Lampblack, what it is and what it's good for

Lampblack is a form of carbon.  You can think of it as something like very, very finely divided charcoal.  Because it is so incredibly fine, a small amount covers a large area giving an intense black color.  It forms the basis of the best traditional black inks and has been used to many other ends from shoe polish to blackening gun sights.  Lamblack’s extreme opacity and complete resistance to fading are excellent characteristics for use in the arts

Lampblack can be made from burning oily or resinous materials, while collecting the resulting soot.  The pitch of pine trees and other conifers make good lamp blacks, as do oils burned with a wick.  It has also traditionally been collected from the inside of oil lamp mantles (the clear glass covering over oil lamps), thus the name.  The trick to producing it yourself is to burn the material in such a way that combustion is incomplete.  When combustion is complete, the carbon is fully burned, but if the flame is interrupted, or just plain inefficient, some of the carbon remains as soot along with other unburned chemicals.  The rising black soot can be collected on a metal plate, bowl or flat stone.

Using a large and lumpy, or long, wick will usually create a lot of soot.  Another way to create incomplete combustion is to interrupt the flame.  You may have noticed that when an object is held in a candle flame, soot results.  When the wick is trimmed or made properly and the flame is burning cleanly, the carbon will be completely burned to up at the tip of the flame and no soot results.  The truth is that it is somewhat challenging to make wicks which do NOT soot!  The modern candle wick is an exception, not the rule.  But for making lampblack, you want a whole LOT of soot, so make that flame as dirty as possible.

A good way to make lamp black under field conditions is to make a small table like arrangement of stones.  Pitch or pitch saturated wood from pine or other conifers is burned under the top plate and the soot brushed off with a feather occasionally.  I have some picture of that somewhere, but they are like that old kind that are on paper...  Any kind of oil lamp arrangement with a plate of some kind on top will also work fine.  A tuna can with the lid left partly attached and bent down to form a ramp into the oil is an easy solution.

Lampblack is not at all easily mixed with water.  In fact, it is remarkably difficult to get the two together.  One time I was tattooing my friend Wylie’s leg (I have pictures of that somewhere too...) with pine soot and figured out that if I spilled beer into the ink, it mixed easier.  Yay for beer!  It can be mixed with plain water sometimes if a very small amount of water is used, but it can also be almost impossible and a drop of alcohol helps break the surface tension.  Lamp black is much used for tattooing around the world, being much finer than charcoal. I have two small tattoo test spots on my leg made by slicing the skin with obsidian and rubbing stuff in.  The one with charcoal is uneven, while the one with lampblack is much cleaner.  A third made with iron oxide (red ochre, a mineral pigment) is long gone, having faded away completely.

Often lampblack is somewhat oily containing compounds created by the heat destruction of the oil or pitch that are not pure carbon.  The lampblack can be purified to an extent by re-burning it in an oxygen free environment.  If put in a small sealed tin, it can be burned in a fire to clean it up a little.  My results calcining soot this way have been mixed, and I’m unsure whether it is necessary.  Another old book (quoted below) recommends packing into an open ended tube for re-burning.  I'll try that next time.

Asian inks are usually made as a solid stick by mixing lampblack with a small amount of collagen glue made from hides, sinew or especially antler.  The stick is then rubbed up with a little water on a special stone and the ink used immediately.  I hope to do almost all illustrations for paleotechnic’s publications with this type of home made ink, and other home made art materials, from here on out.  Carbon ink works great with a feather quill pen (that'll have to be another post)   What is called india Ink is originally a soot based ink as well, but in liquid form.  Since I lost the last ink stick that I made (someone probably threw it out, because it looked like a fossilized anteater turd, though it was perfectly functional), and have to make another, yet another future post may just have to cover ink making in detail!  For now, you know what lamblack is, and how to make it and you can build from there.  If you just want to blacken your gun sights, or whip up some corpse paint, it's easy to make a small amount of lamp black with a candle or chunk of pitch.  Another brick in the wall of self reliance.

I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes from old books scrounged up by using a google books search limited to the 19th century.

Technical Repository, Volume 11  T Cadell, 1827

Black shell-lac varnish.—Shell-lac varnish may be rendered black, by mixing with it with either ivory, or lamp-black. The editor has frequently used, and always preferred the latter. It should not be used as sold in the shops, being then greasy, as the workmen call it, and will neither mix or dry, well. Sometimes the lamp-black contains particles of plaster, from the walls of the chambers in which it is made; this, of course, should be rejected.

To prepare lamp black for use.—Press a portion of it into an earthen or metallic vessel, which may be made red hot in the fire; for small quantities, a tobacco pipe, a piece of a gun-barrel, or any other metallic tube, will answer the purpose perfectly well. It is not necessary to close the vessel, but the powder should be well rammed in; place the whole in an open fire until it is red-hot throughout; this may be known by the lamp-black ceasing to flame at the exposed parts; take it from the fire, and allow it to become quite cool before you remove it from the vessel, otherwise it will burn into ashes. Lamp-black, thus prepared, will mix readily with water, will dry well in paint or varnish, and will be improved in colour.

To mix the colour with the varnish.—Rub the lampblack up with a little alcohol, spirits of turpentine, or weak varnish, taking care to make it perfectly smooth before putting it into the cup with the varnish. To give a good black colour, the quantity of lamp-black must be considerable; this, it is true, will lessen the brilliancy of the varnish in some degree, but a thin coat of seed-lac, will diminish this fault. When only a small quantity of blackvarnish is wanted, it may be made by dissolving black sealing wax in alcohol. Sealing wax being composed principally of shell-lac. But little heat should be employed, or the black colour will be precipitated.

Five Thousand Receipts in All the Useful and Domestic Arts: Constituting a Complete and Universal Practical Library, and Operative Cyclopaedia

A. Small, 1825

Lamp black may be rendered mellower by making it with black which has been kept an hour in a state of redness in a close Crucible. It then loses the matter which accompanies this kind of soot.;

TO MAKE PAINTS FROM LAMP BLACK.

The consumption of lamp black is very extensive in common painting. It serves to modify the brightness of the tones of the other colours, or to facilitate the composition of secondary colours. The oil paint applied to iron grates and railing, and the paint applied to paper snuff boxes, to those made of tin plate, and to other articles with dark grounds, consume a very large quantity of this black. Great solidity may be given to works of this kind, by covering them with several coatings of the fat turpentine, or golden varnish, which has been mixed with lamp black, washed in water, to separate the foreign bodies introduced into it by the negligence of the workmen who prepare it After the varnish is applied, the articles are dried in a stove, by exposing them to a heat somewhat greater than that employed for articles of paper...”

TO MAKE A SUPERIOR LAMP BLACK.

Suspend over a lamp a funnel of tin plate, having above it a pipe, to convey from the apartment the smoke which escapes from the lamp.  Large mushrooms, of a very black carbonaceous matter, and exceedingly light, will be formed at the summit of the cone. This carbonaceous part is carried to such a state of division as cannot be given to any other matter, by grinding it on a piece of porphyry. This black goes a great way in every kind of painting. It may be rendered drier by calcination in close vessels.

The funnel Ought to be united to the pipe, which conveys off the smoke; by means of wire, because solder would be Melted by the flame of the lamp.

Making Sicilian Style Fermented Green Olives

I'm going to tell you how to make delicious fermented green olives by the easiest curing method I know of.  One of my many long term projects has been curing olives.  I started because I love them and because they were too expensive for me to eat in the quantities I wanted to.  I figured I could turn those olives growing all over California into something tasty.  Some 20 plus years later, I have a pretty good grasp on the subject.  I'm headed to an olive tasting event this weekend, the Olive Odyssey organized by olive curing champion Don Landis.  I was going to print up recipe cards for sicilian style olives, but thought I'd just save paper and send people here instead.  Besides, now people can bump into this awesome recipe on the web!

What's so cool about this recipe?  Lotsa stuff.  It is perhaps the easiest curing recipe I know for olives.  There is no maintenance to speak of.  There is no leaching with lye, or water, nor anything else.  You stick 'em in a jar with brine, seal it up, leave it for months and open one when you are ready to eat them.  And of course they taste hella good homeslice!  Big fat juicy, lively, acidic, rich tasting olives... oh yeah.

The downside?  You have to be patient!  Wait, that's good for you, so get over it!  Oh, and I only know one olive common in California that is really good for this process.  If you're lucky enough to have access to this olive though, you've got a gold mine of potential hanging on those trees in the fall.

That olive is the Sevillano.  It is also known as Queen olive in California, but Sevillano it is and should be.  The Sevillano has been a very popular commercial cultivar, so it is pretty common.  It is also easy to identify.  If you find a tree with many sizes of olives on it, but some of them very large, it is very likely a Sevillano.  If it also has some bunches of very tiny olives, like BB's, known as shot fruit, it is almost surely a a Sevillano.  The olives are generally oval, but become rounder and plumper as they ripen, turning from a brighter grassier green to a more rich yellow tending toward straw color.  It is okay to use them when they are just beginning to blush red too as in the picture below.    The reason that these work well are several, but the key is the fact that they have a low degree of bitterness.  The finished olives will have some bitterness for sure, but if made with most other varieties of olives, they would be inedible.  The texture and flavor are also outstanding and they seem to have plenty of fermentable sugars.  They also make very good lye cured olives in brine, kind of like the black olives in cans, but many times better.  Yummy like sweet candy is to the unfortunate child of a staunch health food slingin', kale juicing mother.  Seriously, and that lye ain't gonna kill ya, I promise.  If I remember right they are ripe in mid November around here, probably earlier at lower elevations with warmer nights.

You want to harvest the fruits when they reach what is called the milk stage.  When the olives are unripe, they are hard and green.  The unripe olives just scream unripe.  The light green color, the slightly bumpy, hard surface texture, the shape and the bony look they have.  When they enter the straw/milk stage before turning black, the olives really plump up and become voluptuous with oil.  The skin glows and smooths out and the color softens.  The best test though is to pick one, stab into it with your thumbnail, and squish out some juice.  if the olive is ripe enough, it will exude a milky liquor.

Pick the olives carefully to avoid bruising.

Wash the olives and sort over to remove those with olive fly damage.  The olive fly lays it's eggs in the olive and the larvae eat it from the inside.  Look for small holes and "pricks" in the skin.  If in doubt, sacrifice some by cutting them open to see if there are larvae inside.

If you have a lot of olives, sort them by size and process the various sizes separately.  The smallest ones should finish curing a little sooner than the large ones.  Otherwise, it's okay to mix sizes.

Wash the olives and pack into scalded mason jars within one inch of the top.  By scalded I mean pour in boiling water, put the lid on the shake it up a bit.  Turn the jar upside down for a minute to cook the lid real good too.  The jars can be any size.  I think you could ferment a single olive in a tiny jar if you could find a suitable jar that small!  Fill jars to the rim with brine made of 1 quart water, to 1/4 cup salt, with 1/4 cup of white wine vinegar, rice vinegar or distilled vinegar. (The vinegar is optional, but it helps shift the ph well into the acid zone, which is safer and seems to kick off fermentation.)   I don't think I've ever added any starter cultures to my olives.  The proper bacteria and yeast seem to be prevalent enough on, or in, the olives.  If you want to though, a splash of whey from the top of a newly opened container of yogurt, or a little juice from a lactofermented batch of vegetables shouldn't hurt, as long as the quality of the fermented food you get the culture from is high and the culture seems clean.

You can use a new jar seal, or a used one, but used seals should be in very good condition with absolutely no scratches.  You can use a canning ring to seal the jar if that's what you have, but I much prefer to use a plastic lid and you should too if you have one.  I  buy these white plastic mason jar lids just for fermenting food in jars.  They are fairly useless for most purposes, are not air tight and won't hold liquids, but they don't rust, so with a seal underneath, they are a better choice than a ring when it comes to fermentation.  I use this system of: mason jar/seal/plastic lid for almost all of my fermenting now.  It is simple, accessible and it just works for various reasons, which I'm sure I'll be writing about more sooner or later.  If all you have is canning jar rings, just use them, but the salt and acids will eat them up.  When you put the seal and lid on, the liquid should spill over a bit.  You want to leave very little or no air in the jar.  Screw the lid on firmly, but not super hard.  It is possible to tighten the jar so much that pressure cannot escape, which is not good.  I've been doing this for many years now and have never once had a jar break from built up pressure.  It has to be tight enough to keep air from entering back in, but the pressure created by fermentation must be able to escape.  Fortunately, there is a lot of leeway in how tight you make the lid.

Ok, now you're going to put that jar of pretty olives drowning in brine on a dish, because it's going to ferment and spill over.  Leave it at room temperature for a month or so.  Don't open it!  The carbon dioxide formed during the ferment will push any remaining oxygen out of the jar leaving a blanket of  inert carbon dioxide over the olives.  The liquid level will diminish somewhat and the olives at the top will be left above the liquid.  They are not sitting in air though, but in carbon dioxide.  If you open the jar, you let in air, and most importantly oxygen.  Organisms requiring oxygen will begin to grow in the jar and form a colony on the surface of the brine and on the olives.  If you see that happening, usually as a white scum or film, you have air in the jar and you'll have to toss the olives.  There is no really good reason to open the jar until the olives are done and you want to eat them, and plenty reason not to.

After about a month or so, the most active fermentation should be done with.  Check the jars for any kind of scum growing on the surface of the olives/brine, rinse the jars clean, tighten the lids pretty hard, and put them away in a dark cool cupboard for another 2 months or more.

I think these olives really develop pretty quality pretty well by 6 months, but I have some that must be around three years old now and they are still excellent!  They are not sterilized, they are not treated with preservatives, they are alive and kicking and full of beneficial bacteria.  The reason the whole thing works is that they have been maintained in an anaerobic (oxygen free) environment with good bacteria and yeasts dominating the acidic salty culture.  Pretty awesome if you ask me.  Certainly don't open them sooner than 3 months after putting them in the jar.

I'm sure there is a lifespan to these tasty morsels, but I haven't encountered it yet.  Eventually the lids will rust through, so that is something to think about.  When you open the jar, be extremely careful not to get any bits of rust from the lid into the olives.  Remove the lid carefully and then gently wipe the rim off well with a damp cloth.

The surface of the brine should not be covered in scum or white film, which would indicate air infiltration and potential spoilage.  The olives and brine should smell, look and taste, bright and appetizing.  The olives floating above the brine might be somewhat darker, but that's okay as long there is nothing else wrong with them.  After passing the visual and smell tests, the olives should taste sharp, lively, and clean.  The feel and the bite can be tender, but should not be mushy or soft or slimy.  Trust your senses.  If the olives failed to ferment at all, they will not taste acidic and probably will not look very good either.  The fermentation is essential to out compete spoilage bacteria and create preservative acids, so if they aren't acidic, they should be thrown out, period.

Refrigerate uneaten olives, but use within a few weeks to a month or so.  You don't want them sitting around long enough that you start seeing white scum forming on the brine surface.  Adding some vinegar, or just replacing half the brine with a light colored vinegar, like distilled, white wine or rice vinegar will allow them to keep much longer because vinegar is just much more preservative than the lactic acid which dominates the brine.  But I dont' think you'll need to, because they'll be so good, you'll eat them all.  If you must save them for special guests or because they are just too damn good and special to eat, add some vinegar before storing int the fridge for a long time.

That's it.  That seems like a lot of words for the simplest olive process I know, but I hope you learned a little more about fermentation options too.  Fermenting in jars has the advantage of long storage in those jars, and means that you can put food up in small amounts that you can finish before the stuff goes bad.  That is always my main message to people about fermentation, mason jars are the cat's knees.

I wrote this post in a hurry, so please let me know if I forgot anything important, or if you have any questions leave them in the comments below.

And a Frankentree in Every Garage

If I were president, the essay assignment goes when you’re in grade school.  I remember thinking “but I don’t want to be president!”  But... if I was, I don't think I'd promise a car in every garage, though I'd probably keep the chicken in every pot.  When I moved here to Turkeysong, I had to decide what fruit varieties to grow.  Inspired by friend and apple guru Freddy Menge, a scrappy young tree that was already here, was used as a framework to test out apple varieties.  Before that it produced hard green apples.  What started as an interest, grew into something like an obsession and the tree became more diverse every year starting with 25 or so varieties and ending now with about 140.  My friend Spring dubbed it Frankentree because, at her house, that’s what they call anything cobbed together from odd parts.  The name stuck.  The term frankentree is also used for genetically modified tree varieties, but it has already taken off among apple collectors, so we'll just have to see who wins.  And maybe someone searching for info about GMO fruit will run across our frankentrees and be ignited into constructive action instead of plunged into despair at how the world can be dumb enough that we take the risk of genetically engineering an apple just so it won't brown when cut.

Frankentrees are awesome!  They may take a little attention to maintain, but the advantages are many.  There are so many trees out there that provide too much fruit of one variety in too brief a period for the people that use them.  Other trees just produce fruit that no one likes.   These trees, if they are healthy enough and the form is not too wacky, are very valuable as a base to work from.  A reasonably well formed healthy tree can come to yield nourishment in abundance, interest, variety, valuable information, and even self confidence and self reliance, over a long season.

This isn’t going to be a how to article, it’s more to kick you in the butt and get you started thinking and experimenting this year article.  If you have a tree, or access to a tree that is not very exciting in the fruit department, why not try grafting on something new?  Well, I’ll tell you why you should graft on something new, or actually more like somethings.

Apple trees are an ideal format in which to learn grafting and begin fruit collecting.  Pears are a close second, and then plums.  Apples are easy to graft, very useful, widely appreciated and there are many varieties to be had, thousands actually.  They also are hard to beat in terms of seasonal length.  I have very good to excellent eating apples from August to early February, and that is straight off the tree, not accounting for storage.  You may not be able to get that in a very cold climate, but the season can still be quite long.  The ability to have a long fruiting season is reason enough to make a frankentree, but there are many more motivations.

a riot of variety

Frankentreeing will teach you something, and you can teach that to someone else.  You’ll learn about different varieties of fruit, what their seasons are, what they taste like, whether they keep or not, and very probably their histories.  You’ll learn the art of grafting, without which we would not have all these varieties of fruits in the first place.  And you’ll learn what varieties do well in your area, which is extremely valuable.

You'll also end up as a keeper and preserver of variety, a sort of seed bank or scion repository that you can share out or trade from.  No doubt some of those varieties will be very old.  And old or not, more diversity in more places is assurance not only against permanent genetic loss, but also that diversity has a real place in our daily lives.  We have to live our appreciation of variety and the romance of diversity in crops for it to be real and not just an abstract idea we picked up from a foodie book.

Multi-grafted trees are not only ornamental in their own strange way, but they’re also a great conversation piece, and a frankentree will make you look cool!  Wait, screw that, if you make a frankentree, you are cool!  Everyone who visits here loves frankentree!

You’ll very likely have more fruit on a frankentree.  First of all, pollination will be great.  Apples can self pollinate to a very small extent, but they really need pollen from other varieties in order to fruit.  Your frankentree will be downright indecent in it’s public orgy of bees and pollen!  But wait, there’s more!  You’ll also get more fruit in the long run because you’ll inevitably end up with some that set fruit very readily and consistently, and some that avoid spring frost because they bloom late.

Your new skill is marketable as I’m finding out.  How many people will pay you to make them a fruit tree that gives them four to six months of the most delicious apples adapted to your region?  Let’s find out!  I just did my first paying frankentree job (bride of frankentree) for my neighbors Dan and Leslie and they seem very pleased to try giving an old apple tree a makeover.  It made good apples before, but it will make lots of different good apples now.  I have another such job scheduled this spring too.

Preparing the bride.  I prefer to prep the whole tree at once so that grafting proceeds quickly.

bride of frankentree all grafted up and no place to grow.  Note the one branch left to the original variety on the left hand side.

I’m a problem solver.  I not only solve them, it order to be a good problem solver, I have to look for them constantly in everything.  Just ask anyone who has had to live with me.  So what’s the downside to a frankentree?  There are very few really.

If the tree is too old and you have to cut down to large stubs, you could get some rot that will shorten the life of the tree.  In many cases, that is not necessary though.  I prefer to stay within cuts that are 3/4 inches and down, but you just have to weigh the value of the tree as it is and the value of it as a frankentree, or more usually the value of a certain form of the tree, because if it’s very overgrown, you’ll want to simplify the framework and probably bring the head down.  That’s will make it easier to graft, maintain and harvest.

It takes time and energy.  Sorry, but I see that as a good thing over all.  It’s like saying it’s a lot of work.  If you’re not totally stoked about making it happen, do something else.  Otherwise, activity that gets you outside feeling interested, taking care of your own needs and building self reliance... that’s all up side!

You’ll have to maintain the tree a little more closely.  Some varieties are really vigorous and grow large and some are small and weak, so you can sort of keep an eye out to check the big ones and maintain a little light for the weak.  I lost sleep over that when I first started, but I didn’t need to, because it’s no big deal.  You’ll also have to prune off some suckers here and there as the base tree sprouts a shoot once in a while.  sometimes those shoots will be more vigorous than the grafts, almost like the tree would rather grow itself than be a frankentree, which makes sense.  My guess is that the investment you have in the project will make you more interested in maintaining the tree well.  Your personal investment means value to you.  It’s.... well, personal.

You can introduce disease.  The one that is most common is virus.  It will cause the leaves of some varieties to turn into a mosaic of light and dark areas.  It's not fatal and doesn't seem to affect most varieties here.  I basically don't worry about it anymore.  The affected leaves can become sun burned easily.  Frankentree is infected and so are many of my other varieties.  Probably many more than I know, since most show minimal to no symptoms.

That’s all I can think of.  I may sound like a propaganda machine, but I want to be!  That’s how stoked I am about the idea and my enthusiasm comes from the pleasure, interest and knowledge I’ve reaped from me experience in this realm, and the way I see people respond when they find out you can do this, or take the walk to the orchard to meet “frank”.  I’ll hopefully be giving you more specific detailed resources for frankentreeing in the future.  In the meantime, go to a scion exchange if there is one near you, or join the North American Scion exchange and trade by mail.  You may not have much to trade now, but there are quite a few generous collectors out there, and once you get a few varieties, you can start trading.  If you don’t know how to graft, check out the many youtube videos, and hopefully I’ll add one sometime as well.  I’d even like to do a detailed video just on frankentrees to give you more specific information and tricks to increase your success rates in grafting.  In the meantime, here are some basic ideas to keep in mind.  And for you locals, remember, the Mendocino Permaculture group's scion and seed exchange is this weekend Feb 1st Saturday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.  It's free with free grafting classes and rootstock for sale.  I'm teaching hands on grafting coaching after the main grafting lectures.

Keep the framework of the tree, but thin it out and bring it down in height and in toward the framework, especially if it’s poorly trained, neglected and rangy.

Try to make smaller cuts and graft into wood 3/4 inch and down when possible, but don’t graft to the outside of the tree.  Try to graft in closer to large limbs.  If you graft only to small outside wood, you’ll end up with a tree that grows out and out and the inside of the tree will all still be the original variety.

Note long scions.

Learn cleft grafts.  They are easy and good for grafting small sticks to large stubs, which is usually what you end up doing when reworking a tree.

Wrap tightly in multiple layers

Two views of the wedge cut and the scion fitted into the cleft stock. Note again the flat cuts make a tight fit

Use grafting paint (“wax”) liberally (I use doc farwell's, hopefully it’s not too toxic :/).  Use it to really seal the clefts left open after grafting, but also to paint the whole scion lightly.  Painting the scion is helpful to keep moisture in until the graft heals and the tree can start sending moisture and food to the scion.  You might have to paint the open ends of the clefts twice to make sure they are sealed well against rain infiltration.  It's ok if a little wax gets into the cleft.

Keep your grafting knife sharp!

