evan's ant village log

More plans for AVA ! Yay ! This is good fodder for sleepless nights in New York. I can't wait to get out there and see the land in person. I am sure my mind will be blown!

Thanks for the fermentation advice, Nicole! I hope the ducks like garlicky-kraut-flavored feed.

Alan, the ducks are certainly a commitment in time, energy, and money, but the joy they bring me alone is worth it. The ducks will hopefully this spring begin providing eggs and eventually meat, and some even more valuable services they've already provided and continue to provide include: fertilizing, pest and weed control, and improved water retention via pond and puddle sealing. The department of ducks is a valuable ally and can't be blamed for my choice to sleep under a tarp.

Sue and Ron, yep, Kew Zealand is Sharla's Kewtopian semi-nomadic territorial claim.

Sean, I'm glad you're enthused! See you in a few weeks!

Days 300-304 (part 5)

Truly Garden sent a bunch of hori-hori knives to Wheaton Labs. I'm super excited to try mine out come spring! Thanks Truly Garden!

The data is finally in from the Abbey thermal inertia experiment! Check out these graphs! Blue lines represent indoor temp while red represents outdoor temp.

Ah, thanks for the clarification re Kew Zealand.
So do the graphs say that the mass is still "eating" the heat from inside the Abbey?

Waaaaaaa! You were born today, years ago! What a glorious day to celebrate! sending you a public display of affection, and wishes for merriment for your next voyage around the sun!

That's an interesting experiment you have going there. What really stands out to me are the day/night swings of indoor temperature even when the temperature outside is consistently less than temperature inside.

Sue and John, my speculation is that the mass was warmer several inches deep into the walls and was slowly leaking heat into the space while the cold outside was simultaneously sucking heat out, and those little hills and valleys represent a sort of balancing act. I bet if the mass was more deeply charged, (like multiple summers from now,) then we'd see a similar 5-10 degree fluctuation in the interior air temperature throughout a winter's day, (just somewhere in the 60s maybe.) But I don't really know. Maybe folks in the Abbey thread have a better understanding of the physics involved.

Carol-Anne! Thanks so much for the birthday well wishes! I hope everything is glorious and lovely with you and I hope you come out to the labs again soon! Ant village misses you!

Day 305

'Twas my birthday. Phone calls and birthday greetings from friends amd family, and my brother Gabe became our newest Patreon patron! Thanks Gabe!

Sharla and I went to Jerry Johnson hot springs! A most relaxing and beautiful day.

There were three different sources where folks had piled up rocks to make little pools.

The first pool was down a rather steep and treacherous path and had a waterfall of almost unbearably hot water pouring right out of the side of the mountain. This was the nearest to the creek and when we were there the creek was swollen from snow-melt and overflowing into the pool. The water was stratified into layers with comfortably warm water on top and freezing cold water below, so mostly this first pool was both too hot, (under the waterfall,) and too cold, (everywhere else,) for a really comfortable soak.

The third pool was comfortably warm, nestled amongst huge fallen trees, and had perhaps the best views of the surrounding snow-covered hillsides.

But the middle pool was the best. Surrounding and surrounded by giant boulders, this pool was the warmest, and the silty-sandy floor seemed to be heated from below, with the occasional little streams of bubbles rising up to the surface.

I lost a chicken to a bobcat at midday a couple of days ago, while I was looking right at them through the window. It came through my human infested yard and snapped up Cookie, my oldest hen. A nice barred rock, still laying the occasional egg in her fifth year. Our ecosystem is diverse and thriving, and it is a lot of work to keep delicious birds alive.

I take my hori hori knife out with me on my belt even in the snow. I use it to cut small prickery branches out of the way and the measurement markings ate good for giving scale on Marie photos, like of tracks or scat or mushrooms.

Happy happy birthday!

Thanks Matu! Those all sound like good reasons to keep my hori hori knife on me. My nature photos thus far have tended to be pretty contextless, so it will probably help to show some scale in future photos.

Day 306

Jim, Kai, Sharla, and I all met up at the Missoula Winter Farmer's Market, and afterwards we went to the library for the seed swap! They had a talk on mason bees, and another on seed saving. And while some of the organizers seemed enthusiastic and grateful for the tree seeds Kai brought, which included black locust and honey locust, some of them seemed quite offended at the idea of these "invasives." All in all, though, it was an information rich event filled with lots of nice local folk excited about seeds and gardening!

Day 307

Cut a branch off a non-fruit-bearing apple tree in the hopes of using it for wood-carving. It's not very thick so I'll have to make fairly small things out of it.

Did some more bark peeling. So far I've only been doing one log every other day, but I think I can pick up the pace. This latest log I peeled had some strange pockets of juicier areas just under the surface. Maybe sap starting to build up in places? More data points needed. One thing about starting my log-peeling and collecting this early is that with any luck I'll find out just when the sap starts flowing and it starts getting easier. That'll be good to know.

As the spot it had been sitting on was plenty well fertilized at this point, we moved the duck ark over to Kailarado.

Seed swapping is so cool. We have a thriving group going in our region and have recently dispersed small seed banks around the province to aid access to the seeds between seedswap meetings, (or seed trafficking as one of our wwoofers called it ). I hardly need to buy seeds any more...just new and exciting things ....which I can then share with others.