Phil Stevens

When there's a high proportion of leaves and small twiggy material, it's what we call ramial. This is actually the most highly sought after variety of wood chips for general garden purposes because it will break down faster than plain wood and bark. The only downsides are the way the twigs clump together, making it harder to scoop, and the stabby nature you pointed out. A fork gets around the first problem, and good gloves will protect you from the second one.

I'd bet it's almost certainly not quicklime, since that's not generally available to the public in this country for health and safety reasons. Concrete and masonry contractors can get it. The process of slaking quicklime (which is how we get slaked lime) involves mixing it with water, and the reaction releases a fair bit of heat, so you'd definitely know if that was what you had ;-)

Good investigative angles, Carla. I use rainwater and enough lime that it eventually settles out on the bottom in a layer about 2-3 cm thick. I always inspect the eggs before they go in, and I saw more cracked eggs at the top of the "stack." I also don't stack them as deep as I used to...maybe 6-8 layers, and then I start a new bucket.

Kia ora Josie, and haere mai ki permies. I had the exact same problem this past year, with probably 2/3 or more of the eggs developing hairline cracks and going bad. I keep the buckets in the garage or a shady spot next to the front porch, so I don't think they're getting too warm. It's weird, because I've preserved eggs this way for a few years now and this is the first time I've had this sort of failure rate.

We haven't finished with heating season yet, but when all is said and done we'll have used about 8 m3, or just a bit over 2 cords. I prefer denser hardwoods like wattle and blackwood, and use pallet pieces to get things going since they tend to be nice dry pine.

Any plans to try some mixes with fireclay to see if you can get closer to replicating that strength?

Not sure about eggplant ID...that looks suspiciously like a Physalis of some sort. Any flowers yet?

If anything, the close-packed arrangement of the cells is a detriment to performance and longevity, because the big enemy of LiFePO is heat. Cramming cells into a compact package reduces their ability to dissipate heat (and also the opposite, which can be an issue where you are, because they cannot be charged if they drop below freezing). I think this gives you an advantage if you're thinking about a DIY battery, because you could get creative with the layout for better thermal performance at both ends of the scale.