Use long scions of 6 to 9 buds or so.  This will give you fruit sooner.

Thin the area near the graft of other shoots if possible.  You want to direct growth energy into the new graft.

If apples form the first year, leave them!  You don’t usually have to pull them off to favor growth like you do with a young tree, because the tree is driven by an established root system.

Don’t unwrap the grafts too early.  The leafy shoot will act like a sail and can break the graft.  Unwrap before the wood becomes constricted.  If you are concerned, just re-wrap it till the end of the season.

When you unwrap them for good in the fall, paint the graft union with a thick coat of grafting paint so you can keep track of its location.

Always label!  I use aluminum tags with copper, aluminum, or at least galvanized wire.  soda cans cut with scissors work fine and sections of aluminum venetian blind strips and old aluminum printing press plates work great.  Scratch the name in and write with pencil too.

So, if I’ve sparked your interest, just bust a move this year, even if it’s a small one.  Get some scions from a neighbor or a local apple orchard and make a few grafts.  You can wrap them tight with cut rubber band strips and paint them with thick latex paint so you don't have to invest in grafting supplies.  You can use a utility (razor) knife or pocket knife if you don’t have a grafting knife.  Practice on prunings a little until you can make flat cuts and grafts seem to fit pretty well.  You’ll learn something and if your few grafts take, you’ll have confidence to move forward.  Maybe I need to start a career as a motivational speaker.  Are you stoked yet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgXObaM9i2Q

There's More to Fire Than Heat, Fuel and Oxygen (or, Fire Exists Within a Sphere of Changing and Interdependent Circumstances)

Fire is an interaction between Heat, Fuel and Oxygen completely dependent on proportions, conditions and physical relations. It is not a self controlling, self adjusting system created to serve us; no, that it is not. What fire really is, is a sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying expression of physical laws, chemistry and energy which can serve us without intention or harm us without malice. Fire is the product of a universe which we can understand functionally and work with; one which does not judge, reward or punish.

By Steven Edholm

Hey all you pyros!  I wrote this a while ago.  I was going to take some relevant pictures and make it more of a tutorial, but I think it stands pretty well on it's own and video might just be a better format to explore some of the details.  So here it is in all it's theoretical, abstracted glory.

We've all heard of the three things it takes to make a fire… HEAT, FUEL and OXYGEN.  While it’s true that these are essential elements of fire, it is also true that without a fourth and equally important requirement there is no fire! Understanding this fourth requirement is key to effectively starting, controlling, utilizing and maintaining fire.  It can be understood both logically, and intuitively through experience.  It is the underlying and unifying principal of fire and no more or less dependent on the other three elements than they are on each other.   And what is the secret ingredient?  Drum roll please:  The secret is simply the sphere of circumstances in which the heat fuel and oxygen exist, which allows the chain reaction to continue or vary in quality.  Put more simply, we have to put heat, air and fuel together effectively to make fire happen and continue.   And then, to expand a little further, how heat, fuel and oxygen are put together, the condition each is in, and the quantity of each affects the characteristics of the fire.  Simple?  Basically yes, but it is still something of a journey from that simple idea to effectively maintaining and managing fires for various uses.  When you factor in the many circumstances which contribute to or detract from this chain reaction and consider that we want different types of fires for different purposes it becomes less simple, but then so much more compelling!  Join me in exploring a few details of this sphere of circumstances, because it is the details, some of them minute, that make the difference in how (or even whether) a fire burns.

There is a model that is use to explain fire called the tetrahedron of fire.  It is a 3 dimensional pyramid with 3 sides and a bottom.  The three sides represent one each of heat, fuel and oxygen.  The bottom represents an uninhibited chain reaction, or the fourth element.  This fire model used to consist of only three parts, fuel, heat and oxygen, represented as a one dimensional triangle, but it was modified to represent the fact that fire does not exist without the proper relationship of the three tangible elements.  Thus, the tetrahedron roughly represents what I am trying to tell you, which again is that fire exists and varies within a sphere of changing and interdependent circumstances.  However, the tetrahedron model is so simple that it begs description and actually communicates nothing without additional information and explanation.  I suppose that the series of articles I hope to write, and of which this is the first, will partly be that explanation and information from a practical standpoint, and of use to laypeople like us.  I would like to see a fire model communicate some practical details, but my attempts to make a better model or diagram have been a fail.  I suppose that the simplicity of the tetrahedron model may sometimes be an asset as it does not describe any one of the many types of fire.  On the other hand the model is unable to communicate in any way the manner in which a fire functions and far too little about how it can be modified and controlled toward practical ends.  I find that the tetrahedron model has little practical use here beyond what I’ve already discussed.

HEAT, OXYGEN AND FUEL DOES NOT ALWAYS A FIRE MAKE:  When I was 20 something I was on top of maintaining fires at public gatherings and such.  Now I'm inclined to sit back and let some eager, enthusiastic youngster do the job…. but they often don’t, which kind of sucks.  I still often find myself raising my creaking, cold butt from the lukewarm side of some smokey waning fire to go fumble around in the dark for some firewood.  If I'm patient or stubborn enough to wait for someone else to get up to add wood to the fire or, often more importantly, make adjustments to the wood that is already in the fire, my patience is not often well rewarded.  Frequently, the poorly selected (… if selected isn't even just too strong a word to use lol) wood is added haphazardly or with an evident lack of understanding.  All too often the new wood is somewhat randomly thrown on often creating more problems than there were in the first place.  Kids today… sigh…  Adding more fuel to the fire or just blowing on it does not fix everything.  Fire is an interaction between Heat, Fuel and Oxygen completely dependent on proportions, conditions and physical relations.  It is not a self controlling, self adjusting system created to serve us; no, that it is not.  What fire really is, is a sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying expression of physical laws, chemistry and energy which can serve us without intention or harm us without malice.   Fire is the product of a universe which we can understand functionally and work with; one which does not judge, reward or punish.  Understanding a little fire theory can go a long way in enabling us to create, control and influence fire.

No, fire is not just Fuel, Heat and Oxygen, but in a very real way it is a product of specific relationships between those three elements which allows them to undergo the continuing chain reaction of combustion.  Lets look quickly at some varying conditions:

*If you have the heat of a match a foot away from some well sized and placed fuel, even with oxygen all around in the air, you do not have fire.

*let us say that you have a big round log being heated with a propane torch while surrounded by air.  Thats a lot of heat, and plenty of air, but in most circumstances the log on its own will not really flame a whole lot, it will more likely smolder and eventually go out after the heat is removed.  If we add another log or some smaller fuel, in the proper spatial relationship, our big round log will burn more quickly,  more thoroughly and longer, basically because of the interaction of the burning fuel units with each other.  They heat each other and bounce heat back and forth.

*If we have a healthy fire burning away and add a quantity of very green moisture laden wood, the fire will falter and slow down mostly due to the effect of the moisture on the factor of heat.

*Throw a bucket of water on the fire and so much heat will be removed as steam to heat the water that the fire is likely to go out completely.

*Cram the logs in a fire too close together or smother it with dirt and you will not have enough oxygen for a healthy blaze.

*Move the logs too far apart from each other and they will not contribute to a mutual build up of heat between them and are likely to smolder and each may eventually just stop flaming, begin to smolder and eventually just go out.

 All of the above examples illuminate the importance of specific relations between the three concrete elements of fire.

Fires have almost living characteristics.  Like a living body, fires that we use to our ends often need attention and feeding to achieve certain goals.  Maintaining and using fire effectively is all about details and the details that make a very functional fire can be very subtle and minute.  No one really taught me to use fire properly.  I learned by immersion.  The lifestyle I chose demanded that I understand combustion enough to maintain an acceptable level of functionality.  If I couldn't make a fire quickly with damp wood I wasn't going to finish cooking dinner before dark.  If I managed the fire poorly every night I was going to wake up with sore eyes and a woodsmoke hangover.  By the time Mors Kochanski introduced me to the tetrahedron of fire model I already understood it functionally, but had never put it all into place with symbology.  I ultimately can't teach anyone either.  Understanding fire functionally and not just theoretically is a personal journey.  I can maybe start the fire for someone, but their enthusiasm, action, intention and maybe most of all need to keep that fire going, are what will ultimately create a functional understanding.  Fire is fascinating to all people on some level, but most modern people do not find enough use for it to manifest a good working knowledge.   If you want to understand fire functionally and stay in practice, there is no better way than to place yourself in a position of need on a regular basis.  Start fires regularly, and start them from scratch never using paper or accelerants.

The simple but important information I've just presented above forms the foundation of a good working relationship with fire.  Whether you are starting, managing or putting out fires, you are ultimately balancing or working mostly with the following concepts:

FUELS

*Conditions (wet, rotten, dry, warm etc…)

*Structure (dense, pithy, liquid, gaseous, etc…) 

*Composition (Lignin content, chemistry, growth rate, environment, species etc…)

*Sizes

*Shapes

*Spatial distribution (relation of fuel units to each other and to heat source)

*Flamability

AIR

*Access or lack of

*Heat generated drafts

*Air temperature

*Air density

HEAT

*Temperature

*Radiation

*Proximity

*Reflection

*Blocking

*Placement of

I know that information is rather abstract, but you don't have to be a total dorkus like me and memorize it all or anything!  I'm just using the theory to plant seeds that can lead to a functional and intuitive understanding of fire, because that is really where it's at.  When there is an impetus to learn, and these basic ideas are presented in context, people's ability to manage a fire rises very rapidly, within minutes actually.  I've seen this happen over and over when playing fire chess with students and friends.  I hope to write more in this realm and put theory into context with either videos or more blog posts, so stay tuned.

One last thought, its easy to get cocky about ones understanding of fire.  The truth is though that the factors which contribute to a given fire burning or not burning are complicated and not always easy to predict.  However well we think we know it, fire can sometimes surprise us.  Considering the often horrific consequences of uncontrolled fire, it is best to follow the precautionary principal when it comes to safety, and err on the side of caution.

Have something to add?  Did I miss something important?  Leave a comment.

fire

Turkeysong Seed and Vegetable Varieties

turkeysong varieties header

This is sort of a vegetable review area, as well as a repository of information that people who get seeds from me can access as needed.  I will be editing it and adding pictures and varieties over time.

I give away a lot of seeds.  If you save seed, you’ll find that you almost always have way more than you can use.  That’s awesome, because then you can give away seeds too.  If more of us save seeds in our communities, then each of us has to spend less time trying to save seeds of everything ourselves.  Saving seed in a community can also lead to maintaining a larger genetic pool, because can we trade for seed of varieties that we already save at home just to get some new genes or traits in the mix.  Also, I’m fairly convinced (intuitively more than anything else) that gifting is part of any sustainable economy.  When I say economy, dollar signs probably start flashing in your head, but I mean economy more in the old school sense of the totality of activities, interactions and resources that make up a person or family's living, and of course the overlap that has with other people and families in a broader community.

Below are all varieties that I grow personally here, and which have found a place in the the garden by way of various virtues.  I've grown weary, and wary, of trialing large numbers of vegetables and now only do it one vegetable at a time, on the rare year that I do it at all.  Mostly I find that it ends up being a waste of money and bed space.  I think it's very important to find good varieties and that a lot of folks should expend more effort on the pursuit, but is can get expensive and complicated.  It's easy to run up a good sized bill if I allow myself to be seduced by every seed catalogue and rosy description.  That rose of a beet is rarely any better than Detroit Dark Red since it has already snuffed out a half dozen or more varieties before it.  It is nice to have varieties that are consistent and reliable and then every once in a while I can seek to improve something I'm not happy with, or try a variety that a friend recommends.  I've gone through a lot of trouble to find these guys and, while your mileage may vary, they are a good place to start if just starting out, or might be worth trying in a small plot against whatever it is that you normally grow.  Let me know what has worked for you in the comments.

More about saving seeds and these super cool turkeysong original origami seed pockets soon!

My original seed packet design!

Touchon Carrot:  I’ve grown this variety for a long time.  I settled on it after trialing maybe 7 or 8 different varieties of carrots including the usual french carrots of the Nantes and Chantenay types.  It just seemed to taste better, and do so over a longer season.  Here in our mild climate, we can hold carrots in the ground through the winter in a pick as needed scenario.  I’ve planted these in the spring and harvested them through the following winter, and they maintain eating quality throughout.  They do tend to crack if you leave them that long, but I think most carrots do.  The point is more that the flesh quality is retained.  They are allegedly a good storage carrot as well.  I also like Shin Kuroda from Japan.  It is somewhat more uniform and very tender and juicy, but also less sweet and flavorful.  Touchon is a good market carrot, with acceptable uniformity, if grown out fast.  With age, it tends to bulb out at the end and get bumpy.  I haven’t gone out of my way to trial carrots for a while, but Touchon has never been bumped from first place.  Friends I’ve given seeds to seem to like it as well.  My last selection was made by harvesting the most uniform roots and tasting every one with a panel of three people to determine the best tasting, and not just the best looking.  The tips were tested and the remaining carrot planted to go to seed.  I was thinking about doing some breeding work with it for a somewhat sweeter and more uniform version, just so I can call it touche’  he he he...

Bronze Beauty lettuce (aka bronze arrow or bronze arrowhead):  Bronze beauty lettuce delivers fine eating, good cultural traits and yes beauty!  So far it seems like one of my hardier lettuces too, withstanding both heat and cold pretty well without turning to a pile of mush or bolting.  It has become my main winter lettuce under cover and I’ve done well with it during the last two summers, though both were on the cool side.  It is a good market lettuce too, drawing attention with it’s interesting deeply cut leaves.  According to a lot of websites, it’s original name was bronze beauty, but it is more commonly known as bronze arrow, or arrowhead now.  Adding cultivar names is just confusing, and usually done by a nursery or seedsman that wants to make more money.  There are rules that you aren’t supposed to rename a variety, or name it initially with a trademarked name in order to secure the royalties trademark holders claim to be entitled to.  As far as I know, neither name is trademarked, and we should all start using the original cultivar name, which is quite nice anyway!  So, BRONZE BEAUTY gets the tiara!

Bronze Beauty

Paul Robeson: is a medium to large slicing tomato.  It has interesting coloring, with dark reds tending to black and a dark green top.  Very pretty and very tasty.  It also seems to be reasonably early and quite productive.  All in all a great tomato that gets a lot of well deserved great reviews.  It's also an educational tomato, since I had no idea who Paul Robeson was before I started growing it.

Green Zebra: is a novelty that goes beyond novelty.  It is also a great tasting tomato.  It is on the acidic side, so people who prefer a gentler sweeter tomato might not find it to their liking.  Because it’s sharp, it makes a good salad tomato.  When ripe, it has green stripes on a yellow background.  The tomatoes are small and there are always a lot of them.   I usually grow one green zebra plant.

Green Zebra

Blue Beech paste tomato:  This variety has risen to the top after trying many other paste tomatoes.  I don’t actually make paste, or sauce to can, but I can a ton of whole tomatoes.  Blue Beech makes a nice whole canned tomato.  It peels easily, is large, which greatly reduces the work of preparing, and the vines are productive.  It has very few seeds and Fedco implied that their seed producer nick named it blue bitch because it has so few seeds!  The flavor is a classic tomato flavor.  I’ve tried San Marzano (lame in my considerable opinion) and a good double handful of canning types, and I like this one best so far, except for maybe orange banana, but that is like comparing apples and orange bananas.  It won’t surprise me if I replace this variety someday, but then again, it’s a solid performer (and a solid tomato too, with very few seeds and firm flesh) and I don’t have any compelling reason to spend more money on more seeds to try to bump it out of it’s place with another variety.  At the least, it’s a good place to start if you want to can tomatoes.  I wouldn’t grow it for fresh eating, though it is not bad fresh by any stretch.

Not 100% sure these are blue beech, but probably and they look about like this anyway.

Orange Banana: is a small orange canning tomato.  It also makes a good snack with salt, great dried tomatoes and a tasty salad tomato.  The flavor is sweet and fruity.  I love it as a canned whole tomato.  The juice that comes off the canned tomatoes is something to really look forward to.  I’ll usually pour it off into a glass and savor it while I’m preparing dinner.  The flavor of the canned tomatoes is not really tomatoey, it’s more fruity and delicious in it’s own right.  If taken in poundage, the vines can’t compare in productivity with something like Blue Beech above, but they’re worth the effort as a canned tomato just because they are so delicious.

Zapotec: is a medium to large tomato of unusual form.  It is pleated all the way around, so the slices look really interesting.  It is pretty solid, with less juice than many tomatoes and small seed cavities.  That makes it excellent for salsa and cooking.  I had high hopes for it as a canned tomato, but they fell a little short on flavor when canned (edit:  Actually, I'm still on the fence with this as a canned tomato.  I need one more year of tests!).  I like it as a slicing tomato for sandwiches and stuff, for cooking with, or just to eat with salt.  The flavor is rich and tomatoey.

Zapotec

Italian Parsley:  I think I bought this variety as Giant Italian Parsley.  It is a flat leaved type with thick stems.  I like the Italian parsley better than the curled type, if for no other reason than it’s easier to clean.  I think it also just tastes milder and sweeter and it’s less chewy or rough or something.  The stems get super sweet in the winter and make a good garden munch.  I use the stems and tops a lot like one would use celery, which I don’t grow.  Essential for so many winter soups and nice to have around for salsa verde.  I try to head into the winter with at least 6 to 8 plants.  They get messed around by frost a bit, but they always seem to pull through in the end.

Ruby Streaks Mustard (aka red streaks?):  This is a beautiful mustard green.  The greens are dark green and maroon, with a ferny outline.  Like every other mustard green I’ve ever grown, the plants are prone to bolting, and prefer cool weather.  The flowering tops make great rapini though, so that is major consolation!  I’ve not been able to interest market goers in the my red mizuna rapini yet, but I still have hopes.  I like them almost better than the greens when simmered quickly in heavily salted water, or briefly saute'd in butter.  The greens are good stir fried, wilted in butter, and as the minority component in a salad.  They are quite pungent raw, but simmer down as soon a they’re cooked.  A tasty addition to the garden and always garnering a comment at the market for their beauty, though they are near impossible to keep from wilting as they are so delicate.

Ruby Streaks. I was calling them red mizuna for a while, because that's basically what it is. There is also a red streaks mizuna going around. They might all be the same thing.

Hailstone radish: is an early twentieth century variety with large, white, mild, sweet roots.  Since I found this variety, I’ve never gone back to the little red radishes.  Hailstone’s mild, sweet, juicy roots are more similar to daikon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were bred from some Asian accession, or simply imported and introduced under an english name.  Aside from having great roots, Hailstone has great tops!  Most radish greens are hairy and tough.  Hailstone’s greens are smooth and mild tasting.  They’re great for salads, or even just garden munching.  I’ve never encountered another radish with greens like this.  The seedlings are robust and succulent too, so I’m sure it would make a great sprouting seed as well.  It has the usual problem of going hot and pithy when stressed or old, but I’m not sure it’s any worse than the rest, and it is milder throughout than most spring radishes.  I plant it in the open in late winter/early spring, or all winter under cover.  I haven’t grown it in the fall, but wouldn’t doubt that it would do okay.  It comes up and grows very fast.  Not instant gratification, but maybe quickish gratification in the spring when the garden larder is running low.  It would be a good market radish, but the white skin shows every blemish.  I’m going to work on better culture to see if i can grow it out smoother and faster so it looks better.  It’s an easy sell on flavor, so that makes up for cosmetics to an extent, but looks still matter a lot at market.

Hailstone Radish

Burgess’ Buttercup:  This is the best winter squash I’ve grown, and I’ve tried a lot of them.  Every so many years I get suckered into trying some new varieties, but Burgess always takes the prize.  The only comparable squash so far is Kubocha, but I think it is actually just a japanese version of the same squash, or close to it.  Red Kuri can be quite good, but Burgess is better more consistently for me.  It is a sweet squash with dense dry flesh.  If you like a more moist squash, like butternut, don’t grow burgess.  It is quite dry, requiring lubrication with a generous amount of butter (that's good ;).  It makes a very rich squash pie.

Burgess' Butercup Winter Squash.

Golden Summer Crookneck Squash:  I like zuchini for some uses, and the other summer squash are okay I guess, but if I could only grow one summer squash, it would definitely by crookneck.  Crooknecks have a rich flavor that has never been touched by any other summer squash I’ve ever grown.  They don’t dry or freeze well, but they sure taste great fresh off the vine steamed and slathered in butter.  I do like Zucchini sometimes and Costata Romanesca is the best I've grown.

Scallions:  I thought this variety of scallions that I grow was Hardy Evergreen, but it doesn’t really match the descriptions in catalogues, and I’ve been saving the seed for so many years that I can't remember for sure.  Anyway, if you get scallion seeds from me, I don’t know what they are, but they’re good!  They hold over winter fine, grow fast, look nice.  Market goers like them a lot.  A solid performer.

Scallions of unknown variety

Bulgarian Giant Leek:  There is so much written on this blog already, that I'll keep it short.  This is a tall self blanching leek.  It is large in diameter and long in length.  The long shaft is particularly nice because it contains no dirt until near the top.  If grown over a long season with plenty of attention and continual feeding, it can get truly huge by late winter.  It is also quite tasty.

Bulgarian Giant.

Fortex Green Bean:  I usually don’t have seeds of these to give away, because I use most of them for planting.  However, I sometimes have enough to give some away and they are worthy of mention anyway.  I have met a number of other gardeners who agree with me that Fortex kicks some serious green bean butt!  It seems healthy, it’s productive, it tastes great and it stays tender to a large size.  It’s truly hard to beat this bean when all things are considered.  It is a long french type.  I get repeat customers for these at farmer's market, but I never have even close to enough to supply demand.

Fortex green bean rocks!

Detroit Red Beet:  I know, such an unsexy name for an awesome beet right?  The only beet I've grown that has given Detroit real competition is Robuschka, which I will probably try again at some point.  Robuschka is a rare variety in the U.S. and I unfortunately didn't save seed for it when I had it.  For yellow beets, Touchstone Golden Beet is great and fast gaining much deserved popularity (available from fedco seeds).  Golden Detroit is also quite good, but I'm not crazy about the shape.  Anyway, Detroit Red is an excellent beet and has survived the test of time as a garden standard.  It seems to be good at any size up to flowering.  It gets large if allowed to grow all season, and since the quality holds well, I usually plant only one or two crops a year and just let them grow on through the winter.

Many of these are usually available through fedco seeds, hands down my favorite seed company for price, quality, and all around coolness.

About Leg Rolled Cordage, and Why You Should Learn it.

For many years, Tamara Wilder and I would teach leg rolling at our classes and at various primitive skills events.  We were real excited about it and started to see the usual hand twisting taught by most books and  instructors at the time, as sort of grade school level cordage making.  Leg rolling was slow to catch on for some reason, but it now seems to be more common, as it should be.  This short post is about leg rolling as compared to some other methods, and why is it worth learning, even if you don’t use it all the time.

Tamara demonstrating leg rolled cordage at the Oregon Country Fair

For making cordage without any props or gizmos, leg rolling is the worldwide norm.  It may have been slow to catch on in the primitive skills scene, but it seems almost universal among traditional cultures.  Leg rolling is common because it’s fast.  The cord is rolled on the thigh or calf with the flat palm, usually in an up and then down motion. With a little set up, a push down the thigh with the flat hand, and a pull back up the thigh, you’ll usually have 5 to 6 inches of cordage or so.

Almost everyone who already makes cordage is familiar with the hand twisting method, often called reverse wrapping, where the twists in a cord are made one at a time.  Reverse wrapping is useful at times, good to know, and a good way to learn about cordage, but it is pretty slow going!  We also use a method I came up with which we call mouth twisting (or I think that’s what we call it.  It's kind of a dumb name).  Mouth twisting is a little faster than reverse wrapping, but it is not as fast at leg rolling, and it can make you cross eyed, looking down at the cordage right in front of your nose, so it’s not very pleasant work, though I still use it quite a bit for certain applications.

