greg mosser

it was! luckily our fire department got here pretty fast, and that wood stove is so tight that the fire was basically out by the time they got here just from shutting down the stove all the way.

i’ve been happy to brush it myself ever since!

before the first winter we were here, we hired a local professional chimney company to come inspect and clean our chimney. they did some stuff from the bottom that as far as i can remember did not involve removing the jotul wood stove that was here. they did their thing and left. i don’t know how long it been since it had been properly cleaned.

come 2am on new year’s day, we have a chimney fire from a heavy amount of accumulated creosote! dry wood, normal use, in mountain north carolina, not the frozen north. so i bought a brush and used it the next day, deciding to try to clean it out every couple months. it’s since become just once a year, between heating seasons. have never seen anything like the amount of creosote from that first cleanout. i think the pro’s just didn’t actually do anything.

having lived for a time on the navajo reservation, i am a big fan of mutton. it’s not the only way i feel like the odd man out in american culture! slowly preparing for the eventual introduction of sheep to my home system.

also worth noting - these pears are prone to split themselves to bits - they form really tight-angled crotches and have just the right kind of brittleness. it’s rare to see one above a certain age that hasn’t been intentionally pruned for longevity.

Timothy Norton wrote:A little nutmeg in savory dishes is a favorite of mine. I was confused why historically American colonists back in the ye olden times used nutmeg in nearly everything so I tried it. It just gives it a little something something. Use it sparingly, it works well with cheesy dishes too.

similar to this, a bit of star anise in something like a chicken noodle soup can be a big (but not fully identifiable) change.

i think the word is ‘rogue’.

three of my blueberry bushes did a late-ish bloom this year (i think in early july? there’s been a lot going on). i’ve eaten ripe berries off one of them.

i too make a fair amount of hot sauce, both vinegar-based recipes and the kind with fermented peppers (and hybrids!), but if i’m purchasing it, my long-time favorite is Marie Sharp’s from belize, specifically the green habanero/nopal cactus one.

i agree that acorns smell amazing - and most species smell different from each other!

northern red oak is kinda borderline oily enough to press for oil, and i wouldn’t expect a piteba to do much against them, even if you could find a way to grate them up into fine threads. the tannins are water-soluble, not oil-, so one can press unleached acorns and get good non-tannic oil, but it’s super fiddly, even using an originally $10,000 press like we do at the nuttery. there’s so much starch in them and amount of oil is so low (as opposed to the more commonly pressed nuts like walnuts and hickories) that it’s easy to accidentally scorch them just from the heat that builds up without all that much pressure. and they’re pretty hard, so it takes a fair amount of pressure. southern reds have more oil (and generally have an orange-colored kernel because of it) but i can’t imagine that’s what you’re dealing with.

collecting them green definitely the way - they just turn brown when dried for storage.

ripe cantaloupe. they love it. their noses are very good though - it pays to make sure you don’t actually touch the trap with bare skin, since they seem to be able to pick out the smell of human skin oils.

that family is so cool. i like how so far, these guys look like a cross between a ground cherry and a litchi tomato.