for you man. Soon you can. You can put your electric meter and just live out there alone.
Will Wallus: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someday. Huh? Probably my wife likes to use the hairdryer and that's just, that's challenging.
Eric: Yes it is. The lights dim in my house on that thing turns on. So, so a, I think people have reached their destination here, but we do have a new iTunes review. Let's hear it. You can, write a review right from the podcast app. If you have an iPhone. I'm not sure if you can do it from an Android phone, but, I think everyone has an iPhone, right? Right. Anyway, it's by, okay. A and I read the, and I wonder who O K eight is at Oklahoma eight or O K eight is what's that call where they like kinda like the license plates. They're trying to spell out a word and using the letters and numbers and stuff. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You're talking about, sorry. It says down to earth and informative. Five stars by O K eight.
Eric: I absolutely love this podcast and videos Eric and friends provide an entertaining and easy to listen to show every week. It's rare to find a podcast my kids can also listen to in the car. I've had to edit out some stuff. So, my five-year-old even talked to her kitten guard, sorry, my five year old even talked to her at dinner, kindergarten class about the process of making maple syrup solely due to Eric's videos. There was a big heart there. Keep up the great work. Yeah, there you go. Neat. That's awesome. So we're spreading the word that kindergarten classes, those are future listeners of garden fork.
Will Wallus: That is, you know, it's amazing to know where your stuff goes. Like you post something online and you get a response from somebody in it and you look at it and you're like, well, I would've never thought that would end up there. But you never know where stuff goes. It always ends up in great places. So
Eric: the maple syrup questions are starting to come in.
Will Wallus: I can't believe that. I mean, we're not even to Christmas yet, usually. Isn't that something that happens in January?
Eric: Right. But I mean, I'm even thinking about it like I want to fine tune my reverse osmosis system, you know, so I'm going to email the guy that wrote the how to about it and I'm going to ask him questions.
Will Wallus: That'd be interesting. I'd be interested to see how that works and how that system, if it really cuts down on the amount of time you spend, because you can spend a lot of time boiling down maple syrup outside and you know, people get into it and they get, Oh I got 700 gallons of SAB. Like, okay, but you know how much boiling that is you have to do. So hopefully that system, you know, knocks that down a little bit and make it easier for folks.
Eric: Oh yeah, I'm well I hope it will cost a couple of dollars there. All right, so there you go. Radio at garden fork dot GV search for us on Facebook. There'll be all the links for my world and Will's world in the show notes here and go out and do cool stuff. All right, thank you.
photo source: Wikimedia DoD photo by Lance Cpl. Claudia Palacio, U.S. Marine Corps/Released. Pinterest exercise bike image by Tom Chapman via flickr, creative commons license
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