Speed may not be that important to someone just dabbling a little in paleo arts, but when some of us started to do larger projects, like nets, belts and ropes, reverse wrapping was just not cutting it.  Imagine making a hammock, that might contain a 1/4 mile or whatever ridiculously long length of cordage, by twisting each and every twist one at a time for, what?  a year?  two years?  No thanks.  Leg rolling is the next level, and takes cordage from hand cramping novelty status up to a level where it can have a place in a subsistence paradigm.

Tightness of twist:  Many years ago,  I made a batch of slings, the kind for throwing rocks, with buckskin pouches and dogbane cords.  Having a disease somewhat approaching perfectionism at the time, I wanted to make those strings super duper nice and tight!  I used the mouth twisting method, which can be used to make very tightly twisted cord.  I figured that if the cords where under great stress and possibly some twisting and untwisting action while the sling was in use, I’d better make them really "good".  I was used to making necklace cords this way and they lasted a long time.  So I made them SOOOO NICE!  The were thick, immaculately spliced with no tag ends and the fiber added very gradually so there were no weak spots.  And boy were those suckers tight.  They were perfect(ish), looked great and the strings broke when they were used.  I was like wahhhh!?!?!???  The strings were so tight it turned out, that the fibers were not able to move freely and were basically cutting each other when under stress.  I had another sling which I'd made with much thinner looser dogbane cord and a coyote scalp pouch, which never did break in spite of considerable use.

Occasionally it’s nice to have a very tight cord.  You can make strings tight by reverse wrapping, or mouth rolling, but not so much with leg rolling.  I used to think that the looser cord produced was a major drawback to leg rolled cordage, but now I see it differently.  Unless the cord is extremely loose to the point where it may actually pull apart, or so loose that it’s prone to tangling and snagging, there are actually very few uses where you even want really tight cordage.  If you do need string that is ever so tight, then it’s usually only in short lengths, so you can afford to use the slower reverse wrap or mouth methods.  Overall, a somewhat slack cord is probably a little more utilitarian.

leg

I don’t have time to turn this into a how to novelette on leg rolling, but I was just working on the Paleotechnics cordage book.  I made up a new batch of pine soot ink to do book illustrations, of which there will be many in that book.  Said book has been in progress, or languishing in a corner of my computer for many years, so no saying when it will actually be finished.   It'll be good when it is finished though, promise!

Leg rolling is still best learned in person, though the youtube videos I plan to record eventually will be a close second.  Fire, cordage and stone tools, along with knowledge of the plants and materials used to make them, form the foundation of basic technology.  If you have a chance to learn leg rolling in person at an event, or from a friend, do it.  Once you know how to do something, no one can take that away from you, and this is a skill that has been pandemic to our human family for good reason.  Finally, it's one thing to know how to leg roll cordage, but to get really good at leg rolling, the best approach is to undertake a large project that requires 50 feet or more of cordage.   Then you'll be rolling out cordage like a spider.

Happy twisting!

Turkeysong, the Year in Pictures 2013, Summer, Fall and Early Winter.

solstice moon

For part I, Late Winter and  Spring, click here.

scallions for market, Scallions and carrots are my market mainstays.  They hold in the ground for a while, so I don’t miss the crop window if I can’t make it to the market.

They just kept hatching more all summer.  Probably just because they’re happy free range chickens driven to fulfill their biological purpose.  These two chicks made it.  Mom moved them into the coop after most of their siblings were killed in a raccoon attack one night.  The price of freedom

Alligator lizard foreplay.  They’d probably be less than thrilled to know they were modeling for exhibition on the web.  They’ll run around like this for a while before they can get it up (cold blooded low metabolism at work I guess :).  I’m sure it’s totally hot to be bitten on the head if you’re an alligator lizard chick.  She looks stoked.

William’s Pride, half polished.  This apple ripens in August and seems promising for an early apple, but it has stiff competition in chestnut crab ripening in the same season.

Tomatillos roasting for salsa.  Roasting really adds some great flavor!

Zapotec tomato is a good eating and salsa tomato.  It didn’t turn out to be the great canner I hoped it would though, so it’s back to blue beech to fill that niche for now.  Paul Robeson was a great slicer and is probably here to stay (thanks mom for introducing me to both of those varieties!).  I usually have free seeds of my favorite tomatoes and vegetables at the farmer’s market in Ukiah, and at the winter scion exchange in Boonville.  I have a huge basket full of folded seed pockets ready to go.  They are almost like business cards.

Where the magic happens?  Grapefruits gleaned from town with lots of sugar.  According to the owners of this grapefruit tree, it produces fruit for about 11 months of the year.  Yet there is really not that much citrus planted in Ukiah.  Citrus trees are ornamental, easy to care for (usually needing very little if any care), the flowers smell good and they produce food that most people like, but which is relatively expensive to buy and is currently shipped in, often from long distances.  WTF homeowners?

Curing potato onions.  Selling potato onion starts on ebay has been a helpful income boost since fall.

potato onion slice showing the "eyes" or growing points that become new bulbs

Grinding charcoal sifted out of the wood stove and fire pit ashes.  Every time I start a fire, I shovel out the cold ashes and charcoal from the last fire.  As you can see, it adds up!  I’ve pretty much abandoned this grinder for now, until I can restore it and set it to finer grind setting than the one it’s stuck on now, which is pea sized and down.  Now I’m using a garbage disposal unit that was set up a few years ago for grinding apples for the juice press.  It is much faster and makes a finer grind, though I sort of miss the meditative spinning of the wheel and knowing I was doing it with my own motive power.

The interstem trees that I did not graft over have come into pretty decent bearing.  Being young, I had to thin them quite a bit this year to prevent limb breakage.  They are tending to be suckery, but otherwise, I’d say this system is a success.  They seem fairly self sufficient, grow fast and fruit early.  The fruit quality is high so far.

Onion braids and chili ristras at turkeysong, the romantic version.  Yellow of Parma Onion seems to be holding up pretty well in storage, but I’m not sure it’s my favorite flavor wise.

The Hall apple has an interesting story.  It was very highly respected at one time, but was nearly lost to cultivation because it was too small to compete in the markets as food shifted increasingly toward larger scale production and people purchased more and grew less.  It was rediscovered by apple hunter Tom Brown (no, not the survival guy) who deserves major props for sleuthing out many old apples that would otherwise be lost forever.  Go Tom!  Hall was also grown in California at one time, and was of commercial interest, though it probably fell out of favor here for the same reasons.  Being a southern apple, it was resistant to our hot summers.  My few specimens this year were badly watercored, but that is likely to clear up as the tree matures.  The flavor was intense, even early in the season, so I’m hopeful it will stand up to the benchmarks already set by other great apples grown here.  This specimen is larger than average since it was grown on a cordon.

It was a good year for apples!  Some gigantic and some tiny.  Some delicious and some spitters.  The cordon trees have really started to produce.  They grow enormous apples.  My only complaint is that the apples seem somewhat watered down compared to those off of my other apple trees, no doubt because of watering.  I have to water them since they have small root systems and are crowded together, but I may cut back a little to see if I can get closer to the dry farmed taste intensity and sweetness of my other apples.  I got to taste a lot of new apples this year and have lost count of how many are fruiting.  I sold apples at the market and did a lot of impromptu tastings with people.  I’ve gotten some good input and insights now and feel confident to move forward with planting a few more trees for market.  I won’t be going large scale or anything.  I like keeping a diversified farm economy, it’s safe and resilient, and way more fun!  But I would like to be able to take more than a couple of boxes to market.  I’m consistently impressed by my apples and disappointed in everyone else’s.  I simply don’t take lame apples to market.  Those are for the chickens or the juice press.  All these years of research and trial testing varieties is paying off.  I’m not sure if I’ll do an apple variety blog report this year, but you’ll certainly be hearing more about worthy and unworthy apple varieties sometime in the future.  I’ve occasionally had my doubts about sinking so much time, thought and energy into the whole apple project, but tasting some great apples this year, and seeing people’s faces when trying them was very gratifying and has confirmed what my enthusiasm already knew.  That should be no surprise since it was all done out of passion and usually the thing you are most compelled to do will bear fruit in some way eventually.  That at least is how I’ve always lived.

Drying strawberries.  This was in the spring.  I just forgot to put it in the last post.  Dried strawberries are intensely flavored, but I can’t say they are super fun to just eat.  I haven’t really figured out what to do with them yet.  I’ll be sure to let you know if I break the dried strawberry code, and let us know if you already have.

Red fleshed apples for making jelly

jelly making and madrone berries for stringing

Red fleshed apple jelly with saffron.  I grow the saffron too.  Why yes, that is bad ass of me :)

Leek seed heads.  These represent the third or fourth generation of seed selected from Bulgarian Giant for height, girth, uprightness, cold hardiness and long smooth stalks.  The gene pool is somewhat limited as I usually only save 8 plants or so, but I’m hoping to trade for some seed from Bulgaria this year to freshen up the gene pool!  Lot’s of seed to give away this year.  You might be surprised how much seed is produced by 8 leek seed heads!  If you have been thinking about saving seed, but haven’t done it yet, my advice is to just start.  Tomatoes are easy and don’t inter-cross.  Lettuce is easy and also doesn’t cross out, so you can just let your best one or two plants go to seed.  It gets more complicated from there, but you can worry about that later!  Find the easy stuff and just start.  Our seed supply and genetic diversity are seriously threatened by current trends.  This is a real problem that we can all solve by taking control of our own seed supplies.  We don’t have to save everything either.  We can divide always trade too.

A few potato onion seedlings showing some diversity of color and size.  Maybe one of these will be the next best potato onion ever.

Fall colors in red fleshed apple seedlings.  Some clearly show much more red than others.

Red fleshed apple seedling in fall.

This apple, labeled Vin de St Maurice, is huge.  More huger than it actually looks in this picture.  It wasn’t super exciting to eat, but maybe it will improve.

Winterstein.  Allegedly the only apple bred by famous plant breeder Luther Burbank

Saffron bulbs begining to sprout in fall.  Each of those little shoots coming out the side will become a new bulb.  I had them multiplied up to probably 800 to 1000 bulbs after starting with just 35 or so.  Then a gopher discovered my nursery bed and kicked by butt.  I lost about 2/3 of them, which at around 50 cents piece to replace them is a pretty big loss.  The remaining were replanted in a new bed which was also discovered and the plants started disappearing underground one by one.  I dug up all the plants, lined the bed with wire, and replanted.  Take that suckas!  I’m on a mission to grow saffron here.  Obviously gophers and voles are going to be a major issue, but my gears have been spinning for several years to come up with possible solutions.  Like so many things, there should be a local saffron industry in California, at least to cover local use.  It is very easy to grow aside from the rodent issue.

Saffron root growing through a piece of “the pet”, a clay charcoal kiln that was pulverized and used to amend the saffron crocus bed.  Burnt clay is supposed to be a good soil amendment.  did this root find that hole in the fired clay and dive in?  Or did it just bump into it and end up in there?

Dressing a piece of lat year’s bull hide.  This piece of leather went to shoe maker Holly Embree and was used to make a pair of shoes for the fiber shed fashion gala.  She was able  to work with the chicken tracks that I couldn’t manage to dress out :/

Bay nuts galore this year!  This picture shows the genetic diversity of the bay nut.  I suspect that indicates a high potential for breeding for improvements in size, form, oil content, etc… After all, it’s relative the avocado was bred from a small, barely edible fruit.  Look for a book from paleotechnics on bay trees and bay nuts this fall (you might not find it, but look anyway:)

The best drier.  The car dashboards are in constant use every fall and much of the summer for drying stuff.   There are more trays and boxes in the background.  They haven’t all been weighed yet, but probably around 150 pounds total this year.  I’ll be selling them on ebay and elsewhere.

Bay nuts in a mesh bag.  Just a cool picture.

Roating bay nuts in a popcorn popper, my new preferred method until I invent and build a better roaster.

Cracking bay nuts in the Davebilt nutcracker.  This machine is manufactured and sold by a very nice old couple in Lake County.  It can be set for any size of nut.  It sure beats tapping each one with a rock!  An investment, but a solid one if you crack nuts every year.  It’s built like a tank.

Roasted bay nuts, mmmmm….

bagged and ready for market

Bay nut candy ingredients- chili powders, hand gathered sea salt and maple sugar

Bay nut paste ground find for making candy.  Bay nuts contain 60% of almost entirely saturated oils, much like coconut and chocolate do.  When ground, the oils melt and the paste can be shaped to cool into chocolate like confections.  Isn’t that cool?!

Paleotechnics cofounder and Turkeysong partner and veteran bay nut pusher Tamara Wilder rolling out bay nut paste.

Cuttting

Cooling bay nut candies to harden.  They are hard at room temperature and melt in your mouth or hand just like chocolate.  You know you want one, but so far they are only for sale sporadically at random paleotechnics events.

Happiness is a full woodshed, but this shed is less than full.  At least it’s half full and not half empty this year!  It does have a nice stack of fat slabs of fir bark for lime burning projects!  This bark is from 60 year old stumps, still solid and dense with a high fuel value.  I like the florist sighn with half the F eaten off by a horse.  That’s going to market this year.  Very country chic.

Persimmons peeled for drying.

Drying persimmons hung from the building eaves.  This is how they do it in Japan.

Drying hachiya persimmons.  These are so good!  Persimmons are dried and eaten all over temperate asia, but are just being discovered by other-than-Asian Americans.  I’m planning to plant more, but still deciding what varieties.  The plants are productive, disease resistant, almost pest free and require little pruning.  My neighbors let me pick about 150 fruits off of their 30 year old tree after they had already picked 550 large fruits!  I never knew what to do with that many persimmons until I found out about drying them whole a few years ago.  Early experiments went okay, but when tonia brought some back from chinatown, I realized the true potential and I’m all over it now.  They’re like a giant natural gummy bear that’s been deboned, had it’s limbs and head removed and was given a hat and squished flat.. sort of.  Persimmons are a great example of the latent resource potential concept I’m so into since moving here.  After establishment, the long lived trees will produce persimmons whether they get used or not.  They could be eaten, sold fresh, dried and sold, traded, gifted (part of any truly stable economy), fed to animals or just left to look pretty on the tree.  Awesome.  I’ll be learning more about persimmons and figuring out how to graft them.  There is a great persimmon collection at Winters here in California with varieties from all over the world.

Happy birthday to you!  The daughters of young love on their second birthday.  Yay!  Coming out party in a few years!  And many mooore…

Hopefully the last smokey lime burn ever here at turkeysong.  I only did it for pictures to finish off the lime burning in drums era with a blog post.  All kinda plans for lime burning experimentation rattling around in here.

Slaking shell lime boiling like crazy.  Still exciting every time!

Lots of charcoal making experiments brewing in my head.  The cone kiln concept using a pit is especially exciting.  This guy is doing something similar in hawaii, though his burn strategy is a little different.  I think there is huge potential here and will be experimenting if it ever rains around here.  Thanks to reader Lars for pointing me in this direction.

A 60 year old lump of ossified douglas fir pitch.  What could that possibly be used for?  All kinds of stuff!  In this case, making soot for use in manufacturing ink.  I hope to illustrate all publications from here out with home made artist materials, the mainstay of which will be Asian style lampblack ink and turkey quill pens.

Collecting fir pitch soot (aka lampblack) off of a flat rock for use in ink making.

Hybrid amaryllis coming up under the interstem trees.  I’ve got quite a few trees planted to these bulb as an understory, now and will start seeing some results (or lack of) soon.  Unfortunately, these ones go beat pretty hard in an extended freeze just after this was taken.  Most of them seem like they’re recovering.  I’m probably right about at the limit of what they’ll tolerate weather wise.

Black Sage bundles tied with agave fiber.

This is the apple that Greenmantle nursery trademarked under the name Pink Parfait™.  My apple guru says it’s the best of the Etter blood apples, and I’m becoming inclined to agree.  It is not as red or as intensely flavored, but it does have some of the same fruit punch/berry aromatics and it is a very pleasant eating experience with an outstanding juicy open texture.  The flesh seems to disappear as you chew it.  It also ripened very late for me (later than anything but lady williams!), hung very tight to the tree and survived an extended hard freeze in stellar condition.  But wait, there’s more!  It’s quite beautiful and sweeter than many of them as well.  All in all an excellent apple (at least this year here in California.  Our mileage will probably vary).  Now if we can only get this kind of quality with more pigmentation and more red flavor.  Thanks Albert! I wish you could have lived long enough to see your work really appreciated.

Thanks for tuning in this year!  The Turkeysong blog had 24,000 views in 2013, many of them from people searching the web for relevant information of some kind, which I hope they found (although searches for "How to grow a big ass" and "leek in ass" continue to trickle in as well and I hope those people weren't too disappointed).  Subscriptions continue to grow and I've got plenty more to say!

I'm hoping, if I can, to start an income stream from writing and blogging, so that I can keep doing this.  That will mean more books published and probably affiliate links to amazon on the blogs (Don't worry, I'm not going to try to sell you anything you don't need.  I'm all about people buying less physical stuff and doing things for themselves.  That's practically a mission for me.  Most of them will be to books I write and maybe other books or products that I review, like the gophinator trap.)  I'll probably stay away from advertising altogether, because it's just so annoying, and again, I don't want to sell people anything they don't need, because that's half of the worlds problems in a nutshell.  Or if so, they will be extremely select.  I should be moving to a domain too so I can get rid of the ads that come up on these free wordpress domains.

I really like blogging.  Exploring new and old ideas and techniques, and sharing relevant information, are at the core of my being and always have been.  I'm at something of a cross roads with the blogs and plans for other projects.  I have some other blog ideas, but don't want to get spread too far out, or over-complicate things.  When I started this blog, I thought it would cover all of my interests and ideas, representing the diverse enigma that I am.  Since I was so immersed in homestead stuff at the time, and realized that I had built a small audience around that interest, I decided to branch off and put primitive tech stuff on the Paleotechnics site.  I feel a little disjointed though, because I'm all about the integration of ideas, old and new.  Being intensely immersed in paleotechnology stuff for a long time in my 20's gave me a valuable insight into environments and of the potential for all kinds of materials to be turned to use.  That has been invaluable in helping me see the land, and basically everything, as a resource-scape full of potential, as well as being a sort of organism that I play a part in.  Part of my philosophy is that we should aim not to reject ideas and practices categorically, but rather that it behooves us to view things for what they are and what they do and don't have to offer in the view of a larger context, and integrate or reject them accordingly.  Sounds reasonable I know, but we have a strong tendency to think in black and white categories and build identities around what we are and aren't, what we do and don't do and what is and isn't too new, too old, too whatever.  I'm sorely tempted to throw all my ideas and projects, new and old, together in one place and let everyone sort it out.  While I don't want to alienate a specific audience either, it occurs to me sometimes that I should just write for an audience of diverse interests.  On the other hand, I respect that everyone doesn't want to hear what I think about The politics and social ills of the marijuana black market economy in Northern California, or Rife machines, or how to make a stone bowl using just rocks, or a pimped out chicken powered composting system.

I also can't always find my voice when writing for different audiences.  In some ways, I can best reach my generation and younger people, because we've lived in the same times and speak, to some extent, the same language.  My generation is coming into positions of power and greater influence now and could use a little shaking up. (If you were to ask me, which apparently you don't have to :D.

One thought is to have a central blog that covers everything I do and will serve as a sort of news feed.  That site could have just links to my other blogs and projects, or entire posts replicated.  Also, anything that didn't really fit in on a another blog would go there.   That is appealing in some ways, and may be the best solution, but also sounds complicated and will increase computing time and thereby decrease working time.

I'd appreciate anyone's input on these ideas and thoughts and perspectives on this blog and/or the paleotechnics blog.  What you do and don't want to hear about, what you appreciate or could do without and ideas about structuring content in one place or across multiple sites, or just whatever.

Oh yeah, and once I scrounge up enough money to get a decent video camera, I'm hoping to start a TOTALLY BAD ASS YOU TUBE CHANNEL.  Or is it two channels?  or three?  See, more spreading out :/

Turkeysong, the Year in Pictures 2013 Late Winter and Spring

collecting red fleshed apple pollen header

It's been a challenging year.  My love and best friend moved away in the spring, leaving a hole in my life that still feels like it will never close all the way.  In classic bad timing, I was also embarking on diet and lifestyle changes in yet another attempt to improve my crappy health which I had made worse the previous season by going on a very restricted low carbohydrate diet called GAPS (shudder).  My new approach included, as importantly as anything, stress reduction, but with a broken heart, very little money, no energy and pretty much on my own for the first time in forever without anything resembling a reliable income, that didn't happen so much.  I got pretty low functioning for a while but managed to squeak through the worst of it.

I was only able to make the farmer's market, my main source of income, about once a month where I average less than 100.00.  I was as chubby as I've ever been in my life and pretty damn weak.  I remember killing a chicken to eat and having to rest 3 times in order to finish processing it.  I started plucking it, but it was too much work so I just tore the skin off.  Another time I prepped for the market the night before, and finished washing carrots in the morning.  By the time I was ready, I was too exhausted to make the trip, so I had to blow it off.  A bunch of produce, including a cooler full of amazing carrots, the best crop of the year, went to the chickens.  That sort of thing was not unusual for me unfortunately, but doing it alone was.  I almost never slept more than 5 hours consecutively,usually less, and often only managed to get 4 or 6 hours of sleep total over 24 hours.

Fortunately this nutcase/genius,

Matt-Stone-author-pic

Matt Stone's advice on improving my metabolic rate has paid off in the long run, in spite of some circumstantial bumps in the road.  Regardless of all of the difficulties, my mood was greatly moderated throughout by listening to my body and eating whatever I felt like, whenever I wanted, and then some.  I also stopped working unless I felt really up to it and drastically cut my consumption of liquids, especially the holy elixir of eternal youth, plain water.  Over the last couple months I've lost fat and gained muscle while continuing to follow that basic approach and adding a very small amount of body weight exercise..  I still have some way to go to be really high functioning, but I have a pretty normal body temperature for the first time in ages, and I feel good with increasing frequency, not just not bad, but actually good, always a great rarity for me and valuable beyond words.  On new years eve I wore a t-shirt outside until about 11:00 pm because my metabolism was so jacked up that it felt like I was pushing the cold air away by radiating heat.  My personality has definitely changed for the better, and I'm more convinced than ever that the severity of peoples emotional and phychological issues is often, if not usually, rooted in physiological dysfunction.  A resilient physiology makes for a resilient person.

Other things have helped me along the way, but this is the ONLY approach that has ever felt like it's given me a real foundation on which to potentially build back true health after 15 years of lyme related issues, as well as being kind of messed up for most of the rest of my adult life.  Throwing supplements, exercises, superfoods or whatever at health problems is largely a waste of time if the baseline of the organism, the production of cellular energy, is compromised and replaced (as it always is when compromised) by a stress response chemistry.  Metabolism is where it's at folks.  Low body temperature = an unhappy body.

At this point, I'm pretty much letting my body do the driving, doing my best to make it feel safe, well nourished and well rested, and trusting it to sort out what to do with the resources I give it.  I'm pretty sure now that it's smarter than me.  I'm hoping that I will continue to improve so I can more fully realize my potential to kick some serious experimental/educational butt in 2014, but everything will take a back seat to gaining and retaining a healthy state, whether I get there or not.

Even with all the challenges and a major lag during the summer, I still managed to do some cool stuff and take a bunch of pictures.  I've broken the year in pictures up into two parts of which this is number one.  Hopefully next year it will be in 4 parts!

