Abraham Palma

I'd give you an apple for that lovely story, but I don't know if chatGPT eats apples.

r ranson wrote:I think beads would be fun to play with.

Not sure how well they stand up to wear and tear.  I don't have any occasion to wear a fancy dress and for that much effort, I want something I can wear.  Sort of fantasy-practical-historybounding kind of deal.

That's why I'm thinking of spinning the silk yarn to be textured.  Either slubs or wrapped like a caterpillar yarn.  Thin and thick probably, but I would need to sample.  

Glass beads can be wore as an accessory, for the ocassion. It may even be attached in a way that suggests -more stylized- shapes of the body.

Beautiful project!
Do you want it to be real silver thread or would it be fine with silver dyed silk? I believe it shines too.

It works!
Thank you all.

I've added that piece of marble, to give it a feeder shape. Now I think of the marble as if it was the bottom of a common hearth; small sticks touching the stone, bigger wood closer to the chimney. It's cool to see the flames going horizontally.
We made some pop-corn as a test.

Glenn Herbert wrote:That is curious, dry wood laid on top of burning wood generally catches fire, even more when fanned by a draft. How dry is your larger wood?

Can't say for sure. I picked them from the ground. Some came from a recent pruning, some are from the last year one.
But it looks like all the heat went into the chimney and very little remained to heat the new fuel, as if it had too much draft. It was very windy.
I'll try again in a more peaceful weather.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:When you put a grate and a pot on the exhaust, will that slow down the draft enough for fresh wood to catch fire?

This could be it. It was very windy yesterday and I had no pot at hand to test.

@Glenn
It's 150mm spiral duct. It goes 70cm in horizontal and 70 cm in vertical. I tried larger wood but they didn't catch fire. In an open fire it usually works, but here flames were heating inwards, making it difficult to heat new wood.
Don't worry about it beind dug, I made use of a jump, and it looks like a table in one of the sides.

I am wondering if making a J-tube of dirt would improve things.

Hello, I think I need help again.

I've built the stove, and it sounds like a rocket, so it should be good. However, I don't know how to operate this. I've managed to bring some sticks to fire, but when I try to load more sticks, they just don't burn, it's like the fire is going inwards and not touching the new sticks.
What am I doing wrong?

Kim, it seems it's a good plan.

I was already planting my seedlings deeper than what it is reccommended, and I have yet to see a tree failing because of too much humidity!
Not watering the new saplings, now that's something else. I heard of this technique for reforestation. Since it is not posible to keep them irrigated, the strategy in reforestation is to plant massively small seedlings, not older than one year, and forget about them. Many will die, but the few that survive will be there forever.
We've tried to plant a few trees with the reforestation method, but we are giving them some water just out of fear of losing them too. I didn't know it was counter-productive.
The ancient wisdom here is that little trees require watering when they are younger than three years, and might still need some water in harsh summers when young. That works for orchards with some irrigation. Other orchards just plant olive, almonds and fig trees, when they are old enough to not require watering.

Cristobal, if your climate is alike Extremadura, then go for oaks! Bonus point if you can grow pigs with the acorns. That's extremely slow, though, so you would be planting for your grandchildren, :)

Thank you, Cristobal.

This is 5 km from the harbor, still on low hills. In this location the climate is a bit warmer and more humid than the average, frost is a rare occurrence, and snow is unknown. This is a very good climate for growing with irrigation, but it's very harsh as drylands.

About fruiting, I've been told that many fruit trees take up to fifteen years before going to bloom. That's why most fruit trees are planted with 5 or 6 years already. It is also not reccomended to let the fruit trees give fruit before they are well established. While they establish, I may grow something underneath.
Malaga has a Manzanilla olive variety that we call Aloreña (from the city of Alora), it's a good table olive, a bit smaller than Manzanilla. I think we have two of those in our terrain.

Last summer gave me an insight. For growing more species without irrigation we need to use nursery trees. The big problem comes in midsummer, when UV rays are killers. A plant with irrigation may stand this sun burning, but only the bravest mediterranean species can stand that without irrigation. And in addition to that frustration, most drought tolerant plants are very slow growing. I've decided to use broom, carob and fig trees as nurseries, then try different plants underneath. My saplings are still very small and few, so I don't know yet if this will work.