Fred's photos from Wheaton Labs

Inge, I had the door sitting on top of the stove while i was doing ash maintenance. Someone walked by and knocked the cob door down onto the floor. I'm sure it would have kept working for quite some time, otherwise.

Coydon Wallham wrote:I'd also be interested to hear any estimates of the temperatures it took to burn out the straw and/or how low it was kept where the straw persisted...

Our experiment was more along the lines of "let's see if this even works". I'm sure someone else has done the kind of experiment you are talking about, but this was not that. Long ago when the door was a glass casserole dish cover, we took temp readings...after they started exploding. Those numbers might be in Jen's thread? Josiah made a video of the temps on the cooktop. Normal running the stove gives about 1000° F at the hottest spot. At that temp you can stand at the stove and cook. When i was doing the high heat test...i didn't want to be within 3 feet of the cooktop. How those numbers translate to the door, i can't say.

Hans,
A handle might help with opening and closing, but it might also just be a place people can burn themselves. I never had a problem handling the door...it stayed cool enough around the edges. With the current cast iron door...a hotpad is needed to grab the handle. As far as adding strength...just don't drop the door from heights.

On to today's post...

Here's the last few mushroom photos from before the snow.

The first photo is orange peel fungus (Aleuria aurantia). This fungus is so variable in its appearance i wouldn't be surprised if it gets divided into several species as more research is done. It is edible, but usually eaten for its texture (chewy) rather than flavor (bland). I guess i wasn't paying that close of attention, because it wasn't until sorting through photos on my computer that i noticed the tiny white mushrooms growing out of a leaf skeleton (and/or the wings of some yellow dock seeds) near the base of this mushroom. I'll have to keep an eye on that area next year.

The last two photos are of a coral fungus i stumbled upon in a rotten old stump. First a pine tree grew. Then it was cut down for lumber some years ago. A fungus degraded the wood left behind. Carpenter ants or termites made their home in the stump. A bear or other such hungry animal tore open the stump to get the bugs living in it. THEN this fungus moved in to break down the wood even more. My search to even determine what genus this mushroom was did not leave me enlightened. There are many coral fungi and many look similar to this one.

I baked a couple more loaves of 100% whole grain sourdough bread. The first photo shows two loaves i made in cast iron bread pans. The one on the left was open and the one on the right was baked with a lid on for the beginning of the bake. The texture of the crust comes out better with the lid. I used a knife to score the top of these and it wasn't very effective on the open loaf.

The next day i baked a couple more loaves, shown in the second photo. I baked these in my cast iron dutch oven (with a lid). These are for Grey to use. He will make stuffing for thanksgiving tomorrow. I let these get a little stale for that. I also got a clean new razor from my safety razor kit and used that to score the tops. It worked much better than the knife.

Today I made a vegan pecan pie! I harvested the pecans at my mom's house in NM. Stephen and Daniel worked on the crust, following the recipe in the Veganomicon. Stephen's first time rolling and pinching a crust. Turned out pretty good. Maybe the pie pan was too shallow, or there was too much filling, or the oven was too warm, but the filling bubbled out quite a bit. It was only supposed to bubble a little, but instead bubbled a lot and covered over the decorative pecans that topped the pie. I'm sure it will still taste delicious.

Here's what i made today for thanksgiving:

I made mashed sweet potatoes. I mixed in some canned coconut milk and vegan butter for extra creaminess. I topped them with maple candied pecans i made early.

I made roasted brussels sprouts with a maple mustard glaze.

I made a casserole with caramelized onions, winter squash, and white beans. It called for chestnuts, but i substituted walnuts i harvested in NM. It had a bread crumb topping made from the sourdough i made for the stuffing. Recipe from the Veganomicon.

We had a oven bottleneck with too many pies, so my blueberry pie didn't even get in the oven until well after dinner. We ran out of pie pans, so i went rectangular. The filling bubbled over the crust a bit. Here's a before and after picture.

I enjoy learning about all the stuff around me and trying to figure out what it is that i've captured in a photograph. But, sometimes it is enough just to enjoy the beauty of it. I liked this poem by mary oliver that  i found:

Snowy Night

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.

-mary oliver

One of the last to change color for fall is the western larch (Larix occidentalis). Larch is a deciduous conifer, losing its needles each fall. We were a few weeks later this year with the peak color and start of needle drop. Larch can live around 1000 years and reach 160 ft or so. Unfortunately, none of ours are close to that. Though, two of the biggest trees on my plot are larch. They were spared in the most recent logging. The grain can twist quite a bit as they grow and so do not make great lumber. They are brittle in tension and strong in compression. That means they can make a good post, but not a good beam. Over the lab i would guess they make up about 3 percent of the canopy. I'm sure there is much more to know of the larches. I will keep watching them and enjoying what i learn...and enjoy knowing there is more than i can know.