Erlicheer at the Ukiah Farmer's Market. This smelly small double narcissus, was a big hit. It looks like little roses. It doesn't seem like a good candidate for my tree understory system, but it's very popular as a cut flower.

girl smelling narcissus

Mowgli's Favorite, one of Bill Welch's creations

A Collet Vert rutabagas. This is the best rutabaga I've grown.

coagulated goat's blood being wrapped for freezing. Incredibly nutritious and surprisingly tasty fried.

Many of the inter-stem apples that I planted a couple of years ago were re-grafted to new varieties.  Most are dessert or dual purpose dessert/cider apples.  All the grafts took and they grew very nicely, aside from a couple of grafts breaking in the wind when I unwrapped them too early. One broke at about 12 inches long. It still looked plump and healthy, so I trimmed off the leaves and re-grafted a section of it back into a fresh split immediately. It took. That supports the idea that you can get away with grafting at many different times of the year. In a low risk situation like that one, why not try?  Note also crops being grown under the trees.  It benefits the trees with extra water and nutrients they otherwise probably would not get, and the roots help condition the soil and inject organic matter.  I’m hoping this whole strip will eventually have an understory of winter growing flowers ala my winter bulbs under fruit trees project.

The cuttings from my first batch of red fleshed apple seedlings pollinated in spring 2011, ready for grafting.  Each has a tag with a unique code, so I can keep track and take notes from here out.  The roots were planted in a block somewhere as a sort of backup.

Red fleshed apple seedling nursery.  They are grafted onto dwarfing rootstocks. In a somewhat bold move, I grafted the entire length of most of the scions instead of the usual 2 or 3 buds on a short stick.  Some of them were a couple feet long. I had 100% take on these grafts.  Apparently, the more buds they have, the sooner they’ll fruit, so I’ll do virtually no pruning from here out.  All are staked, and completely painted with grafting wax to prevent drying until the graft can heal. Note also the shade cloth. Overall, it was a good year for grafting. Various experiments I’ve done indicate that the conservative way most of us usually approach grafting is not always necessary, and probably very limiting. I’ll be experimenting more, so hold your breath for EXTREME GRAFTING!!! (THE MOVIE!?)

I’m increasingly impressed by notching.  Notching above a bud encourages it to grow out, or to grow longer and stronger.  This tree was trained by a combination of dis-budding and notching.  By so doing, I got scaffold branches exactly where I wanted them and therefore the basic shape of the tree in one year from a single stem!  I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about this cool technique I picked up from a very old tree training study, but for now, it’s really this simple- leave 3 buds grouped together along the whip wherever you want a scaffold, removing all other buds except a couple at the top, notch one bud in each group to grow out the direction you want that scaffold to point in (one in each direction for open center or delayed open center). Let all growth except basal suckers grow through the season. Trim off anything you don’t want next winter. Why doesn’t everyone do this instead of the usual slower training methods? That’s a good question and I think the answer is key to making progress in gardening and farming. The approach to gardening and farming seems to be conservative by our nature, but it is often based on baseless common knowledge that is not infrequently short sighted, overly conservative, or just plain wrong. This method of notching combined with disbudding was proven out starting in 1926, but seems to have had little influence as far as I’ve encountered.

bee on red fleshed apple flower.  The red pigment can infuse the flowers, leaves, bark and wood as well as the fruit. It was an excellent spring for setting fruit.

Collecting pollen of Red Fleshed apple for breeding effort

Mr. Beethead.  Just a surplus beet from the garden that ended up amusing a lot of people at the local hot springs where it resided in a bowl of water for a few weeks.

Gratuitous cute chick pic

Chicks eating an unwanted turnip.

chicken poo. A common sight at turkeysong. Good stuff when it's not on your shoe.

The new chicken coop. The floor is 1"x2" screen allowing most of the poop to fall through and dry on the floor below for easy collection. Very convenient and more pleasant for the chickens than most designs.

Chicks and mom drinking at the watering hole. With mom at the watering hole. It was an epic chick year with probably over 11 hens going broody. Finding the balance between being over the carrying capacity of the land, and maintaining a surplus large enough to offset depredation is proving to be tricky. Over 20 is too many. They're tearing the place up pretty good. I'm working my way through them one Tom Kha Gai and Yakitori skewer at a time. The meat quality is really outstanding. So are the eggs. These chicks are laying now.

What happens when you don't perform here at turkeysong. The batch of Buckeye chickens didn't work out for eggs and in general. Buckeye fail. however, they are really excellent meat birds I have to say.

Bull hide on tanning beam. This bull hide from the neighbors turned out to be cut up pretty bad which is typical when anyone but a tanner skins an animal. I made a little leather and some glue and some compost.

an experimental piece of skin from the bull hide above that was soaked in hen dung tea. The enzymes from bacteria and the poop itself probably, condition the skin, relax it and take out the remaining lime. This test shows that the "bate" as it's called, has acted on the skin enough to be very pliable and impressionable. Now it's ready for the bark liquor.

Bull hide scraps cleaned and dried for making hide glue.  These were limed, and then rinsed and scraped like crazy to remove unwanted impurities and leave (as much as possible) just collagen, the stuff that glue is made of.

Cooled hide glue gelatin slab made by boiling skin scraps, ready to be cut into cubes

Dried hide glue squares ready for storage and glue making. Glue is made up by soaking in water till swelled and then heating to dissolve.

Just because it's a cool picture.

goat hide stretched in frame to dry. This is mostly for making miniature drums, but also any other crafty things that come up.

wittle wawhide drums. Popular at farmers market and paleotechnics events.

Bracelets of bark tanned goat skin. I made a big 'ol pile of them in the spring. I think my design is pretty cool.

Fallen giant. This spring marked the sad beginning of felling trees infected with Phytopthera ramorum, the organism that causes sudden oak death syndrome. :( If I get them early enough, before they go into the sudden death phase, I can still peel the bark and use it for bark tanning skins. Sadly tanoak is sort of a hinge pin species in this environment. It is the most reliable mast producer for squirrels, deer, birds and more, and of course ultimately for the things that eat them. It is also a symbiotic partner to most of the edible mushrooms that grow here. It’s loss will be devastating to the ecology and me, since I interact with the land I live on here. I may do some experiments planting chestnuts as a potentiall replacement, but they’ll be a long time in growing to fruiting size.  I expect to lose 90% of our tanoaks in the next 5 to 6 years, which is a lot since it’s a major species here. I totally just pulled those numbers out of my butt, I have no idea what it will really be like except for seeing other areas that have been hit. Fortunately other oaks and tree species are not nearly as susceptible.

tonia peeling tan bark with a spud. In this case the spud is just a wooden pole sharpened to a wedge shape.

The bark from the tanoak tree above peeled and drying. Some has already been used, but this is most of it.

Chopping bark for boiling. After drying in the sun, the bark was further crushed and boiled to extract the tannic acid.

Planting out a batch of potato onion seedlings. These were allowed to cross with other onions in the garden to introduce potentially useful, and refreshing, genes.  Or maybe that will just screw them up.  Stay tuned for a few years for the results of that project.

A spring harvest.  fortunately, the garden was largely put in and running before I declined too far to deal with it.

prepping artichokes for canned artichoke hearts.  It was a big artichoke year, mostly because I was on top of controlling the voles who like to munch on the plant bases.  They aren’t hard to control with apple slices in mouse traps, it just has to get done.

Next installment, Summer, Fall and Early Winter

Sloping Pit Charcoal Kiln and Agave Roasting

In the comments on the biochar experiment post, Lars mentioned Japanese cone kilns.  I checked them out on Kelpie’s cool blog, Green Your Head and they do indeed look way cool.  Although slapping a crude one together out of sheet metal would probably be pretty easy, Lars had just simply dug a pit in the same shape.  I tried Lar's pit idea the other day, burned some charcoal in it, and learned a few things that I want to pass on.  This is slightly premature compared to most of my post, which are typically backed by a bit more experience and contemplation, but I'd like to get this idea out there more.  There is very little posted about it anywhere on the net, but it seems very promising, accessible and meets a lot of criteria for a good charcoal production system with very little effort.

Part one.  Sage, Agave and fishes (which have little to do with charcoal production.)  If you are interested in burning charcoal and have a short attention span from internet overstimulation, skip ahead!

When I was in my 20’s I spent a lot of time backpacking out of Big Sur, on the coast of Central California.  One of the common plants is Black Sage, White Sage’s little known, and much more potent sibling.  I've always loved Black Sage and much prefer burning it to the white.  When I moved here, I got some cuttings from someone and rooted them so I could have it around me.  The scent still evokes a lot of fond memories from those good times out in the mountains.  At the time, I lived in the Santa Cruz mountains and used to pick Black Sage and tie it into smudges.   I now have quite a few plants growing, and tying Black Sage smudge sticks is one of many crafty cottage industry occupations that help bring in a little income around here.  Most sage bundles are tied with cotton thread, wrapped in a spiral.  That was way too domesticated for me  back then, so I tied mine off with another plant I harvested in the Big Sur area, Yucca.

When I’d go out backpacking, I’d always harvest some yucca leaves on the way in to camp, pound them on a log by the river, and wash them clean of pulp to extract the long fibers.  I’d twist those fibers into a cord, attach that cord to a stick, add a couple feet of fishing line on the end.  The hook was nearly always a crude fishing fly I'd make by wrapping on whatever bits of feathers or fur I spotted on the hike in.  My fishing kit fit in a tiny pouch, and that’s all I had to carry.  My crude makeshift fishing rig worked awesome!  Wow did those fish bite.  Anything that remotely resembled a bug in the water got hit.  That is elegance.  extremely effective, low input, low cost, less junk to carry, connects me with the environment, builds skills, very little landfill material.  Anyhoo, I always brought out some extra fiber or yucca leaves with me when I eventually made my way back to civilization, and ended up using yucca to tie up my sage bundles.  The practice stuck.

There are several ways to process yucca.  You can pound it fresh with a wood mallet on a smooth log and repeatedly wash and scrape it.  (the pulp is soapy, so you can wash your clothes or dishes while you’re at it.)  The pulp is somewhat tenacious though, so it’s easier to clean off if it is softened by either cooking it, or rotting in water in a process known as retting.  Retting in water is pretty easy, but it takes a long time, and boy does it stink!  The fibers don’t absorb the smell at all, but hands sure do.  If left soaking too long, the fibers are also attacked by bacteria and weakened.

Up around these parts, there isn’t any yucca, but my neighbor Rob grows a lot of Agave americana, a large plant related to yucca which is also used to make tequilla.  Agave americana is not the best agave species for fiber, but it is decent and good enough for tying sage bundles.  I recently harvested some leaves over at Robs garden, an impressive meandering wild affair built up on a bare skim of soil over a serpentine rock  outcrop and consisting only of the toughest most drought resistant plants.  I wanted to bake the leaves because the last batch I tried to ret didn’t work out that great, and it’s winter so it could take months to ret a leaf that is 2 to 3 inches thick in some sections.

 Ok, on to the charcoal kiln:  I couldn’t just build a cone kiln.  As soon as I saw the shape of the cone, I knew I’d be spending a lot of time cutting wood to fit it.  That is a problem with many charcoal making apparatus.  Fuel sometimes has to be reduced to a certain size.  I figured that the principal of the Japanese cone kiln ought to work just as well (and actually better for my purposes)  if the shape were longer.  With a longer kiln pit, much less wood cutting would be entailed.  I don’t mind doing work to get what I want.  I’m not workophobic.  I like cutting wood.  But I like getting shit done too, and cutting longer wood means more wood cut at the end of the day, which equals more charcoal.  I also like efficiency.

 So I put agave leaves and charcoal pit together.  I could dig a long pit kiln, burn the long wood and use the residual heat to roast long agave leaves to soften them up for processing out the fiber.

Ideally the kiln would have been even longer for even less wood cutting (UPDATE: which I've now done and it was great for long unprocessed limbs with twigs and all), but I didn’t have a ton of wood set aside to fill it this time around, and didn’t need a huge pit to cook the leaves in.  I think the opening was probably about 6 feet long and sloped down from there on all four sides.  I didn’t screw around trying to make it nice, even though I had already generated ideas about how to best build and run such a pit.   This run was all about observing what did happened, rather than second guessing exactly what was going to happen.  I knew I’d learn something by just digging a hole and going for it.  I lined the bottom of the pit with bricks to retain heat for roasting the agave.  It is sometimes possible to use just the heat stored in soil to cook things in the ground, but I knew it wouldn’t be adequate in this case, especially since the ground was already wet.  I had doubts that one layer of bricks would even provide enough mass for heat storage, but I just left it at that.  I think more mass would have been better, but it worked okay.

The fire was built and maintained until the pit was fairly full.  The coals were then raked out (most of them anyway) and a few scrappy sacrificial leaves laid on the bottom against the hot bricks and coals, followed by the remaining leaves.  About a gallon of water was thrown on for steam, and the dirt was piled back on as quickly as possible.  No really, as quickly as possible, like all out, fast as you can.  (No pictures of putting the pit together, since I was rushing in order to retain precious heat.)  The charcoal was quenched with water on the ground.  A small brush fire was built on top of the pit for about 8 hours to keep heat in.

Here is some of what I learned.

The cone kiln concept works.  The principal is so simple that I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it before and almost surprised that I didn’t think of it myself.  You start with  a fire and establish a layer of coals covering the bottom.  When each layer is almost burned to coals, another layer is added.  Each new layer effectively uses up incoming oxygen before it can get to the coals below, thus putting them out, or causing them to barely burn.  You can see this effect in a brush burn pile.  Generally there is a good pile of unburned charcoal in a burn pile when the flames subside, and it takes up to a day or more to finish burning out.  That is with piles that are managed for less smoke by piling stuff on one layer at a time as the fire burns, which is how I usually do it.  I don't like making piles way ahead and burning them, because lizards, frogs, salamanders and snakes all move in and get burned up.  A brush pile is a wildlife magnet.  Kelpie builds brush piles and burns them from the top down to reduce smoke and produce char.  The cone pit burns with very little smoke.  Low smoke is a huge departure from most primitive charcoal making methods, and one of my criteria for a good system of char production.  You could probably do this in many backyards without raising any eyebrows or calls to the fire department.

I think that using wood of similar size for each layer is important.  Each new addition should burn down fairly evenly, that is with all pieces burning at a similar rate.  If half the wood is one inch diameter and the rest is 3 inch, the one inch material is going to be burned to ash by the time the 3 inch stuff is burned down enough to add a new layer of fuel.  This principal probably would also apply to differences in wood species and condition, i.e. oak mixed with pine, or green mixed with seasoned.

The layer of wood added should be tightly spaced and/or thick enough to adequately smother the fire below.  Think of each layer of wood as an intercepting shield.  the shield should adequately cover and protect the layer below from infiltrating air.  I chopped the pieces to fit as necessary, and packed them pretty close together.  I left just enough room between pieces to let a little air in between them to keep it all burning cleanly.  More experimentation should be revealing as to what can be gotten away with.  At some point too much attention to detail is going to cost more than it gains.

Square corners are an issue.  I should have seen this one coming.  Square corners create cold zones.  Visualize fire in a rounded corner, v.s. in a square corner.  The rounded corner creates no cold zone and heat is radiated back into the fire in a parabolic effect, like a satellite dish, or solar dish cooker.  I had trouble filling the squared corners with wood in order to keep a hot fire in them.  The corners also ironically tended to burn out underneath once they did get going due to too much oxygen infiltration.  In short, they seemed hard to manage.  Not horrible or anything, but they seemed unpreferable.  I’m not sure one couldn’t effectively manage a pit with square corners, but it seems more finicky at the least.

The shallowly sloped walls are there for a reason.  I mean duh, we’re dealing with Japanese technology here, elegant and effective.  I think the shallowly sloped walls are there because they lead to more effective covering of the previous layer.  Wood on top extends out past the previous layer shielding it from oxygen more effectively.  I could tell I was having losses on one side that was dug with a pretty steep wall, making it more difficult to cover the lower layers adequately.  That's what it seemed like anyway.  Maybe some other reason will become apparent with more experience, but I think that is the reason.

Dirt is messy.  I dug this pit, barely cleaned it out, raked the charcoal out onto the ground and dumped water on it.  It was messy.  Lots of rocks and dirt in the charcoal,  and grass and leaves everywhere.  It would have been much easier to get the charcoal out of the pit if the sides were smooth and clean.  And, it wouldn’t hurt to have a clean area to rake coals out onto.  Dirt and rocks can be washed out by throwing all the charcoal in a tub of water and swirling it around for a second.  All the rocks and nails or whatever will fall to the bottom, and the charcoal is scooped out with a colander, but it’s a messy hassle.

I plan to test all of these observations and assumptions in the future.  For now, I feel like I know where to go next.  If you want to experiment with the cone kiln principal, here are some bullet points.

*Use shallowly sloping sides.  Just like the free standing metal kiln in the picture above.

*If you dig a long pit, make rounded corners.  More like a diminishing oval than a diminishing rectangle.

*Dirt can be dealt with and may not even be a significant hassle in some contexts, but if the kiln is to be used many times (as for biochar production) paving the sides with brick or pasting it over with a clay sand mix might be in order.  Adding that mass would also make the pit into an effective oven as well.  With the right sized pit and enough mass, you could cook large amounts of food, a whole animal, agave leaves, or whatever.  It’s nice to be able to use all that residual heat for something, even if it's just to set a pot of beans in there overnight.

The metal cone kilns are way cool and have the obvious advantage of portability.  But they are also expensive, if you can even find one to buy outside of Japan.  You can probably have one fabricated out of stainless steel at a metal shop.  You could also probably whip a decent one up out of sheet metal with a pop riveter and a pair of metal shears, which I hope to get around to (caution, don't use galvanized metal.  Zinc is toxic when burned.)  It doesn’t have to look good, though the seams might need to be reasonably tight to prevent air infliltration.  The pit is very attractive as an idea.  Anyone can dig a pit, and many could effectively line it with stone or masonry.  A pit is going to be cheap or free, and you can use the residual heat to do other stuff.  One idea I had was to build an above ground pit.  Here I can only burn in the rainy season, so a lined “pit” built in a raised mound of well draining material like gravel or gravelly soil, would be ready to use all year, even when the ground is soaked.

My yield of charcoal to fuel burned seemed decent, and there were almost no unburned pieces remaining.  I think there may be room for improvement in yield with better management or feedstock, but I'm happy enough with what I got out of it.  I want to go other places with this concept eventually, with as much function stacking as possible.  For instance, burnt clay is also a great soil amendment and could be produced by lining the pit with clay and chipping it off to add a new layer each time the pit is burned.  Maybe a few shells could be added to make some agricultural lime while we’re at it.  Wish I'd thought of that this last time around.

Many char producing systems will only take one size/shape of wood.  In the cone system, it seems like each layer should be composed of pieces of similar thickness, but otherwise, there is a lot of leeway in fuel size and shape.  Some methods also use up extra fuel in order to burn the charcoal.  Not using extra wood to generate adequate heat, and being relatively efficient, are other good design parameters that the cone kiln, in spite of it's simplicity, seems to do pretty well with.  In producing char, it is probably going to be best to have a variety of options here for the different types of feed stock that might be produced on 40 acres of varied species, combined with pallet and scrap wood, wood chips I can scrounge up, etc.  For now, the cone kiln concept seems well worth pursuing further, and a great addition to the stable.  I'm actually pretty excited about it, because it possesses a lot of good points, combined with simplicity/accessibility.   I’ll leave you with some agave processing pictures.

(edit:  Since writing this, I trailed some links back to find Josiah Hunt is doing something similar in Hawaii.  His burning style is different, but pretty much the same concept.  Check it out.  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/biochar-hawaii/ohoqDcuHMiQ )

How long does it take?

By Steven Edholm

Yay, winter solstice it here!  That means we can all work more as days get longer!  huh?  “That must be a lot of work”.  “How long does that take?”  These are questions we commonly encounter here at Paleotechnics.  They aren't always irrelevant questions, but they generally hint at something pervasive, and often destructive, in our society.  The answer is never simple.  The truth is that we usually don’t know, and we usually don’t pay much attention.  The society we live in, and the way we do work, are all about quantifying.  If we work longer, we get paid more.  We walk around constantly judging activity and categorizing it.  There is work, and then there is life, and activity is either leisure, or profit motivated.  Working for acquisition of the symbol called money is particularly conducive to fracturing our lives into parts and assigning different types and amounts of value to them.*

But there are other ways to think about the things we do.  My friend and artist/craftsman/doer/maker Scott McGrath had a bumper sticker made once that said "I'D RATHER BE WORKING".  Almost anyone who has tackled a big project requiring intense concentration, whether it’s a hobby or for money work, knows the feeling of losing perception of time for a while.  I experience that feeling quite a bit.  Whether I’m cracking walnuts, tying sage bundles, or paring artichokes to make canned artichoke hearts, I look up after a while and realize I was in a mode in which time didn’t matter.  As long as you don’t need that time for something else, why keep track at all?  And who cares how long it takes?  But we are conditioned to constantly judge activities and value some over others.  We have come to have a strange relationship with what we call “work” and are also constantly encouraged to relish and enjoy our leisure.  But, if you live passionately and work to get things which are important in your larger scheme done, those lines begin to blur.

There are plenty of jobs I don’t totally relish, but I find that if the things I do are generally in line with my overarching passions, interests and goals, and I’m feeling relatively healthy, then labor is a pleasure.  And that labor of some kind, big or small, is what I want to be doing with most of my time, and what makes me feel good.  Meaningful work is one of the cornerstones of a satisfying existence.

The social and media forces that influence us are very powerful.  I don’t want to minimize them, and I don’t want to ignore the fact that we do what we do largely because of who we are and how and where we find ourselves.  But in a very real way, no one forces you to take a job you don’t like, or live life in a certain way.  You don’t have to live the way other people do, hold their values, or possess the things they possess.  You don’t have to spend your leisure time like other people do.  You don’t have to “relax”, or "party", or do “nothing” when you are not working.  And you don’t have to divide your life strictly into work and leisure activities.  “Work” is life, just like everything else.  Some of it is enjoyable and some of it isn’t.  But we don’t always necessarily have to judge it and categorize it ahead of our actual experience of it.

We can’t buck the whole system, but we can come to recognize the areas in which modern life, with it’s work/consume cycle and the fracturing of our lives into compartmentalized parts of work v.s. leisure, can cause disharmony.  With awareness comes the ability to act on our own behalf.  We can take ourselves gently by the shoulder and point us in new directions that reintegrate the parts of our life, where activity may just be activity and enjoyment and satisfaction are where we find them.

Disconnecting yourself from messages that indoctrinate you into the work/consume cycle and reinforce the fracturing of your life is helpful.  We are all susceptible to advertising and popular culture, no matter how aware we are.  It’s just simple programing.  Almost no one can escape it completely, but we can minimize it.

Try observing how you judge and categorize your activities unnecessarily, and how it affects enjoyment of them, or especially your ability to get lost in activities in a relaxed way.  What is your internal dialogue saying about the different things you do?  What judgements is it making that are coming out of someplace besides a pure, unpolluted motivation that you can understand emotionally?  If you really truly hate something you do and can't find a way to integrate it harmoniously into your life, maybe it's time to look at changing your life around.

Losing awareness of time, frenzy and resistance to simply become your activity for a while, whether it is oriented toward money or not, is a nice place to be!  Then maybe when you show someone your impressive project and they ask “how long did it take?” you will feel the irrelevance of the mindset that constantly feels the need to quantify everything in order to find a value for it that is, upon close examination, basically arbitrary.  An integrated life of love and passion, where activity of all kinds stem from a harmonized motivation, is going to be more relevant and satisfying than the constant, neurotic crazing of life and the world into value based on an arbitrary and constantly shifting quantification.  This isn’t a discreet model or place we can reach, but a philosophy of approach that we can reinforce and grow toward with awareness and intention.  By stepping aside for a minute and viewing ourselves and others from an outside perspective, we can cultivate an awareness of the ways in which we have come to embody those potentially de-harmonizing aspects of consumer society, and point ourselves in new directions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=21j_OCNLuYg

*Not to dogmatically reject money.  It has it's advantages and, regardless of anything, it's probably not going to go away anytime soon, so we'd best learn to live with it for now.

