Planners and participants at the Willits Energy Farm understand that the following winter months are intended to be used for infrastructure development. Thus, the goal for this winter is to ready the farm site to maintain spring crops. The fence is a big part of this infrastructure. Once completed, it should offer the site protection from deer and rabbits that frequent the farm space. Two other projects on the table are an irrigation system and a storage space for tools and equipment. Together with the perimeter fence these three projects are the minimum that is needed to initiate and maintain new crops.

This week there had been discussion regarding a shed that would be used to store the tools. However, after more consideration it seemed that the timing of the tool shed was a little premature. It is true that we need to store tools and other farm equipment, but until the irrigation system is solidified it will be hard to find a suitable long-term location for a shed. After a bit more thought, I suggested creating a tool box that could be locked and possibly even chained to the fence.

A tool box offers us a couple of quick benefits that a full shed does not. A box is low cost, highly portable, and can be assembled in relatively short order. I plan to acquire a majority of the wood from scrap piles of lumber that have been ripped from houses in the middle of remodeling projects. There are already two such houses in the neighborhood.

The dimensions of the tool box are as follows: 3ft tall, a length of 6ft, and a width of 4ft. This should be plenty of room for a mix of tools and is even able to store the scythe, probably one of the longest tools we have at the moment.

Remodeling project with piles of scrap wood