The first four photos are of various larch on the lab.

The next two are close ups of the branches. I missed the window to photograph these at peak golden-ness, and these have faded a little.

Then there's a branch that has lost its needles. It has distinctive nubs along the branch tips. These are where the needles grow out each year. Each time a little farther from the branch. These allow for easy identification in the winter and distinguish such a tree from a dead standing fir or pine.

The eighth photo is a branch with a cone attached. These mature cones can hang onto the branch for a few years until they weather enough to fall off.

The last photo is of the golden carpet of needles that collects under these trees in the fall.

Grabbed the memory card from the game cam on my plot. Looks like i had a bear visit several days after i found the tracks near the teepee.

A couple of big deer passed through my plot after it snowed.

I noticed that the south faces of the hugels at the abbey have largely melted free of snow. We made microclimates. I'm curious how these microclimates will look in the spring. Right now they don't have a protective snow blanket, so when it gets down to 0° F the soil gets a lot colder. I noticed this planting seeds on ZoeLand yesterday. The places with snow, i could get the shovel full depth. The places with exposed soil, i could get the shovel in about half and inch.

Will these south faces end up ready to grow stuff sooner or later than everything else?  A couple of years ago, when he was building nearby, Clayton observed that the sun scoop at the lemon tree site held snow much longer than the area surrounding it. I will have to observe these berms more closely in the spring.

Fred Tyler wrote:I noticed that the south faces of the hugels at the abbey have largely melted free of snow. We made microclimates. I'm curious how these microclimates will look in the spring. Right now they don't have a protective snow blanket, so when it gets down to 0° F the soil gets a lot colder. I noticed this planting seeds on ZoeLand yesterday. The places with snow, i could get the shovel full depth. The places with exposed soil, i could get the shovel in about half and inch.

Will these south faces end up ready to grow stuff sooner or later than everything else?  A couple of years ago, when he was building nearby, Clayton observed that the sun scoop at the lemon tree site held snow much longer than the area surrounding it. I will have to observe these berms more closely in the spring.

I'm super interested in these effects. My climate is so mild and suited for year-round growing, but when you get extreme temperatures and drought the equation differs tremendously. I'm also curious if my mild climate could implement microclimates in such a way that I could grow tropical fruit typically only grown in zone 10-12. I keenly look forward to your reflections on your observations.

I'm interested to hear more about the protective snow blanket effect. It's presence in the landscapes around me seems to be diminishing lately. Why would the sun scoop preserve it longer?

Coydon, what i imagine happens is that in the early winter the south face of the berms retains some residual heat and also is at such an angle to catch more direct sun. This has a short term effect of being a warmer spot and melting the snow. As winter proceeds those areas without snow will be more exposed to the extreme cold of deep winter. At some point, as the sun diminishes, the berm will pass a tipping point and the effect of extra sunshine will be negated by the extra cold. Those spots will chill to the point that they can no longer melt the snow. When that happens, the snow will start to accumulate, trapping in the cold under a insulative blanket. Depending on the length of time until a substantial snow, they could become much colder than the surrounding soil. When the surrounding air temp rises in spring, those areas that were exposed to the coldest temps in winter will work to preserve the snow, chilling it from below. I'm guessing  this is what happened when Clayton saw the sun scoop with melt resistant snow.  

When i was visiting ZoeLand (on the northern end of the meadow) the other day, i noticed the buds on the ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) trees. Many  trees there have low branches, making it easy to examine them. The trees are ready for next year. They have used the energy from the end of summer to grow the buds of next years growth (like most trees).

The first photo shows the tight bundle of scales covering next years new branch tip and needles.

The second photo show a similar branch, but this one has the tip surrounded by the buds that will become male pollen cones next year. These are usually on lower branches. The female seed cones will be concentrated near the top of the tree, to help with seed dispersal.  I didn't climb up to get that photo...this time.

The third photo is the side view. Here you can see next years growth as a bud, this years growth as fresh needles, last years growth as darker needles, and on the bottom you can see the bare bark growth from two years ago. Further up the branch the bark had easily distinguished growth marks going back ten years. Beyond that is was difficult to discern the yearly growth.

Lichens!

I think i could get lost zooming into the worlds of lichen on a single branch.

These photos are of lichen growing on ponderosa pine branches. Most lichen grows rather slowly, so some of these could be several years old.

In the first photo i see four or maybe five different lichens in just a couple of inches of this branch.

In the second and third photos i see five or maybe six different lichens.