Tetrahedron, Tetrashmeedron: Quest for the ultimate fire model

By Steven Edholm

"Ultimately, I think that where all of this analysis leads to is that..."

When I began writing the post,  There's More to Fire Than Heat, Fuel and Oxygen (or, Fire Exists Within a Sphere of Changing and Interdependent Circumstances),  I wanted a basic model to represent fire.  There is actually already a model commonly used to represent fire known as the tetrahedron of fire.  It consists of a tetrahedron of course, which is a pyramid with 3 sides and a bottom.  The three sides represent one each of HEAT, FUEL and OXYGEN.  The bottom of the pyramid represents the circumstances under which those three elements interact and is commonly referred to as a chain reaction.  The common explanation of the tetrahedron is that if you remove any one of the factors represented by the four sides, the fire ceases, which is true.  I have never felt comfortable with this common model, and indeed part of the impetus for writing that first article was to emphasize the importance, to my way of thinking, of the circumstances which allow, inhibit, and shape the character of, a fire; In other words, to draw what I feel is rightful attention to the bottom of the pyramid.  What I ended up writing instead, or before I got to my point, was the epic analysis that follows!  I decided that I better just cut it out and use it somewhere else.  Lucky you.

I have a number of problems with the basic tetrahedron of fire model, but I think that many of them are due to my perspective as someone who has used fire quite a lot and would like to communicate information about starting and maintaining wood fires to other people.  I feel that from this perspective the tetrahedron model  doesn't emphasize the factors associated with an uninhibited chain reaction… or, especially, the actual means of controlling those factors to manipulate a fire into doing what it is that we want it to do.  In fact, being on the bottom with no real name, I feel that the fourth side of the tetrahedron is actually de-emphasized in the tetrahedron, although, you could see it as the foundation I suppose.  What I would like to see, is a model that demonstrates to some degree, visually as well as with a suitable name, the physical reality of fire.  I guess I feel that the tetrahedron is so abstracted and theoretical that it is not of immediate practical use to most people.  What I probably want is a model that is functional for fire users.  This model would show the interaction of the 3 elements of fire and emphasize that it is the chain reaction itself that is really the most important factor.  Yes its true that if you remove one side of the tetrahedron the fire goes out, but what of the complex interactions between the four sides which can cause a fire to burn, smolder or grow exponentially.

Fire is not a phenomenon that exists in a black and white world of burning or not burning.  Of course it can be reduced to that level of understanding, but that perspective is of limited use.  Rather, fire exists in a spectrum from the smallest smoldering spark to an inferno or even an explosion.  Even when wood is heated below the point of combustion it undergoes destruction.  Upon close scrutiny, what we really see is a spectrum with a few discreet, sensational points of especial interest, and not an all or nothing sort of situation.  In other words, the limited on/off switch simplicity of the tetrahedron model limits its usefulness in a qualitative sense.  When asked “what kind of fire” the tetrahedron simply says one that burns, or does not burn.  The other three necessary elements exist all around, but putting them together in the proper circumstances for combustion is much more rare.  I baked a pie today.  There was heat in the oven, the kitchen is largely made of fuel, and air is everywhere, yet the fire stayed in the oven.  Even the pie, in close proximity with a fairly energy dense flammable crust was just baked and not burned.  Having heat, oxygen and fuel does not necessarily mean fire.

The tetrahedron model doesn't say much to me.  I would like to come up with a model that is more immediately accessible.  Also, I mean accessible to all people.  Something that will say more about the process and requirements of fire at a glance with less need for elaboration.  This may be an impossible task if all forms of fire are represented.  The tetrahedron is simple enough that it doesn't specify anything and therefore can include all types of fires.  A model that is more functional might limit the types of fires represented, but in the interest of communicating information that might be useful to those who use, or would like to use, fire.

My main complaints with the standard tetrahedron are as follows

The fourth side doesn't have a name that really works.  It is usually referred to as the chemical reaction or the uninhibited chain reaction.  I've racked my brain (and plied the thesaurus) and the most descriptive word I can come up with is circumstances not very immediately understandable maybe and not very sexy, but…  Perhaps it needs more than one word?  At least circumstances leaves room for attributes of various individual fires  Either way it still begs description which is un-ideal.  I think being on the bottom also contributes to the minimization of circumstances in the tetrahedron model, and that feels wrong because circumstance is really what fire is all about.  To my mind the concept of circumstances should be at the center of the discussion and of the model because the other three elements are exceedingly common and even throwing them together haphazardly will not always yield fire.

The tetrahedron model doesn't foster any kind of understanding of what our relationship with fire can be as users.  It exists more in a theoretical framework where extrapolations have to be made, or much more data added, to understand fire functionally.  In other words, its hard to look at it and recognize anything.  It doesn't foster an understanding by its nature and says almost nothing on its own.

There is not even a hint at quantity in the model.  If I add more air the chain reaction is intensified.  If I limit air the fire may be either put out or it may be minimized.  It will die out with X amount of air in one set of circumstances and not another, and the same can be said for heat as well.  The variability of fire or its reaction to partial removal or addition of one or more elements is not represented.

A much greater grasp of fire can be had by understanding the spatial distribution of fuels, which the model does not address.  This goes for both the distance between fuel units (also dependent on fuel size and qualities)  as well as the vertical and horizontal alignments.  This point is much more relevant to solid fuels.

The behavior of the elements of heat and air are also missing from the tetrahedron model.  Draft, and the build up of heat between the fuel units, are crucial factors in understanding the behavior and manipulation of fire.  It would also be nice if our model could hint at this behavior.

All of the above hint at the concept that reactions of fire are complex and interdependent.  Change one element in quantity or quality and the others change as well.  An ideal practical model would represent in some way the interdependence and interaction between the three elements.

Maybe this is all too much to ask from a fire model!  I guess I have to give the tetrahedron a couple of points here.  It is kind of neato that there is this geometric model where  A, H & F each touch both of the other two and the bottom touches all three.  But on second thought, the chain reaction (oops, I meant circumstances), being less concrete than the others should probably be set apart as different than the other three and of course you already know I'm not happy about it being placed at the bottom as I feel this minimizes its importance.  The problem I've run into in trying to improve the model though is that if you separate the three it becomes difficult or impossible to draw the connections between the other three.  That is a place where the tetrahedron works.

Another possible merit of the tetrahedron is that it’s simple enough to include all types of fires… but… its too damn simple.  It just doesn't say anything.  Without explanation it's just a pretty shape, and you can explain what it's capable of actually showing in a few seconds.

The challenge in creating a useful fire model or diagram is to make it say something, and to communicate important information easily without confusion.  Some information may have to be left in the dust, and that's fine.  I want a model that can foster as much understanding as possible while still being functional and accessible.  I've tried to work on such a model, but so far I'm not very happy with any of the results.  In fact, I haven't yet decided whether they are even an improvement at all.

Ideally the model would represent:

draft… the crucial fact that burning things and rising heat draw more air into the firesphere.

The focal areas of heat that build up between fuel bodies and how this interaction perpetuates a fire.

The effect of the relationship between fuel sizes and the distance between fuel units on combustion.

fire as a product of the interaction of the Heat, Fuel and Oxygen and the fact that this interaction is widely variable depending on the circumstances.

Ultimately, it would actually require many diagrams and much explanation to show the more practical everyday physical realities and concepts of fire, but it would be nice if one primary and more encompassing model showed something immediately useful other than “it takes these three things to make a fire”…. and then as an afterthought, “oh yeah, they have to be uninhibited”…. and “if you take one away it stops”.  What about "if you take some of this away it slows down but doesn't stop"?… or "if you add more it goes faster"?

The quest for a better fire model may be a lost cause, and for now, I've given up.  I think my main beef with the tetrahedron is subjective, and simply that it seems to infer less importance to the things that really matter in practical fire applications; the things that I’m always trying to communicate to people as very important to working understanding of fires, and which I can see that many people have a poor grasp of.  Ultimately, I think that where all of this analysis leads to is that an actual fire makes the best model!  Imagine that!  I mean it's interactive, three dimensional and fun!  Perhaps we can only learn so much with two dimensional models, and will never understand fire by surfing the internet.  With a fire in front of us, and a little nurturing by someone competent with fire, a rapid understanding of the circumstances of combustion is possible.  And I’ve seen this over and over again when playing fire chess.  Immersion is generally the best teacher.  Put ourselves in circumstances which require competence and competence is fostered.  Hey, stop surfing and start burning!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UmC6acEHk0

10 Yellow Terrors!: dissolving myths and fears about using urine as a fertilizer:

"  Keep in mind that by simply saving your urine, you will divert the great majority of the plant nutrients leaving your body from entering the waste stream.  That is probably the most important and relevant nugget of truth to remember and spread, because it allows people to take a step now, rather than waiting for some hypothetical future when they will build, manage and use a composting toilet."

I've wanted to do a somewhat extensive post on using urine as a fertilizer, instead of just mentioning it all the time in other posts.  The main problem in adopting it's use seems to be a plethora of the fears and misconceptions surrounding the idea, so I figured that addressing those concerns would probably be the most useful approach.  What follows are largely my opinions, though some facts may be sprinkled in for entertainment purposes ;)  Don't take my word for anything without thinking it out or doing research yourself to find your own comfort level.  I'm just some guy out there that has access to the internet like everyone else, so why should you trust me?  This information is based on a mix of practical experience and book learning, but the practical experience is the important part.  I'm a keen observer and I like to push limits to see what happens.  I used urine as my primary fertilizer in the home garden for many years.  It's awesome.  The only reason I stopped is because I wanted to start doing market gardening and it seemed inappropriate, and no doubt illegal.

In reading forums and articles I have seen the same concerns and misinformation about using urine as a fertilizer expressed over and over again.  Gardeners like to get all worked up over things that are supposed to be bad for soil or plants, and then pass that common knowledge on without actually ever really putting it to the test.  The use of Urine seems to have many pieces of that kind of common knowledge attached.  I too believed and no doubt propagated some of the following items.  This is my small attempt to correct some misconceptions, quell some fears, and give people the confidence to move forward with using this awesome source of plant nutrition.  I would really like as many gardeners as possible to read this, because using urine makes so much sense for most of us. Hopefully we can evolve out of the dark ages here and move into the golden age of illumination.

#1  Neeeooooooooo !!!!!!!!  Fresh urine will burn plants, aged urine is better!: In my experience it is aged urine which is more likely to burn plants if anything.  If you put too much fresh urine on one spot plants will be stunted, burned or die, but it takes quite a bit to tip the scale from beneficial to destructive.  Peeing one whole bladder full on one little plant might negatively affect it, but in general fresh urine seems safer than aged, though that is just my general observation and the thing could stand to be tested in a way that would be definitive.  See also below...

Yep, that's some live action there. This Oriental Poppy gets a golden shower, a whole bladder full even! some time later, I'm sure at least a month, not only is it not dead, but it appears to be doing relatively better than the rest. What about diluting it 10 times? What about the salts? What about the ammonia? What about it? In my general experience, breaking gardening dogmas developed by the dissemination of common knowledge goes pretty well.

#2  OMFG!! !!    !!!! Aged urine will burn plants, urine must be used fresh!:  If I’m right, aged urine may indeed be more likely to burn plants, but it definitely can be used when diluted with water.  I have no real substantive proof of this, but aged urine seems to contain "hotter" compounds than fresh urine.  In particular, I suspect this is due to the break down of complex proteins into ammonia, which may increase the potential for leaf and root burning.  I dilute aged urine at least 2 to 1 water to urine apply to wet soil followed by watering in.  Using too much at once can still burn plants but that's okay, because frequent small applications at intervals of 1 to 4 weeks is actually a better approach when using soluble fertilizers than putting it on all at once.  I have used mostly aged urine because that's just how it worked out.  Even if plants are burned, it is not generally fatal.  Most will recover and grow on to be reasonably healthy.  Just flush them with a lot of water and don't feed for a while.  No reason to get your boxers all in a bunch.

(note:  I actually did a test once upon a time, wherein I took two pints of pee, one aged and smelling of ammonia, and one fresh from the source, and dumped them each in one small area on some lentil plants.  Neither suffered any visible damage, there was no noticeable difference between them.  My main point, aside from acting like a dick and making fun of your unfounded fears, is that both fresh and aged urine can be used to good effect! :D)

#3  DIDN'T YOU KNOW?! EVERYBODY KNOWS!!!! Urine must be diluted at least 10 times with water in order to be safe for plants!!!!  NEEOOOOO!, YOU’RE GOING TO KILL YOUR PLANTS!!!!!!!:  Soluble fertilizers, including urine and more especially aged urine, are best applied to wet soils and then watered in.  By doing so, you are essentially diluting the fertilizing solution a great deal, whatever it is.  Dilution of 1:10 urine to water for actual application from a watering can is very inconvenient.  With a 10:1 ratio I would have had to apply many more watering cans full compared to using the concentration of 1:2 which I customarily used!  Screw that, it took long enough at  1:2!  I sometimes even used a dilution of 1:1 especially with fresh urine, on plants that like lots of nitrogen just because its faster.  I've even used it straight.  It must be said though, that I've almost always "watered in" after application.  Watering in not only further dilutes the urine, it spreads it out in the soil and washes it down to the plants' roots.  Of course all of this is dependent on the strength of the urine.  I used to drink water like a fool and pee clear all day.  Now I've learned better than to flush out all my electrolytes, and my pee is a lot stronger than it used to be.  You can also put too much or too little on, whether it is diluted or not.  Bottom line for me is, I would never dilute more than 1:3, and always water in immediately.  Anything more seems like a waste of labor.

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#4 No worries. Its all good.  Urine is sterile bro!:  Human urine can occasionally contain infectious organisms in spite of the oft stated "factoid" that "urine is sterile".  But ask a doctor or nurse if urine is safe, and they’ll often tell you that it’s sterile with little or no qualification.  If it was always sterile, there would be no such thing as urinary tract infections!  However, fresh urine is usually basically sterile, and safe enough for use.  I think most people have more important things to worry about than the minimal risk posed by using urine in the garden.  If final applications are kept away from edible parts for a at least a few weeks before use there seems little reason for concern when its "all in the family".  Ecosan recommends using urine fresh in family situations, claiming that other modes of transmission of disease are more likely to take place within the group than handling the urine during application, or when eating the food from the garden.  I would however be hesitant to let dirty smelly hippies who have been traveling in the tropics pee on my garden.  Rotting urine is probably somewhat more of a health risk than fresh actually, since it has bacteria growing away in there.  According to one study, urine stored for months (how many is temperature dependent) basically sterilizes itself by the production of ammonia, so that is an option to look at if you're concerned.  I basically view this issue the same way I view animal manures.  If I’m not afraid to shovel a bunch of homegrown chicken poo or other animal manure in various stages of yuckiness on my plants, then I’m not any more afraid to put on some rotten urine.  Possibly less.

urine sample

#5 Ahhhhhhhggggrrrgggaaahhhh!!!!!! The salts in urine will kill your garden!:  I eat a lot of salt, no really.  I used my urine in large amounts on my gardens for about 10 years and stuff grew pretty damn well!  I can't say that one would never see any negative effects of the build up of various mineral salts in the soil.   Almost any garden can be bigger, better, more productive.  However, my garden kicked major ass powered by pee.  I must say though that I have free draining soil and a fairly high annual rainfall.  I might be more concerned if I had very low annual rainfall or a non-draining hardpan layer beneath the top soil.  In the case of the low rainfall, extra water can be channeled onto the garden to wash away excess salts during the rainy season, such as from the house gutters.  Either way, I would still encourage a person to at least set aside one bed and see what happens if it is fertilized regularly through several years with urine.  Try is first, and then panic if stuff starts dying or doing poorly.  Whatever happens soil salting can be rectified by soil flushing if the experiment is on a small scale.

#6 eewwww gross!  Urine will make my garden smell like a subway :(    Welp, it won't actually.  if you pee on concrete it just sits there and supports a bunch of anaerobic bacteria that convert nutrients in the pee into nasty smelling compounds.  If you pee on healthy soil there are gajillions of organisms just waiting to make use of those nutrients and break them down into useful fertilizing compounds.  The clay in the soil will also hold and neutralize most of the smelly stuff.  Peeing in hard lifeless environments like cities and bathrooms creates a problem that does not exist when peeing outside on the ground.  As long as one doesn't pee in the same spot over and over and over, there won't be any appreciable smell.  Urine collected in a bucket and then used in the garden can stink up the place pretty good, but that will dissipate quickly if the urine is watered in and shouldn't last beyond half a day, if that.  Using fresh urine and applying before it starts getting funky should create no appreciable smell.

Sterile human environments become quickly unsterile because there is no web of life consisting of trillions of organisms to make use of the resources that we generally consider to be waste.

#7 Urine has too many soluble chemical thingies and will kill the soil life!  SOLUBLE FERTILIZER BAAAAAAHD, ORGANIC MATTER GOOOOOOOD:  Maybe urine could kill a few good guys in the soil because it is too soluble and too hot, hell if I know, but consider the following.  What are you killing, maiming or breaking to pieces when soil is dug to mix in manure or other fertilizers?  Ultimately what benefits are you gaining by incurring heavy plant and root growth by using a kick ass soluble fertilizer?  What benefits are all those trace minerals, vitamins and nutrients ultimately doing for the life systems of your soil?  I really don't know what urine does or doesn't kill when applied to soil, if anything.  Maybe it would be good to have some science on this, but I doubt its out there and I don't feel like looking for it, and actually, it just doesn't matter, because when you use pee on your garden it’s going to grow like darned heck!   And what are the alternatives?  Lets consider the non-chemical alternatives:

Make compost instead: (maybe even with the urine)  Everyone with experience knows that producing tons of compost for a large garden is a big chore. The compost also has to be dug into the ground to be really effective as an actual main fertilizer, unless you can use tons of it.

Import animal manures:  (Which are usually full of urine by the way.)  Manure is often full of weed seeds including noxious weeds that you may not have yet.  Requires transportation.  Inelegant.  Dependent.  If you have manure from your own animals, hell yeah, way to go!  You get a gold star baby!

Buy a non soluble nitrogen source and use that: (blood meal, "feather" meal, alfalfa etc...).  Usually have to dig it in.  Dependent again.  Costs money.

#8  All the drugs and chemicals in my pee are going to kill the soil life!  Jeeze, maybe, but then aren't they also killing all your intestinal life too, and maybe you?  I was on heavy continuous doses of antibiotics for two and a half years some time back.  I did have some reservations about using that pee in the garden, but I did it anyway.  I couldn't tell that it hurt anything much.  Dunno, try to take less stuff I guess.

#9  You HAVE to keep a lid on the pee or use it FRESH or ALL the nitrogen will evaporate and be WASTED!  Geeeeezzz.... (eyeroll):  Ok, its probably true that some of the nitrogen can evaporate if the lid is left off of aging urine.  With a little mental gymnastics though, the loss  can be seen as a benefit.  Urine is not the most balanced fertilizer ever, being fairly top heavy on the nitrogen for some crops.  I have never found that to be a major problem in practical application, in fact, not at all, but it would be a theoretically more "balanced" fertilizer if it was lower in nitrogen.  I grow a large garden here and have never used even 1/3 of the pee generated.  Most of it was wasted or directly "applied" to a tree or something.  Unless you have big crops, lots of trees etc, you're likely to have more than you need, so letting a bit of nitrogen evaporate is just not that relevant.  you'll want to keep a lid on it anyway, because it smells, but don't lose any sleep over a little ammonia wafting away.

#10 If I pee on my plants my incipient ego force will wreak havoc on the living organism of my farm and turn my aura yellow!  Screw that!  As near as I can gather, around the neighborhood of the turn of the century, (the 19th/20th one) a mystic by the name of Rudolph Steiner, who claimed to have received, or perceived, intelligence from spiritual realms, gave a lecture or series of lectures on appropriate modes of agriculture that eventually became the bio-dynamic movement.  Apparently, the use of human wastes directly on food crops is somehow discouraged or prohibited in this system.  I'm not entirely clear on the reason, but you can try to interpret the quotes below.  The stuff reads to me like the ramblings of a religious nutcase.  Seriously, this stuff is really out there!  I have no more reason to believe the ramblings of Rudolph Steiner than I do anyone else making random assertions based on exclusive intelligence received from invisible realms.  Although I can't find anything specific to the use of urine on crops and don't want to waste any more of my precious hours here on earth looking for such a passage from Steiner (feel free to post in the comments if you know one, or want to attempt to enlighten us), there are some tasty quotes below which I hope will keep you from being discouraged by biodynamic religious dogma, because that’s all it is.  Biodynamics is quickly gaining popularity supported by the general public who think it sounds great, but have no concept of its roots or the actual practice.  It would totally suck if the spread of biodynamics keeps people from cycling human excrement back into food growing systems and puts us back at square one in regards to that practice, wherein we would be ruled by ignorance and superstition rather than benefiting from the kind of open inquiry and observation needed to solve the fertilizing problems we now face.

A position in opposition to biodynamics
 http://biodynamicshoax.wordpress.com/

Tasty Rudolph Steiner quotes: "Here you encounter a relationship which you will think most paradoxical, even absurd at first sight, and yet you cannot overlook it if you wish to understand the animal organisation — and the human too, for that matter. What is this brainy mass? It is simply an intestinal mass, carried to the very end. The premature brain deposit passes out through the intestines. As to its processes, the content of the intestines is decidedly akin to the brain-content. To speak grotesquely, I would say: That which spreads out through the brain is a highly advanced heap of manure! Grotesque as it may be, objectively speaking this is the truth. It is none other than the dung, which is transmuted — through its peculiar organic process into the noble matter of the brain, there to become the basis for Ego-development.
In man, as much as possible of the belly-manure is transformed into brain-manure, for man as you know carries his Ego down an to the Earth; in the animal, less. Therefore, in the animal, more remains behind in the belly-manure — and this is what we use for manuring. In animal manure, more Ego potentially remains. Just because the animal itself does not reach up to the Ego, more Ego remains there potentially. Hence, animal and human manure are altogether different things. Animal manure still contains the Ego-potentiality.
Picture to yourselves how we manure the plant. We bring the manure from outside to the plant root. That is to say, we bring Ego to the root of the plant. Let us draw the plant in its entirety (Diagram 19). Down here you have the root; up there, the unfolding leaves and blossoms. There, through the intercourse with air, astrality unfolds —the astral principle is added — whereas down here, through intercourse with the manure, the Ego-potentiality of the plant develops."

and...

