Day 5: Building Outside the Lines by: Ethan

 Today we went and visited with “Cappie” at his beautiful place. A little backstory on who Cappie is; he has a TV show called “Building Outside the Lines”. Cappie and his daughter Alex(also called Sprout on the tv show) go out to places in their community with their creative minds and create things people would never think of. Anything from more primitive type houses to a pool made from a shipping container. He has a team alongside him and Sprout helping make these things happen. I have watched his show prior to this trip and was very excited when I heard we were visiting him. The show airs on the Magnolia Network. You can also see some of his creations here.

When we first got to his place we had to wait a minute before he got there but when he got there he invited us over to sit down and we started talking. We talked about where we were from and we talked about agriculture and how different it is. Then he answered some questions that some of us had. Some questions were like what got him started, what was his first project, and what is his background. Interestingly, Cappie was in the military, has traveled to all 50 states and over 40 different countries. 

First he took us over to Sprouts treehouse that they built together. The treehouse was a cement mixer barrel stood up straight on top of a piece of a crane arm that was concreted down 10 ft. There is a sky light in the roof and LED lights. After that, he took us over to one of his Airbnb’s that was fully self sustained. It was made out of local wood like pine and a clay mixture. The insulation was straw from straw bales and insulated very well. The house has solar panels on the roof that provide a sufficient amount of energy for the house. 

After we got done in the house we went back over and talked more about what Florida is like. We shared so many funny stories and facts. Earlier in the day, Mrs. Hamilton gave everyone a slip of paper with a fact about Florida Agriculture on it. Anything from how cotton is grown in North Florida and is the country’s leader in non-edible crops. All the way to Hillsborough County being the winter strawberry capital of the world. We brought Cappie some Florida- related things that matched the facts we shared with him. One of the items was a strawberry cookbook that we all signed. 

All together this was a great stop and a very memorable one. We learned some very cool things like how he built certain things. We all had a great time and I think he enjoyed having us as well. Thank you Cappie for having us! This was my favorite stop for sure!