"Silica came from the Cosmos into the Earth with a consistency similar to that of wax, and then it hardened. I described yesterday how pictures of the Cosmos arise in clairvoyant contemplation of this hard, rocklike substance. These pictures represent a more spiritual aspect of the
phenomenon that was once concretely perceptible as a kind of plant-form in the portions of this transparent, waxlike silica emerging from the Cosmos. Any observer of Nature will know that in the mineral kingdom today records of an earlier age are still to be found. When you look closely at certain stones you will see something like a plant-form within them. But in that distant past a quite unusual phenomenon was that pictures were projected from the Cosmos into the albuminous atmosphere within the waxlike substance, where the pictures were not only seen but were reproduced, photographed, as it were, within this substance.
And then there was a noteworthy development: the fluid albumen filled these pictures and they became still denser and harder; and finally they were no longer merely pictures. The silicious element fell away from them, dispersed into the atmosphere, and in the earliest Lemurian age there appeared gigantic,floating plant-formations which remind one of the algae of today. They were not rooted in the soil - indeed there was as yet no soil in which they could have taken root; they floated in the fluid albumen, drawing their own substance from it, permeating themselves with it. And not only so - they lit up, glimmered and then faded out; reappeared and again vanished. Their mutability was so great that this was possible.
Try to picture this vividly. It is a panorama very different from anything to be seen in our environment today. If a modern man could project himself into that far-off time, set up a little observation-hut and look out on that ancient world, the spectacle before him would be something like this: he would see a gigantic plant-formation somewhat like present-day algae or palms. It would not appear to grow out of the Earth in springtime and die away in the autumn, but would shoot up - in springtime, it is true, but the spring was then much shorter - and reach an enormous size; then it would vanish again in the fluid albuminous element. A clairvoyant observer would see the verdure appearing and then fading away. He would not speak of plants which cover the Earth but of plants appearing out of the Cosmos like airy clouds, condensing and then dissolving - it was a process of "greening", taking place in the albuminous atmosphere. Of the period which would correspond more or less to our summer, an observer would say that it was the time when the environment of the Earth became "green". But he would look upwards to the greening rather than downwards. In this way we can picture how the silicious element in the Earth's atmosphere penetrates into the Earth and draws to itself the plant-force from the Cosmos, in other words, how the plant kingdom comes down to the Earth from the Cosmos. In the period of which l am speaking, however, we must say of the plant world: it is something that comes into being and passes away again in the atmosphere."

and...

"Man is in this way seized by the forces which, coming out of the earth, determine him; so that, if we picture these several points, we get a remarkable line. This line still holds good for our epoch. The spot in Africa corresponds to those forces of the earth which imprint upon man the characteristics of early childhood. The spot in Asia corresponds to those which give man the characteristics of youth, and the ripest characteristics are imprinted on man by the corresponding spot in Europe. This is simply a law. As all persons in their different incarnations pass through the various races, therefore, although it may be argued that the European has the advantage over the black and the yellow races, we should not be prejudiced thereby."

Rudolph Steiner

No need to hold it against all those asians and blacks just because they are underdeveloped and have to be reincarnated more times to achieve the superiority that comes with whiteness.  Eyeroll.  I guess he didn't notice that the Chinese invented like 90% of everything while his ancestors were probably still living in huts.

Steiner. Nutcase, or prophet, or both? Rumor has it that he is immortal and deviously pursuing his dream of an eco-fascist state of superiour whities as a popular actor.

Screen shot 2013-12-07 at 7.46.41 AM

Whether I'm exactly right about all the details or not, the fact remains that my gardens have kicked some major butt fueled by pee.  Fears abound, but the consequences of any complications that may arise are likely to be pretty minor rather than devastating.  And not only is peeing on your garden not gross, it totally sexy.  Just check out this gardening hottie at about 5 min 45 sec.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtbcYJPOVmM

So, pee in a bucket for a while, and do a few test plots to see for yourself.  For more reading on using urine as a fertilizer, see the literature made available by ecosan.  They’re on a mission to stop the waste, grossness and disease caused by the viewing of human manures as a waste product, aiming to bring them into use in the areas which need them most, and which also have the worst sanitation issues.  Ecosan rocks, and their urine diverting composting toilet system makes the popular humanure system look clunky, labor intensive and unsafe.  

Keep in mind that by simply saving your urine, you will divert the great majority of the plant nutrients leaving your body from entering the waste stream.That is probably the most important and relevant nugget of truth to remember and spread, because it allows people to take a step now, rather than waiting for some hypothetical future when they will build, manage and use a composting toilet.

Guidelines for the Safe Use of Urine and Faeces.... Ecosan.

Roasting Bay Nuts in a Popcorn Popper

roast bay nuts header

By Steven Edholm

NOTE:  Bay nuts must be properly roasted to be edible to humans.  In spite of our best efforts to the contrary, we still commonly encounter people who are not roasting their bay nuts properly.  Most commonly, the nuts are not dried before roasting.  The second most common problem is roasting too cool.  The toxicity of unroasted bay nuts is unknown, but they are probably not good for you.  A tickling irritation in the back of the throat, almost like a burning sensation, is indicative of inadequate roasting.  Please read and follow directions.)

Bay nut season is early this year.  I usually find myself harvesting them around thanksgiving, but they’re dropping all over the place and have been for a while.  Roasting bay nuts in an oven is tricky.  They require very frequent stirring and because it is only practical to stir the nuts every 2 to 3 minutes, they often roast unevenly.  It has always been my feeling that the nuts should be kept in more or less continuous motion in order to roast more evenly, just as when roasting coffee.  I’ve even thought about approaching a coffee roasting company to see if I could try using their equipment, or maybe  building some type of makeshift roaster that would keep the beans moving constantly.

Last year we acquired a popcorn popper here at Turkeysong for roasting coffee beans.  This is the type with a crank handle on top and a wire inside that stirs the popcorn.  They work really great for popcorn and roasting coffee beans.  I’ve used it a number of times now to roast bay nuts, and it seems to work really well.  At this point I'm fairly well convinced that it works better than the oven.  A reader also contacted us recently saying that he has been using one too and liked the results, so I think we’re all on to something.

Here are some thoughts and observations on using the popper.  Don't forget to roast dried nuts only (that means the nut inside the shell is dry and somewhat hard, not rubbery or flexible).

*Stir the nuts constantly.  The burners on my small stove are weak, but it still seems to get extremely hot in the popper.  I think it's good to tone it down a little as the roasting progresses.  I start on high, (which is not that high on my stove) then turn them down to medium, or medium low at around 6 to 7 minutes when they are really starting to roast and smoke.  They should still roast hot for the finish, and should still be smoking lightly to moderately the whole time .  With my set up, roasting a pint in the popper takes about 13 to 15 minutes.  Don't use that as strict guideline, but you see what I'm getting at.  It is important not to roast too cool.  Our observation so far is that a high temperature really seems to help in driving off the volatile constituents that make bay nuts inedible when raw.  If it takes under 12 minutes, you're probably running a little hotter than you need to.  If it takes over 15 minutes, you're probably running a little cool.

*Once the nuts are nearly done, they finish roasting (or burning) extremely fast!  The difference between roasted and burnt, may be less than a minute.  This is one reason I like to turn down the heat a bit, in order to have a longer window for deciding when they are done.  Either way, check the nuts very frequently by cracking one open to observe the color, and remove to cool in a basket as soon as they are done and not a second longer.  Color can range from light brown, like coffee with a little cream, to dark brown.  If not roasted enough, they the volatile oils will tickle and irritate the back of your throat.

*How many nuts to roast at once?  I’m still testing out this factor, but for now I’m sticking with about a double layer maximum.  In a big popper, that’s actually a lot of nuts.  For personal use, less than a full layer is still going to be a lot of nuts.

*The poppers vary a great deal in build quality.  The one we have at Turkeysong now is a stainless steel unit called... are you ready?  The Sweet and Easy Snack Machine.  The build quality is very good.  It is heavy gauge stainless.  The lid can be a bit of a pain to take on and off, but otherwise, I’m fairly happy with it.  If you want a quality popper to use for popcorn and coffee too, I guess I’d recommend it, but with some reservations.  If you read reviews on amazon, not everyone is happy with this unit.  Most of them are aluminum, which is not very suitable for direct contact with food like popcorn and coffee beans scraping around in the bottom.  But, if you have a cheap aluminum one already, or can score one at a thrift store or yard sale, I’ll bet it’ll work just fine for bay nuts in the shell.

sweet n easy snack

*The process makes a ton of smoke!  Turn on the vent if you have one.

*Remember to observe some basic rules of roasting bay nuts.

>Dry the nuts first!

>Roast in the Shell

>Roast pretty hot, should be smoking a fair amount

>Test frequently

>Roast small quantities to use soon, and keep the roasted nuts sealed in a jar to prevent staleness.

roast baynut macro

For more on baynuts see Baynutting.  Follow us on facebook to stay informed.

Onion Braids: functional, symbolic, marketing ploy.

I often braid my onions, but my braids aren’t all neat and pretty-like.  Stylish onion and garlic braids are nice, but I don’t have the time, energy and patience to sit around making something that I produce essentially for functional reasons look like I bought it at a country chic boutique.  Last year though, we braided onions for the market.  I spent a lot of time trimming the bulbs and making them look presentable, then dipping the dried leaves in water to re-soften so tonia could braid them neatly.  We added dried lavender and stuff to spiff them up a bit.  they turned out pretty nice and It was kind of fun, but it was also time consuming.  A major motivator was that it allowed us to sell our onions for a lot more.  If you really added up our time though, it was more like having another mediocre paying job to our lives, which is actually okay, but not high incentive.  I liked our onions braids, but something never quite sat right about the whole thing.  I think in a way we were diminishing the value of the food we grew by making it into something that may be viewed as art first and food second.  Also, I couldn’t help thinking that we could have spent that time growing more food or making something more lasting.

Braiding onions is actually more fun when I’m doing it for functional reasons.  I just start slapping them together and it usually works out good enough ("Good enough", a lot of jokes have been made that this is the Turkeysong motto.)  The braids are kind of messy, more like onion dreadlocks, but I’m looking at some of them hanging in my room right now and they’re pretty neat looking after they cure well enough to knock off some of the dirty outer skins.  Once you give up on making them all perfect looking, curing and storing braided onions is very practical.   It doesn’t take very long to whip out a 15 or 20 onion braid when you have no significant commitment to cosmetics.  Functionally speaking, the bulbs in a braid have good air circulation for curing, and they don’t take up a lot of space like loose onions do when spread out somewhere to dry.  You can easily move a braid in or out of the shade, and move them inside when it gets damp out.  There is no picking up of numerous loose onions one at a time and finding another place to spread them out flat, or looking for a container with good air circulation to put them in.  You can store the braids in a cool dry place, and maybe bring in one at a time to hang in the kitchen, pulling onions off as you need them.  Some say the onions keep better because the necks are sealed and less likely to be infected with rot.  If an onion does rot, it's less likely to infect others if it's not piled in with them several onions deep in a crate or bag, and they are much easier to inspect.  Onion braiding is a great system and that’s why people started doing it.  And yeah, it does look neat.

But it doesn't just look neat.  To me it is also symbolic of my choices and my lifestyle.  Each year, the sight of onion braids reinforces my sentiments about them and what they represent to me; my efforts of the past seasons carrying me through the coming ones.

Making pretty braids is much less functional.  It takes a lot of time to clean up the bulbs so that they look good, and unless they've cured for a while, that process often leaves very little protective skin on the onions.  There are also a certain number of losses when curing onions that are just inevitable.  I’m sure that more than one person took one of our nice market braids home, at a cost of like 5 onions for 8.00 dollars, or whatever, and hung them up to look at them for so long that some of the onions rotted.  I mean, that’s why you really buy a pretty onion braid, to look at it.  And that’s kind of sad.  Ideally, people would make the food I grow into art and eat it, not just look at it as art until it goes bad.

I’m not totally anti-pretty-onion-braid.  For most people though, onions are a staple food, and braids are a great way to store onions.  I remember thinking last year how cool it would be to sell more strictly functional onions braids.  I don't think that quick braiding is at all cost prohibitive for me as a way to cure, store and market onions, and may in fact be more efficient for the reasons I already outlined.  I just need enough onions to bother doing it.  If I can find a solid keeper that looks and tastes good, with good cultural traits and all that stuff, and grow a big mess of them, I could sell people braids of 8 to 20 onions at an affordable per-pound price.

Many things and acts are symbolic, but not always of what we want them to be.  I think we would do well to step sideways and try to look at what we want things to mean and to say about us, v.s. what they actually do.  A nice onion braid can mean a lot of things.  For us here, it was a chance to turn something we manifested from the soil into art of sorts.  To give it more life.  But another part of it, is that we were just profiting off people grasping at something that we have that they don’t, yet which they recognize as somehow valuable.  They want to buy a polished up phenomenon of rural life and I'm pimping myself and my precious onions to sell it to them (okay, wait, that's an awesome image, the onion pimp.  Gold chains, platform shoes...)  I’m actually all for romanticizing country life a little.  I just think that we would do well to extract and celebrate the best and most real parts of it, and not just a dressed up aesthetic.  If someone hangs one of those braids up and thinks it's too cool and expensive to actually use, then that disrespects the food I've grown by placing the aesthetic above it's potential to nourish and enrich someones life in a more real way.  But then, if my braid is all that nice, I'm just asking for it.

Depending on how my onions cure out this year, I may invest more in growing onions for market next year. They are a good crop in that they will keep between markets and can be sold all winter.  That’s good. I need crops that hold and store well since I can’t make it down the hill to market every week.  I sort of blew it this past season by getting my onions in too late, but some still did well (*see footnote on varieties and stuff below).  I think it would be cool as hell to show up at the market with a pile of somewhat knobby functional onion braids; braids that aren’t so pretty that people won’t actually use the onions.  You see what I’m getting at here?  The symbol was real before, but now it means something different.  It is symbolic of something more tangible and close to home; something that is not just playing at a fantasy of real food and farm, so much as participating in it as part of a rhythm of daily life.   I grow onions.  I braid them.  You hang them in your kitchen and pluck them off to nourish your family.  I see you at the market next year.  And while you use them they visually reinforce the choices you’ve made and remind that food is maybe something more than a thing that shows up magically at the store and which you trade money for.  I think that’s a pretty cool relationship.

I have a lot of stuff I’d like to do, and I don’t have the energy, space, fertilizer and water to make a real dent in the onion consumption of Ukiah residents, but I can make a tiny dent, and do it in a way that allows people to take home a more real, and more meaningful, piece of life here at Turkeysong.  I’m sure I’ll get better at braiding and make prettier braids than I usually do.  I might even braid in some dried flowers or some herb and chilis.  But, I'm not sure I want them to be too pretty. The goal is definitely functionality and not adding a lot (if any) in price to what should be an affordable staple crop.  If I want to make some serious stacks of cash, I can grow a couple beds of cipollini onions.  Those flat little gems sell for 5.00 or 6.00 a pound to people who want to spend their money on gourmet food, which is great.  What better could they spend it on?

these are just a few thoughts I’ve had over some time now.  I woke up at 3:30 AM as I so often do.  I put on my headlamp and did a little hoeing under the interstem apple trees in preparation for fall potato onion planting.  Then I thought I’d use some of my time while waiting to get sleepy again bringing in the onion braids and chili strings that have been curing and drying on the south wall of the lizard house.  I’ve been meaning to do it for a week or so.  The onions cured nicely in the gentle sun we have this time of year (remember I planted late so I harvested late), and only one bulb was lost to rot so far.  Now it’s almost dawn and I have to go back to sleep so I can wake up all perky and replace the head gasket on my car.  And you probably thought I was going to go plough a field with a wooden stick or something like that.  Gotta have a way to get the giant pile of onion braids I’ll have next year down the hill somehow.  They’re not going to hike down there by themselves.  Take my advice and stick to urban homesteading unless you have some other reason to be out in the country other than that it’s pretty and private.  That way you can probably get your onion braids to market without a car.

Oh yeah, how do you do it!?  It seems to work better for both curing and braiding if the greens are not too green.  I think it’s actually better if they are mostly dry, but I’m still deciding what I can get away with.  If they are very green, they shrink a lot in drying and the braid can become loose or even fall apart.  Dip dried leaves in water briefly to make them more supple.  Form an X with the leaves of two onions.  Lay the leaves of a third onion over the cross formed by the X and wrap it’s leaves once around the cross' intersection to secure the first two onions in place  Then you just start braiding, adding an onion with every lay over.  putting in a piece of twine toward the end can help strengthen the top of the braid.  I usually braid out to the tips and then double the end over and lash it down to form a loop for hanging.  If none of that makes any sense, just do a search for onion braiding.  There are plenty of tutorials out there.  I’m out of onions to do a photo series with this year.

These french onion sellers, known in England as Onion Johnnies, wrap their onions on a core of straw or rushes instead of braiding, but the bulbs are already fully cured out.  Actually, this whole onion johnny phenomenon is really an interesting study.  From what I've gathered (which should be suspect:) they found it cheaper, easier and more profitable to import their onions to England across the channel and sell them there door to door, rather than trying to get them to French population centers.  Apparently the onion Johnnies were quite the phenomenon for a long while, but then slowly stopped coming till there were only a few left. The onions are sold in hanks door to door.  If you look at the older pictures of the Onion Johnnies, the hanks are very nice looking, but pretty plain.  There is currently a revival, but this time it's a little different.  There are festivals and stuff and you'll see a lot of the onion shanks are very dressed up with flowers and grain heads and stuff.  I think that people probably used to buy them mostly for the onions.  Now, it's probably more of an idea and a symbol that people are buying.  It is even alleged that the stereotype of the frenchman in stripped shirt and beret came from the English being familiar with these guys.  Now at the festivals the guys wear the hat and demonstrate spinning up shanks of onions for sale.  They have to sell their frenchness a little.  I like to dress up my booth and I sell ideas like heirlooms and the more aesthetic parts of life here.  It's an interesting thing to think about though, when are we degrading and pimping ourselves and over inflating an image, v.s. presenting an idea and aesthetic that will move people in a positive way while still making fat stacks of cash :O  So here is the idealized version, though still maybe kind of squalid.  I stopped short of finishing the building...

*variety and growing notes:  Yellow of Parma from baker creek is looking very nice.  It’s a round uniform onion and looks like a good keeper type, though we'll see about that.  Most of the other onions I’ve trialed from baker creek did poorly, and  many have had a tendency toward bifurcation.  bifurcation is when the bulb divides internally into two or more bulbs with a papery sheath between them.  They are harder to process and don't always keep as well as solid bulbs.  The french braiding onion I bought from Baker Creek,  Jaune Paille Des  Vertus, and the German Storage oinion Stuttgarter, both had a high percentage of bifurcated bulbs. I met some folks from Sustainable Seed Company, who are based locally here.  One of them was saying that bifurcation is a huge problem for them when trying to source quality seed.    Seed growers make a lot more money if they plant a crop and just let it all go to seed.  What they should be doing though is getting out in the fields and rigorously rouging out (killing) the “off types”.  If they don’t, the seed quality runs down over a few generations.   Borrettana Cipollini seed from Fedco and sustainable seed company is very nice and uniform, making cute, flat little onions with very little bifurcation.  They look great braided, but I'm not sure how well they keep yet.  I just ate some Borrettana Cipollini slow cooked in some killer turkeysong chicken broth with sage, bay, salt, pepper and dried black trumpets.  All day cooked in the solar oven till the broth was reduced to the rich yellow fat.  All I can say is, oh my fucking (lack of) god.  Okay, I can also say sweet, fine textured, no sharpness, and wish I had some toasted bread to smash them on and a pint of guinness.

For you locals, I've had really good luck starting onions from seed in January to February.  My target date is January 15th, but then through anytime in February seems to work well enough.  I don't think I had a single seedling onion bolt this year, and that lack of seeding out is pretty much the norm when growing from seed.  Seeding is common though when using starts that are grown somewhere else and shipped in, or especially planting those tortured little onion bulbs called sets.  One market grower told me she only grows Candy onions because it's the only variety that doesn't bolt on her; but that's probably because she buys starts instead of starting them herself.  Candy is a delicious onion though.  I plan to start experimenting with some fall planting as well to see how that works for getting an early crop.

Lime Squad IV: The pets, straw clay lime kilns.

"None of these goals and design parameters will be considered in a myopic sense.  Context must be considered with an assessment of cost benefit ratios in a holistic sense that includes values beyond convenience and control."

After taking lime burning in a steel drum as far as we felt we could without adding something to the drum.  Tonia and I decided to venture off into building a kiln with available materials.  That was one goal- to explore the possibilities of available materials.  Another was to experiment with design changes in order to improve smoke and efficiency issues.  We decided to add a grate and a fire box to see where that would lead us and how effective burning the fire separate from the shells might be.  The metal drum taught us that we needed either insulation, or mass, or both together which I gave the silly, but relevant, name massulation. We thought of using some bricks that were around, but decided to go a little more primal using stuff we might be able to scrounge up anywhere.  That meant having a base which could support a grate.  We chose to use bricks for just the base because it was faster for our experimental purposes than mudding one up with cob, though the cob would probably have worked better.  We slapped some mud onto the outside of the bricks to seal most of the air leaks.  The base had a short firebox leading to a grate at the bottom of the column.

I got the idea for the kiln body material from a visit to Emerald Earth, a local community that does a lot of natural building.  They use a wattle and daub system that replaces the stick wattle with bundles of straw dipped in clay slip.  I decided that it would probably work for burning a kiln at least one time.  It seemed like a lot of work, so to cut down, we just dipped the bundles of straw in slip and laid them up without any vertical supports.  And it worked fine.  We pulled up bundles of dry wild grass straw, dipped them in a rough clay slip made using some clay from a deposit here on the land, and just built it right up. The walls turned out about 3 inches thick or so.  Since the straw is hollow, and the slip has substantial weight, this system gave us just the massulation that we were after with very little effort.  Our friend Yoshi said it seemed kind of like a pet and the name stuck.

The shape of the body was somewhat constricted toward the top.  Given no limitations in materials, I’d be inclined to build a kiln slightly bulged in the middle and constricted slightly at top and bottom, with the top considerably more restricted.  Many traditional kilns are made this way.  I can’t say why for sure, but I think it’s because the larger space in the middle would give the gasses and heat a place to sort of spread out and slow down, while the constricted top could further slow the gasses down.  Also, if the inside is somewhat spherical or concave, the heat radiating from the heated walls would be radiating down and up instead of straight across, which would at least theoretically retain the heat longer as it bounce back and forth inside the curved walls of the kiln.  That's what my intuition tells me anyway.

A small fire was kindled in the fire box to dry the kiln more quickly.  When it was partially dry and firm to the touch we did a burn in it.  Burning just the firebox, with no fuel in the kiln body was hopeless, as I suspected it would be.  Maybe it could work if using a large burn chamber with a relatively smaller kiln and a ton of wood to really pump an intense amount of heat in there.  Such an arrangement might also require more insulation than we had.  While our straw/clay kiln body contained a lot of pore space, there was also a considerable amount of clay in the body which would suck heat away.  Still, I don’t recall the outside of the kiln ever being super hot, so we were retaining most of the heat, or at least losing out the top as would be expected, rather than out the sides. Using alternating layers of fuel and shells, the firebox seemed of some assistance in getting the fire off and running with less smoke, but probably not enough to justify it’s existence.  Overall, I would say that the firebox was a fail. The good news is that the percentage of thoroughly calcined shells did go up when doing mixed fuel/shell burns.  Shells touching the side of the kiln were not destined to be under-calcined as they are when using a plain steel drum.

We burned at least 8 burns in the pet before it disintegrated.  It was covered from the rain at all times.  It became fragile after a few burns and was barely nursed along for the last 2 or 3.  That seems like a waste of effort, but there are good points.  I think the burned clay will make a great soil amendment, we didn’t have to buy anything, it was fun to build and we got a little exercise.  In researching historic accounts of biochar in Europe and North America, I found a number of references to the great value of burned clay being used as a soil amendment.  The clay burned from the pet is really neat.  The straw burned away in most of it, leaving small tubes throughout.  A nifty system might be to burn agricultural lime in a similar kiln, while producing charcoal if possible, and then putting the whole lot into the soil when the kiln is too burned out to use anymore.  It may be quite a bit of work, but the charcoal and clay should be a permanent investment, not like a one time fertilizer application.

Pet version 2.0 was built at The Buckeye Gathering in 2012.  We built this one with Bryce the blacksmith as a dual smelter/lime kiln, using a bale of wheat straw and clay slip.  Bryce collected some iron ore to smelt and we thought we could maybe cook two birds with one kiln.  this time we dug into the ground a little to make a gathering area for the slag.  That didn’t work so well with the lime burning, and probably not for the smelting either.  It just created a cool zone against the back of the kiln, in spite of adding 3 vent holes at ground level.  The lime burned, but there was a high percentage of under calcined shells.  The smelting also failed, but we were inclined to think that fail was due to bad iron ore rather than to the kiln design, or management.  Lesson learned for lime burning, the air should come from the bottom of the kiln, not part way up.  That may not be true in taller kilns, but for the micro scale kilns, I think it probably is very important to have the air enter at ground level.  This kiln was only burned twice and was then abandoned on site, but it had more burns in it yet.

The pet’s straw clay concept is pretty cool.  It’s fast to slap together and doesn’t require that you buy anything.  Once burned out, there is no waste and, if anything, the leftovers are useful.  I would recommend building it on a low cob base, or just on the ground leaving four vents at ground level created by two shallow, intersecting trenches crossing each other in the center.  A slight constriction toward the top would probably be a good idea.  If the kiln is taller than you can reach into from top to bottom, you would probably need to build in an archway at the bottom for cleaning it out.  This design, which is basically like burning in a drum (see part one of this update), but with mass and insulation, does not solve the problem of excessive smoke.  For that solution, it’s back to the drawing board.  Smoke can be reduced a little by starting a fire before adding wood and shells in layers, allowing each layer to get underway before adding the next.  Burning from the top is also an option, but probably would require extending the height considerably with some provisions for flaring off gases (see below for more on this concept.) Cob (a mixture of clay, sand and straw for those who don’t already know) could be used to build a kiln and would probably outlast a pet by a long stretch.  It would also be a lot more work and still far from permanent.  Cob would also be much less insulating than the pet’s clay coated straw construction.  I have the good fortune to hang out a little with Kiko Denzer each year at the Buckeye Gathering.  He is pretty savvy when it comes to fire stuff.  One of his ideas was to use sawdust, or probably more like wood flour, mixed with clay to build a kiln body; he says this is how firebricks are made.  The sawdust would serve as a sort of aggregate, but would burn out when fired, leaving a light, porous material.  Another idea he tossed out was to try a technique used in firing pottery, where the wood and pots stacked together are wrapped with newspaper which is first dipped in clay slip.  This forms a temporary kiln.

If energy and other priorities don’t get in the way (not unlikely), I’m hoping to explore home-scale lime burning some more.  The objective is to keep kiln design simple and accessible in order to remain inline with homey goals, while increasing efficiency and decreasing pollution in the form of smoke.  Raising the percentage of thoroughly calcined shells as close to 100% as possible is also on the agenda, but that really falls under efficiency. None of these goals and design parameters will be considered in a myopic sense.  Context must be considered with an assessment of cost benefit ratios in a holistic sense that includes values beyond convenience and control.  This is important (thus the bold italics ;).  For instance I am not going to focus narrowly on 100% calcination if it means burning 50% more fuel.  And what would I profit from a small gain in any goal if it means buying 500.00 worth of special manufactured insulating material or switching from wood to propane? The smoke issue will probably take priority for now.  I’m interested in a concept called TLUD Top Lit Up Draft.  I did one top lit burn in the pet using a piece of stovepipe to extend the kiln in order to provide draw.  The TLUD concept also requires flaring off of unburned gasses which, for me, was provided by unsealed gaps between the top of the kiln and the stove pipe.  The burn went Ok as I remember (though I'm not sure how well I do, I think I'd remember if it went very poorly), and with much less smoke.  so I’m encouraged.  The basic concept is that the draft comes in at the bottom (the air is often preheated by passing through a space between the inside container which holds the burn and an outside layer) and travels all the way through the kiln where it is consumed by the fire at the combustion zone.  Since the fire is lit from the the top, it is not smothered by a giant pile of fuel and shells as it is in a bottom lit kiln.  The fire is actually starved for oxygen in a way, but the extra gasses created by that are flared off at the top of the unit, consuming all of the smoke.  The TLUD concept is used in gasification stoves and to produce biochar.  I have some new metal drums to play with and already hope to be exploring this idea for making charcoal to use as a soil amendment. Finally, I’ve been interested from the start in exploring the possibility of producing biochar and lime at the same time.  I have no idea if that can work yet, but I’d sure like to try.  I hope to produce a lot of char anyway and it would be nice to use that heat for something.  Since we have acidic soils here, lime is a necessary addition, though using char in the soil is supposed to help raise ph as well.  I can get oyster shells by the ton for cheap or free (except gas and driving of course), so calcining a few shells while already producing a bunch of heat during charring sounds pretty awesome.  If that works, I have a feeling it will be in a fast burning, high heat TLUD design with mostly wood and just a few shells.  Those shells would still add up though when making a lot of char.   Hopefully this will not be the last lime burning post.  If anyone tries any of these ideas, please come back and let us all know how it went!

Antler v.s. Bone: A contest of context.

By Steven Edholm We like to see things as black and white, good or bad, better and worse.  It helps us function in daily life where we need to make fast judgements or live on cruise control without having to over analyze everything.  But it is also a trap that can limit us and cause us to do really dumb stuff.  It helps to look at things in context.  We can pit antler against bone to see which one is better for tools and such, but the victor will be dependent on circumstance and what it is that we are trying to accomplish, rather than on more arbitrary grounds.  Both Tamara and I have largely gravitated toward espousing and detailing the qualities of materials as a way to view paleotechnics.  While our feeble minds may gravitate toward one or the other as superior, redwood is not oak, soapstone is not jade, antler is not bone, and none is superior to the other except in the context of specific uses.  Bury an oak fencepost and it will probably fall over in 5 to 10 years, where redwood may last for 50 or much more.  Make a bow out of redwood heartwood, but in spite of your best design efforts, it’s just going to be kind of lame.

Bone and antler are similar materials.  The qualities of both can vary quite a bit, but they are still very different.  bone can be more or less flexible depending on many factors, like what part of the animal, what species, age etc.. but antler is, by it’s nature, generally tougher and more flexible than bone.  Some uses of these two materials will overlap, while for others, one is clearly superior to the other.  Keep these thoughts in mind as I’m speaking in generalities here.

Bone is harder than antler as a rule but, like many hard things, it is also more brittle and less likely to survive impacts, bending and twisting. However, being harder, bone also takes a better edge.  It’s not going to sharpen up and hold an edge really well, but better than antler. Bone is more liable to check and crack in drying.

Antler is softer and tougher as a rule.  It can be more easily bent (though major thinning is still usually required).  It will not hold an edge as well, but then it also won’t snap as easily.  When used to pressure flake arrow points, the stone dents into antler easily providing a ready grip.  Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes the harder material of bone is better used.

Think about it.  An antler is made to clash with other antlers in violent conflicts.  Bucks slamming into each other with tremendous force, and then twisting and throwing their full body weights around by the antlers on their heads.  I was awakened a month ago in the middle of the night by two bucks going at it down in the woods.  Believe me, they are not messing around!  It’s no wonder antlers sometimes break off during these fights, but they usually don’t.  Antler can almost be viewed as a very hard and tough wood, though it probably exceeds all woods in these qualities.  Bone has to be tough as well, but not as tough.    Green bone is much more flexible than dry bone.  Bones didn’t evolve to be tough after we have died, just while we are still using them.  Antlers didn’t evolve to be tough after the bucks are done with them either, but they are tougher than bone to start with and still tougher than bone when cast off.

The material from which the two are made are different.  Antler contains a great deal of collagen and is more related to skin than it is to bone.  Over cooking it will result in a loss of collagen.  That’s great if you’re making glue, but not if you want a strong piece of antler.  bone will also weaken and dissolve glue making substance into the water when cooked, but it will lose that substance more slowly.  My general tendency is to think that cooking either one as little as possible is ideal, though weathered bone, which has lost much of it’s glue substance, is sometimes very flexible, so I try to keep an open mind on that one.

Antler is good for pressure flaking tools, bent items, stone working batons and handles.  It is easier to carve and work with, especially when soaked in water overnight.  If thinned evenly and enough, it can be dropped in boiling water to heat it through and then bent into a pretty tight radius without cracking.  It usually has a spongy pith that softens on soaking and heating.  Other items, like blades, can be set into the soft pith, which then hardens on drying gripping the item tightly.  Antler, being soft and somewhat fibrous, can't take as good a polish as bone, and the polish is as lasting.

Bone is better for edges (though not comparable to a good edge stone like flint) and tools that need to stay sharp, like an awl, it can work well as a pressure flaker depending on the circumstance.  Think arrowheads, harpoon points, hide scrapers and stuff like that.  Bone sometimes has as spongy looking core which can be useful as a paintbrush for painting on skin, but it's pith doesn't have the same qualities that allow antler to hold onto things like knife blades firmly.  Bone can take a very high polish.

I hope this short article leads to a better understanding of the qualities and potential uses of these two useful and beautiful materials, and that I didn't forget anything important.  When we understand the qualities of the materials in our world, it leads to a wide open potential for creative, adaptive responses to our needs and desires in interacting with our environments, and that is what paleotechnics is all about.

Lime Squad III: Burning lime in metal drums. Advantages, limitations and where to go from here.

This update is loooong overdue.  In fact, it was started maybe as much as a couple of years ago, but never finished.  So overdue in fact, that I've divided it into two parts.  This part will deal with burning in a metal drum, while part two next week will assess some clay and straw kilns that were built later on.

Warning, extreme geekage ahead!  This will be TMI for most people, but hopefully useful for those who want to understand and pursue lime burning.  Although I think using a drum is not the greatest, I'm using it as a reference point to try to understand and relate the process as a stepping off point, because this has been our evolution.  Future posts may be more along the lines of “how to do this right”.  This article is somewhat of a chronicle of an evolution, but contains a lot of relevant ideas and information to help the would be lime burner better understand the issues involved.

Lime burning at Turkeysong is pursuing broad goals.  One goal is to make home-scale lime burning practical enough to use in development of infrastructure here on the land.  I'm also interested in assessing the practicality of burning lime for agricultural use.  A small amount of lime is already in use here for processing leather and rawhide, as well as for preparing corn for tortillas and hominy.  Other uses will no doubt arise, such as the tree trunk paint formula I’ve been working on and all sorts of building and paint projects.   Another goal or motivation, as always, is to be able to share this information out to the end of providing achievable alternatives for small scale builders and self reliant tinkerers.  I am encouraged by the results so far and am looking forward to experimenting more.  I wanted to offer some insights gained up to this point, both for the benefit of people who want to try burning lime on their own and also just to have it written down for future reference.

The first burn (see lime squad #1) was done in an open ended (both ends open) section of old rusted water tank.  After that burn, tonia and I decided to move to a 55 gallon drum with both ends cut out, essentially the same thing, but different proportions.  We stuck with this plain unmodified 55 gallon drum for quite a while in order to observe just how far we could go with this simple and widely available object.  We also used a smaller drum about 10 or 15 gallons, which worked, but harder to keep the shells in the middle of such a small drum.  Having done 8 or 9 burns now, the capabilities and limitations of the drum on it's own seem pretty clear.  insights into what might be important in future kiln designs have also been gained.  So this review will be a summary of lessons learned by sticking with the plain metal drum for a while with an eye toward better kilns.

The simple drum, burning mixed layers of wood and shells, works but it does have many limitations which are unacceptable in the long run.  Still, as it stands it can be a useful method and its accessibility is great.  If a person wanted to do just one burn to make lime for nixtamalizing corn, to lime wash a building, or to build a small masonry project, etc… I don't see any reason why they should not go ahead and use this method if there is a clean (already burned out) drum and plenty of wood lying about.  For anyone who wishes to continue to burn lime or needs a larger quantity than that provided by just a few burns, it may be considered fairly irresponsible to use these huge quantities of wood and produce so much smoke without trying to improve the system.

The basic drum system as used here is a 55 gallon steel drum with the top and bottom cut out.  The drums are easy enough to cut with a cold chisel and hammer by simply chasing around the edge of the rim while holding the chisel at an angle.  Two intersecting trenches are dug in the ground forming a cross which allows draft from four sides directly to the center of the fire.  The trenches are probably 3 or 4 inches deep and about that wide.  The trenches and ground were sometimes smeared with clay soil paste to keep the burn cleaner and stabilize the trench walls.  This expedient, though not necessary, is quite nice and is recommended if there is some clay, or even just clay bearing soil, handy.

When adding sticks to build up a base for the fire, work in enough small stuff to spread the fire quickly.  The starter fire is built up on 1 to 2 inch sticks laid parallel across the trench intersection with one inch spaces between to allow a good draft.  On this platform/grid, lay alternating layers of crisscrossed sticks.  Be sure to leave spaces between the all sticks for air flow, and put fine twiggy material in between the layers of larger sticks.  Build up a pyre of sorts about 8 to 10 inches high.  Place some wood in to fill in any gaps around the edges which will keep shells from falling below the level of this platform.  A good quantity of small wood is used in these first layers to help spread the fire quickly, while most of the mass of the wood in the rest of the burn should be a little larger and up to 4 inches in diameter.  Larger wood burns more slowly which increases dwell time (how long a shell or stone stays hot in the kiln), though too much will cause slower combustion and therefore more smoking time before the fire gets burning well enough to start flaming off the smoke at the top of the drum.  Using a portion of green or damp wood will probably still burn the shells, but will produce more smoke and increase start up time.  If available, working in some pitch saturated wood from an old pine of fir stump will help get things off to a quicker start.

Once a good layer of wood, including some big stuff, is in place and forms a flattish table, shells are poured in.  In order to keep the the shells away from the sides of the drum, wood is sometimes stacked upright against the sides before pouring in the shells.  At the least, try to pour the shells toward the middle of the drum, so as few as possible start out touching the sides.  One square milk crate full of oyster shells has been our standard measurement for a shell layer.  On top of the shells another layer of wood is added of mixed sizes, but use mostly larger wood in terms of the total mass.  up to 3 layers of shells and a cap of wood can be fit into the first run, though if the lay is sloppy, only 2 layers of shells with a cap of wood will result, which seems okay since more shells and wood are added once combustion is well under way.  The fire is lit from underneath by shoving in a wad of burning twigs and grass.

Even if the wood is dry, this arrangement will put out huge amounts of smoke for quite some time, that being one of its main drawbacks.  Once the smoke and other gasses begin to flame off at the top and the kiln is burning more cleanly, some extra wood is added followed by another layer of shells, and then more wood.  We have, with this method, burned up to 6 crates of shells in one run, starting with 3 and adding three more over the course of the burn.  But at 6 crates, the top shells seemed a little under calcined and I’m more inclined to use 5 crates total in one burn. It’s good to put a fairly generous layer of wood on top of the last shell layer to help insure that they are burned adequately.  It's okay to mound the wood above the top of the drum, because it will sink down as it burns.  The vents are left open, and by morning the shells are cool enough to sort.  If rain is imminent, put a lid on the drum when it burns low, so that the burned lime does not begin slaking.  Slake as soon as possible.

(edit:  In writing this post I completely forgot to mention that we did do a burn with charcoal only and that it totally works to eliminate the smoke issue.  Charcoal is pricey, but if you need to do a smoke free burn for some reason, it does work.)

After burning, the lime shells are sorted according to color, weight and/or texture.  Heavy shells with considerable greying (a sooty blackish grey color on the surface) are sorted from the "good" shells which are light weight, whiter and often soft or flakey.  Many shells will appear to fit in between these criteria and a judgement call has to be made.  Knowing what to select and not select is difficult.  Around here, we slake the less ideal stuff for tanning hides, or it is used for agricultural purposes.  The lime is slaked with hot water in a half barrel or wheel barrow using a hoe to stir after which it is diluted with water to a cream consistency, poured through a 1/32 inch screen and allowed to settle.  The feed sack method can be used to achieve a firm putty more quickly, by pouring the lime cream into a woven plastic feed sack and allowing it to drip out water until firm.  Store lime putty under a layer of water in a sealed container.  The feed sack method gives a firm putty more quickly.  (for more on slaking, see limesquad II)

SUMMARY OF THE DRUM METHOD

SMOKIN’:  Because the fuel and shells are in layers, the draft is greatly inhibited by the shells and wood stacked inside, so the system produces copious amounts of smoke.  Typically the arrangement will produce billowing smoke for 20 to 40 minutes before the top starts to flame off.  For a while, a sort of chimney of bound small twigs was placed in the center of the burn to help with draft and spread the fire more quickly, but it really didn’t seem to help enough to bother.  We also tried starting a fire in the bottom and then feeding the fire layers of shells and wood.  By adding wood, letting it begin to burn, and then adding more shells and wood before repeating that process, somewhat less smoke may be produced, but not all that much less.  The smoke is a fundamental problem with this approach which is probably unavoidable, so that is major issue #1 motivating toward a better system.

USES A TON OF WOOD: The system is also inefficient.  I have not really weighed or otherwise quantified the amount of wood used per amount of lime gained, but it is certainly quite a lot of wood.  Cutting wood is the most labor and time intensive part of the method and if a chainsaw is used that incurs use of non-renewable resources, so a more efficient system is definitely in order.  Who wouldn't want that!

TOO MANY UNBURNED SHELLS:  Another problem encountered is that only a certain percentage of the shells calcine completely.  Many shells will show under burned grey areas and feel heavy.  These are sorted out and can be slaked for hide tanning and agricultural purposes, if they will slake at all, but then the point of the process is to burn lime and make putty; so, although there is no "waste" here at Turkeysong in some senses of the word, the closer we can get to 100% calcined, the better.  Numbers above 80% can be achieved in the drum with more careful fire lays where the shells don’t touch the side (I almost said sides, but I guess a cylinder only has one side, or does it?) which is not so horrible I suppose, but it would be nice to see that number rise.

LIME QUALITY: The lime burning literature from days of yore not infrequently mentions differences in the quality of lime from different burning methods and kiln designs which basically equates to how thoroughly the raw material is calcined.  It is difficult for us to tell just how Turkeysong lime measures up in that regard because it is a qualitative judgement.  The lime does slake very actively, but the question is how much remains un-slaked and under burned in very small particles that pass through our 1/32 inch screen?  Aging should help by insuring that anything that will slake eventually does so, but the qualitative judgement of lime in the past is one that was hard won by generations of knowledge and experience which I don't have and am unlikely to encounter on the west coast of California, so I'm a bit in the dark.  It just remains to use the lime and make what observations I can.  I’m inclined not to worry overly much about it at this point, and think our lime is probably actually of very high quality.

DWELL TIME:  Part of this quality equation may have to do with dwell time, which is how long the shell or stone is held at the calcining temperature.  The drum burns are relatively fast.  If started at dusk,  the burn is cold by dawn.  The actual calcining happens only in the short section of time that each area of the kiln is very hot.  At this point, I feel unsure about what adequate dwell time is, but feel that it is probably not very long.  In one burn we decided we should try to slow the process for longer dwell time and to make sure the burn was not too hot.  We packed the wood in extra tight which took a very long time and required shorter wood.  Once it was burning well,  the vents on the bottom of the drum were shut all the way down.  It was a total failure and the shells didn't even slake.  Next time around we began measuring the temperature through a nail hole in the side of the drum and with the vents running wide open we always seem to be right around 900 celsius/1500 fahrenheit in the burn zone which is just where we want to be, and the temperature at which wood wants to burn without an artificial draft.  This parameter has been so consistent in fact that we just quit measuring.  (For the geekier readers, we used a two wire probe on a digital meter.  Some electrical meters, notably Flukes, have a temperature setting.  The probes use two parallel wires and often burn off in the fire, but are simply trimmed back each time.  They last long enough to get a measurement.)

SHELLS TOUCHING THE DRUM DON’T BURN ENOUGH: Of shells which appear under burned (noted mostly by a grayish color to the surfaces, but also by weight and texture) most are those which are close to the outside of the drum.  Our solution so far has been to try to keep the shells to the inside.  In some burns we stack wood against the outside edges standing upright and pour the shells into this pen so that there is always a layer of wood between the shells and the drum sides.  I recommend this approach actually, but the whole thing still falls to pieces and many shells end up against the outside.  Shells touching the drum sides usually comprise the majority of those that are under burned.  I think this problem touches on at least two factors in kiln construction that can lead us to a better design, which are mass and insulation.

ABOUT MASS AND INSULATION: I’ve done a little reading on kiln design, but mostly what follows is extrapolated from a working knowledge of, and intuition regarding, heat and fire.  I feel sure that adding insulation would help minimize under burned shells by evening out the temperature.  As it stands now, because the metal is a great conductor, the drum is a big radiator and is literally sucking heat away from any shells that touch it.  Using enough insulation should help with that problem by insulating the metal of the drum enough to keep it hot while allowing heat to build inside the drum.  It’s hard to say to what degree the temperature would be raised, but my guess is that it won't ever be too hot when burning wood with a natural draft, and may help keep the kiln at a more all around even temperature.  Since we have consistently measured the temperature we want, the goal is not so much to raise the temperature, as it is to make the heat in the kiln more consistent and, if possible, have a larger area of heat in the kiln at any given time; that is to say that the heat zone of the kiln would have more depth.  Still, a slight rise in temperature shouldn't hurt anything.  It is probably difficult to get the wood to burn at a temperature that is high enough to over-burn lime, which is one of the advantages of using wood in the first place.

I feel that mass could help too, by creating a more even heat due to a moderating action. The three types of heating are essentially radiation of heat (think standing near hot coals), contact with a hot object and contact with heated air (Ok, so the last one is contact with gasses and therefore is similar to contact with an object, but for practical discussion purposes it is a common and useful division…).  What we have when the shell touches the side of the drum is the opposite of contact heating.  In the drum, we are relying on all three types of heating.  When a shell touches the side of the low mass drum which is exposed to the open air on the outside, we suck heat away from the shell because steel is an excellent conductor of heat.  Insulation would help keep the gaseous environment more evenly warm, but the thin drum still has a low mass.  If mass was added it would suck up some heat from the fire initially but, even with no insulation, a thick, but not too thick, mass might have a moderating influence once it came up to similar temperature relative to the rest of the kiln.  Also, and this is an important distinction, any material we are likely to use as a source of mass, or as a kiln building material or modifier, will have at least some insulating value when compared to metal.  Any mud or clay based material would be a far cry from metal in terms of heat conduction and should function partially as an insulator as well as being potentially useful as a temperature moderating mass.  Most traditional kiln designs do not seem to be insulated at all beyond whatever it is they are built of, so this concept of massulation must work more or less.  What the mass portion has to offer would be an evening out of the internal temperature.  Once heat is absorbed it is given back off as radiation toward the interior of the kiln.  The re-radiation of the heat from the mass toward the inside of the drum should add a third useful element of heating, that being to even out the heat environment.

The short version of the above is that with a plain drum, we have hot gasses and a little bit of contact with the hot coals to cause calcination, while we simultaneously radiate heat away from the process with the highly heat conductive drum exposed to the air.  A metal drum is probably one of the worst things we could use in that regard.  Adding some mass (preferably slightly insulative) would add the element of heat radiation to keep the internal temperatures more even throughout the kiln.  I'm leaning toward a thin layer of mass followed by a layer of insulation as an ideal.  A combination of the two, a massulation, might provide enough insulation to prevent the radiator effect while possessing enough mass and its special benefits to improve the system.  Practically speaking this may be the more useful option depending on what is available locally for kiln building.  And this exactly what we’ve done in building a straw and clay kiln, which will be discussed in the next installment of the lime burning saga...

Experimenting with Biochar: pursuing the promise of charcoal as a soil ammendment

I have this neighbor up here.  He’s always saying sustainability and permaculture and stuff like that, but I was surprised in a recent conversation to find out that he did not know the term, or concept of, biochar.  For others who don’t know, that’s a catchy marketable name for charcoal that is intended as a soil amendment, the claimed benefits of which I’ll delve into further on.  I’m not even sure I like the term biochar.  Why name something that already has a name?  Maybe so you can market it?  Charcoal with special properties?  Anyway, I guess I thought it was more in peoples consciousness than it probably is, and since my sustainably hip neighbor was unfamiliar with the concept, I got to wondering how many other people haven't yet encountered the concept and thought I’d present some thoughts and information here in case I might be able to convince more folks to delve into experimenting with the idea.

I had seen some interesting, and even exciting, articles and videos on using charcoal as a soil amendment.  But, all the references were based on the discovery of terra preta, which are these human modified soils in the Amazon containing a large amount of charcoal.  The claim is that these soils are still highly fertile compared to the natural soils surrounding them, even after many hundreds of years of heavy Amazonian rains.  The mysteries of terra preta are still being prodded and examined, but clearly charcoal is a major player, and likely the key ingredient.  If it functions as advertised, adding char is a permanent improvement, unlike the treadmill of organic matter and nutrients that we add to our soils every year and which mostly flush away in the rain.  I've seen what happens to gardens when they are abandoned.  The fertility quickly declines remarkably fast and eventually disappears.  The possibility of making really permanent improvement to gardens, orchards and pastures is very compelling and worth some great effort.

Having trained myself to be somewhat cautious and critical of new and exciting ideas, I was naturally slow to adopt.  I was very interested though and began to save any charcoal I could for experimenting.  One day while researching heirloom apples, I found a 19th century reference to using charcoal in potting soil, which gave me the idea to search google books for the terms - charcoal fertilizer - ,.  I limited the search to the 19th century.  Bingo!  I found a bunch of very interesting references. Now that I had something besides the much recycled terra preta hype to fuel me, I was much more excited to experiment.  If you haven’t read that post, you totally should.  It’s quite fascinating.  You can skip my usual rambling and go straight to the accounts.  Biochar use in Europe and North America in the 19th century.  Since most of you won't actually click the link and read it, here is a tasty extract...

http://books.google.com/books?id=5L0EAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA43&dq=charcoal+fertilizer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jhGCT4DbE-baiQLu_LSvAw&ved=0CFgQ6AEwATge#v=onepage&q=charcoal%20fertilizer&f=false

The Farmers’ cabinet, and American herd-book, Volume 11 From the Farmer and Mechanic Comparative Merits of Charcoal and Barn-yard Manure as Fertilizers. In the year 1788, my father purchased and removed upon the tract of land in Hanover township, Morris county, N. J. The land, owing to the bad system of cultivation then prevailing, was completely exhausted, and the buildings and fences in a state of dilapidation. The foundation of the barn was buried several feet beneath a pile of manure, the accumulation of years: little or none ever having been removed upon the lands. Even the cellar, beneath the farm-house, was half filled with the dung of sheep and other animals, which had been sheltered in it. The former occupant of the farm had abandoned it on account of its supposed sterility, and taken up the line of march for the Valley of the Miami, along with the first caravan of pioneers who accompanied Judge Symmes.

The barn, before referred to, was removed to another situation soon after its foundation was uncovered, by the removal of the manure to the exhausted fields; and its site, owing to the new arrangements of the farm, became the centre of one of its enclosures. During the seventeen years which I afterwards remained upon the farm, the spot could easily be found by the luxuriousness of the grass, or other crops growing thereon; though the abatement in its fertility was evident and rapid. On revisiting the neighbourhood in the autumn of 1817, I carefully examined the corn crops then standing upon the spot, and was unable to discover the slightest difference in the growth or product, upon that and other parts of the field. This was about twenty-eight years after the removal of the barn.

Upon the same farm and upon soil every way inferior, were the remains of several pit-bottoms, where charcoal had been burned before the recollection of any person now in the vicinity, and most probably, judging from appearances, between the years 1760-70. These pit-bottoms were always clothed, when in pasture, with a luxuriant covering of grass, and when brought under tillage, with heavy crops of grain. Eleven years ago I pointed out these facts to the present occupant, and his observations since, coincide with my own, previously made; that they retain their fertility, very little impaired, a period probably of about seventy or eighty, certainly not less than sixty-five or seventy years. Here then is an excellent opportunity of observing the comparative value of charcoal and barn-yard manures, as a fertilizer of lands. The former has not, after at least sixty or seventy years exposure, exhausted its powers of production, while the latter lost its influence entirely in twenty-eight years, and most probably in much less time.

I have since had many opportunities of’ observing the effects of charcoal left in pitbottoms, upon vegetation, one of which only,. I will relate. The last season, in the northern part of Ohio, was one of uncommon frost and drought . In May, the wheat fields, when promising a luxuriant crop, were cut off by frost;—especially in the valleys, and very much injured in the high lands—which was succeeded by the most severe drought ever experienced in the West. The moiety which escaped both these scourges, was afterwards very much injured by rust. Near the village of Canton, upon a farm on high ground, which had been mostly cleared of its timber by its conversion into charcoal, it was observed that upon the old pit-bottoms, the wheat grew very luxuriantly—was clear of rust—and had ripened plump in the berry; while in the adjacent parts of the field it was short in growth, the stem blackened with rust, and the berry light and shrivelled."

All the results are definitely not in on using charcoal as a soil amendment.  It is being sold as a panacea for the ills of the planet and human society, and large corporate interests are even becoming involved.  The biggest claim is that charring gajillions of tons of woody debris and burying it can help mitigate climate change.  About half of the carbon in woody material can be converted into charcoal, an extremely durable material capable, at least in some cases, of residing in the soil for thousands of years.  Not only that, but if that buried charcoal increases plant growth and fertility, as it is claimed, the extra abundant growth on previously less fertile soil will absorb even more carbon which could then be charred as well.  If the wood decays naturally, little of the carbon remains in the soil, but instead ends up back in the atmosphere.  While it seems hard to believe we could char our way out of the enormous quantities of carbon we've released in the last 00 years of so of burning fossil fuels, that is the hopeful claim of many biochar champions.  Other claims, relevant to us as gardeners, are increased water retention in the soil, reduced leaching of nutrients (because they bind strongly to the charcoal which is a virtual magnet for all types of substances) and therefore a decreased reliance on fertilizers, better and earlier soil warming, and Increased microbial activity (the miles of pore space and surface area in a piece of charcoal, rich with absorbed nutrients, providing a huge habitat for living things.).  One issue though, is how char will work when applied to differing soils in various climates.  The truth is that there is a lot we don’t know about the practical applications and benefits under varying circumstances. carefully designed long term studies might help, but If we wait for science, and possibly more relevant, its interpreters, we may be disappointed or behind the curve.  Besides, there are so many climatic/gardening style/fertilizer and soil type factors to account for.  You and I only have one agenda, to see if the stuff works in our soils and gardens.  I suspect that it will work for some of us, so lets just find out on our own.  It’s not really that hard to just try the idea out in small areas.  If charcoal amended areas of our garden consistently grow the giganticest healthiest plants ever, that's probably a green light to keep burying charcoal.

The first idea I was able to reject in order to move on was the idea that I needed special charcoal, burned in a special way.  The 19th century references were using whatever charcoal was available.  Most of it was probably slow burned in piles since that was the common method, but I feel pretty sure that whatever charcoal we can come up with is probably worth trying, even if it isn't ideal, (which I've seen no compelling evidence so far to say it's not.  Not that I've looked very hard).  It takes a lot of charcoal to reach a soil content of 10% in a significantly large area.  Save charcoal wherever you can get it.  Avoid the moulded “charcoal” briquets that people use to barbeque.  Those are made with coal and are actually “coke” briquets (coke is the term for the equivalent of charcoal made from coal).  I have been partially successful at convincing others around here to save the charcoal from the woodstove every morning, which adds up over a winter.  I also collect it from campfires and burnpiles.  Once a burn pile is down to just embers, it can be spread out and/or doused with water to prevent the charcoal from burning all the way down to ash.

I’m also planning to produce charcoal intentionally.  I have this friend that is always telling me about the newest best thing ever.  Biochar is one of them.  While this guy is much less cautious than me in accepting an idea as worth pursuing, while I was still getting excited about biochar, he was making 17 yards in one winter!  The guy gets mad respect for GSD (getting shit done) and pursuing his goals for self reliance.  Charcoal has traditionally been a very polluting activity producing enormous quantities of very dirty smoke.  This friend burns his in a barrel with a flue on top, which burns much cleaner than traditional methods of smothering.  He learned the method from this video.  The technique could no doubt be refined, but it is where I’ll be starting.  I'm also hoping to adapt the same kiln for lime burning, or making char and sea shell lime at the same time.  My friend added a fan which feeds into the bottom of the barrel.  Most other methods burn up some fuel all the way to ash in order to make the charcoal, but this kiln achieves two very important goals relatively well, efficient fuel use and low emissions.  I have some barrels and, time and energy permitting, I’ll be setting up a couple of these kilns and charring some wood chips.

My soil amending experiments have just begun.  This spring I ground up and buried some charcoal in a garden bed.  I divided this long bed into three 7 foot long sections.  Section one has about 10% charcoal in the top 10 inches of soil.  Section two has 5% and section three has none.  It is generally said that a certain percentage is required to start seeing real benefits, so adding a quantity to a small area rather than just spreading it out over a whole bed or garden seems like the way to go.  Some say that the charcoal should be pre-charged with nutrients because it is so adsorptive of plant foods that it will deplete the soil at first until an equilibrium is achieved.  I chose not to pre-charge to see what would happen, and so I could treat the control section the same as the charcoal sections.  I also dug the no-char section just the same as the other two sections, even going so far as to go through the same motion of sifting in the char that wasn't there.  I did add a sprinkling of woodash to the no-char section to try to imitate the small amount of ash present in the pulverized charcoal.

This experimental bed was planted to peas, spinach and lettuce, with the rows running the full length of the bed.  At first things grew well, but as time went on, it was apparent that the more charcoal there was in the soil, the less the lettuce and spinach grew.  The 10% charcoal end of the bed was a total loss as far as lettuce goes.  The Peas did okay through the whole bed, but not great.  It was difficult to discern much difference, but that was complicated by part of the pea row being attacked by birds and bugs.  Anyway, it appears that it is probably true that the charcoal should be pre-charged or it will sap the soil of nutrients in the beginning.  I would probably charge by mixing with compost or soaking in compost tea, except that sort of screws up the experiment of doing the same thing to all areas of the bed except for the charcoal content.

Although I’m very excited about biochar and plan to scale up production and experiments, I will approach it somewhat cautiously at first since it is a permanent addition and can’t be undone.  I will continue to plant primarily test plots as outlined above, but with variations in depth and quantity of charcoal.  Next I’d like to do a bed that has charcoal at varying quantity, up to 20%, but 24 inches deep instead of 12, and one with the same quantity of charcoal in each section, but dug in to various depths.  I also plan to bury some in the meadow to see the long term effects there.  finally, I’d like to see what happens if I just throw the stuff down on the meadow without burying it.  I plan to do dug control plots in all cases, because that eliminates the possibility that it is just the act of digging that is making a difference.  These few simple tests should yield up some fundamental information that can tell me whether to proceed to char everything I can get my hands on, or spend my time on something else.

If you can collect charcoal from burn piles, campfires or the woodstove, it doesn’t take all that much to put together a very small test plot.  It probably should be used in adequate quantity per area.  10% would be something around one and a half inches deep dug into 12 inches of soil.  I’m mostly planning to use 5%, 10% and 20%.  Grinding the charcoal can be a problem.  I have been using an old corn, bone and shell mill that someone gave me.  It grinds the charcoal to pea sized and down, which is what I decided I want for now, though it could be adjusted finer or coarser.  I’m tempted to do some tests with various sized grinds, and probably will eventually.  a hammer mill of the garden variety chipper shredder type would probably work and I’ve thought about running it over with a car or a heavy roller of some kind.

My first experimental bed is now planted to leeks for the winter as it's second crop.  I’ll continue to plant the whole bed uniformly to the same crops for comparison, and I hope by next growing season to be able to discern any obvious effects.  When you realize how much charcoal it actually takes to amend 100 square feet at even just 5%, you may be discouraged, but remember that this is potentially a permanent soil improvement.  Remember too that It can also be done in small sections as charcoal becomes available, so there is not necessarily a need for a heroic effort.  If it really is as useful as we all hope, it is also quite possible that it will be worth buying the charcoal if need be, though it seems ideal to figure out how we can char whatever debris we might have on the home place, including crop wastes.  Since the process produces quite a lot of heat, there seems to be great potential for working charring into home systems.  For instance one could potentially heat water, boil bark for tanning skins, make lime, cook, can food, dry food, heat greenhouses, heat living spaces, etc... all while producing char.  The trick is going to be figuring out char producing stoves and kilns of various kinds for these purposes, which use the fuel sizes and shapes that we have available.  Once that is figured out though, charring, rather than being an extra job will be integrated into homestead life.  That's a pretty neat vision.

Fire Chess: A fire learning game

One night at Glass Buttes Oregon (or day, or something in between), I was sitting by a fire with Tamara, Margaret Mathewson and Jim Riggs.  I’m sure there were other people there too, but I remember those guys for sure.  The fire, and how it was or wasn’t being managed, was a common topic in those days.  All of us were inclined to be geeky about fire, and we all used it enough to have a strong working knowledge.  We were observant and critical when someone added wood or adjusted the fire.  As fire enthusiasts, that kind of geekery was our idea of fun, but it was also serious to us.  Like if you put a bunch of chefs together and they’d be eyeing each other cooking and saying like “dude, that’s too much anchovy” and stuff like that.  It was all good humored, but this wasn’t just “lets geek out and be funny and nerdy”, it’s what we did.  And if you do something a lot and are good at it, you care, you notice details and you develop opinions.  None of us wanted to sit around in the smoke, or be cold, so the fire should be done right.  It was the focus of camp life and not to be accepted in just any old state that it happened to be found in.  Fire does not tend itself all that well, and tending is a matter in which attention to detail yields great returns in results.  Inattention, on the other hand, generally leads to discomfort, annoyance, cold food, burnt food, tearing eyes, cold butts or moving of chairs closer and farther from the fire. So anyway, we were all sitting around flicking each other crap about where the wood should be put and how, and what about that smoking end there, or Jim with his “upward focus” and me with my parallel fuels, and fire chess was born.  Someone was probably like Ok, that’s fine I guess, but If you do it this way that smoking end is dealt with.  And someone else was like hey, it’s my turn, and eventually it coalesced into a set of simple rules.  Each person gets a turn in rounds to either add a piece of fuel, or make one adjustment.  After each move everyone else analyzes the move and makes comments.  We thought that was fun for a while and used to play it occasionally when nothing else was going on and we were sitting around the fire, which was fairly often.

What I noticed though was that when new people unversed in the ways of fire tending were around, they picked up a great deal of understanding extremely fast.  So Tamara and I started using fire chess in classes, and sure enough, people went from fire losers to fire cruisers in no time.  Most people haven’t grown up around open fires and don’t understand how to manage them to desired ends.  Further, it often seems that it barely occurs to them that management of the fire beyond tossing some wood on every once in a while is worthwhile at all!  That’s Ok, we all have to start somewhere and we are what we do. One of the first campfires I had to start on my own, I used an entire candle's worth of wax, dripping and relighting to get it to finally start burning.  I had damp wood to work with, and I just did not understand how the system worked.  It was somewhat sobering just how lame I was in that capacity, and I started paying attention.  I soon put myself in the position of needing fire everyday for cooking and various other things, so I was forced to perform, but it was a gradual process.  I believe that fire chess works to quickly foster an understanding of fire starting and management for two basic reasons.

The first reason is that there are frequent and specific opportunities created for comment and feedback.  Feedback from both instructor/mentors and from other participants is frequent, but it is tied directly to actual results and occurrences second by second.  Fire reacts quickly in many cases providing dramatic lessons in a short period of time.  The results, positive or negative are visual and often immediate.

The second reason, and maybe the most important, is that participants are invested in the results.  They are paying close attention because someone might screw up their move, or make the move they are planning.  If someone does something that works well it’s noticed and commented on, which drives the point home so it sticks.  When the players turn comes they can build on what has gone before and they want to do well in the eyes of the group.

A few tips for instructors

*Start with a short discussion about the four elements of fire- heat, air, fuel and the relations and interdependence of those 3 tangible elements.  The less tangible fourth element of fire, how heat, air and fuel are in relation to one another, is what fire use and management are all about, so drive that home.  Upcoming posts should deal with that subject in depth.

*next a short discussion asking “what makes a good fire?”  This opens the mind and leads inevitably to the conclusion that there is no one good fire and that fires are managed for different uses.  Sometimes we want just smoke and no flame, and sometimes we want no smoke at all, more heat, less heat, different shapes, etc...  You can still play the game as if you want no smoke and to be comfortably warm.  The understanding gained by playing for a clean fire is the most generally useful and can ultimately foster understanding of the management of other types of fires as well.

*It’s not “all good”.  Sometime in the 60’s or 70’s criticism became uncool, everyone was doing their best and everyone got an A for effort.  The good and relevant points which began as that message are largely lost and the residue we are left with is a dogma that can hamper achievement.  Be critical.  Don’t be mean, that’s not constructive and it’s not the point.  Critical and mean are not the same hat.  If you have opinions, let them out and encourage others to do so as well (and don't use upspeaking when you do it!).  Constructive discourse requires analysis of information, formation of ideas and opinions, and expression of those opinions, along with the open consideration of the opinions of others.  It can be argued that everyone is doing their best under the circumstances, but the circumstances can change and constructive criticism can be an important part of that evolution.  Don’t be stingy with praise either.  Positive reinforcement works.

*If you are the teacher and think you know what you’re doing, stand back a little and let people learn at a comfortable pace.  You might be surprised how little prompting  is required by you.  As long as basic goals are understood and held in common, progress can be rapid even with people totally unfamiliar with fire tending.

*Start small since fires grow fast when constantly fed.

*Sized and types of fuel are as important as placement and maintenance, so have a mix of fuel types and sizes.  Dense long burning woods, dense fast burning woods, light fast burning woods, woods that throw sparks, woods that don’t throw sparks, woods that tend to smolder, woods that make long lasting coals, some bark, some leaves, etc...  Fuel type is important and having all types of wood will open windows for education.

*Mix all the woods together in a pile.  Throw in some inappropriate wood.  Nothing toxic, but a few chunks of pitch wood, some very punky wood and some green wood could be instructive.  Very few novices will notice that wood is green, but the seasoned will usually notice at first heft.

*Don't allot much time for fire chess, because it doesn't take long, and the fire will just get too large pretty fast.

What started as a natural pass time among fire nerds, developed into an effective learning tool.  Fire chess, in spite of the name and the critical element of the game, is not very competitive.  Everyone has the same goal, so cooperation is more common than competition.  If anything the competition is with the self, to understand more and function better.  For people who teach long term classes in outdoor living, you’ll find that after just a game or two of fire chess, the campfires will be managed much better for the duration of your time together.    It is also a good item to throw in a one day class about fire. Lessons learned are not limited to tending fires, but lend an understanding of the function of fire generally, including the important skills of starting them and putting them out.

Hide Glue Part II: Glue making, the basic essentials

By Steven Edholm Making hide glue, is well within the reach of anyone with access to the necessary materials, and is a great addition to your skill set.  In part one I discussed hide glue in general, what it is, and some of it's strengths and weaknesses.  This article is a combination of personal experience and research into technical aspects of glue making.  Like most people,  I started my glue making career boiling down hide shavings and stray hock skins, without any further preparation.  Glue strong enough for many uses can be made with little care and marginal materials, but over time and with the input of  glue making professionals of the 19th and early 20th century, I found that a little care goes a long way toward making stronger, prettier and better smelling, glue   Here are the most important basic concepts and steps in making very high quality hide glue.

Common materials for glue making are:  Skin (including fish skins), fish air bladders, sinew scraps, and antler.  (Bone can be used to make a glue, but it is harder to make and inferior to glue from the sources we'll be talking about.)   All share in common a large amount of a protein known as collagen, which is the basis of both leather and glue.  Hide glue is also sometimes known as collagen glue.

*Skin is easily accessible and easy to work with unless it contains a lot of fat.  It is generally best for the home producer to avoid very fatty skins such as pig, bear and raccoon.  The legs, and other tag ends trimmed from skins before tanning, are a good source of glue stock and were a staple material for traditional hide glue makers.  Fish skins can also be used,  but I don’t have any personal experience using them.

*Fish air bladders are supposed to make excellent glue, but they are not very accessible to most of us.

*Sinew makes excellent glue.  Be sure to collect sinew that is free of meat and fat, scraping it clean as necessary.  The sheaths that surround the tendons in the lower legs of browsers and grazers also make excellent glue.

*Antler, from elk, moose, caribou, deer, etc... contains a good deal of collagen.  The collagen can be difficult to extract, but reducing the size of the antler by grinding or slicing helps. It is important  to note that horn proper, from cows, sheep and goats, is entirely different.  Horn is an outgrowth similar to hair, and does not contain collagen.  Hooves are similar to horn and also do not contain any collagen (see part one for more discussion on that point.)

Previously frozen materials should never be used.

Dried material is preferred over fresh material.

Decayed materials should be avoided.

Ideal steps in Collagen glue making:

*Clean the material:  The very strongest glues are made with un-decayed and thoroughly cleaned materials.  Fats, muscles, dirt and other non-collagen materials are removed as much as possible before the material is boiled.  This can be accomplished by liming, or soaking in wood ashes, followed by thorough, repeated scraping and washing to remove dissolved solids and residual lime.  However, very strong glue can be made by boiling fairly clean materials like sinew and even skin from lean animals without undergoing so thorough a treatment.  At the very least though, skin should be very thoroughly fleshed and washed.

*Dry the material at some point before cooking:  All glue stock should be dried as some point before boiling.  If it has been limed, the stock should be dried after liming and before boiling to change the residual caustic lime (calcium hydroxide) into inert calcium carbonate (limestone).

*Simmer the material in clean soft water:  If you have very hard water, buy some distilled water.  Just cover the stock with water.  Avoid scorching the glue stock in the pan.  Traditionally, a layer of straw was often used to line the boiling vessel to keep the glue stock away from the metal, so that it would not stick and burn.

*Cool the resulting gelatin solution:  When the glue solution seems thick, cool a small amount in an egg shell.  When ready, it should set upon cooling into a firm, easily handled piece.  Pour the solution into a clean flat pan of some kind, to a thickness of 3/8 inch or less.  When cool, it should be easily handled when picked up with dry hands.  If not firm enough to handle, it will crack apart easily and maybe stick to the hands.  If too wet, evaporate it further in the sun or in a low oven until it will jell more firmly when cooled. If not fairly easy to handle, it will stick to the drying surface.

*Cut and dry the gelatin before use:  When the glue is firm, but still cutable, you can dice it into small cubes before drying further.  Large pieces of glue are difficult to break apart for soaking.If firm enough, the gelatin can be dried on a clean cloth.  The glue must be dried in a cool area with good air circulation.  The un-dried gelatin will turn back into liquid if it gets too warm.  The drier the gelatin becomes, the warmer it can be without melting.  Glue has traditionally been dried on nets.  Glue dried during thunderstorms can be damaged by ozone and may melt.

Now you have glue.  Skipping some of these steps such as drying the material before boiling, cleaning the glue stock thoroughly, or drying the gelatin, will result in a usable and sometimes even very strong glue.  However, all of these steps combined and executed properly will assure that you end up with very a very high quality product.  Glue is not the best place for sloppiness and procrastination.  Believe me.  Here at Paleotechnics, we’ve already made all these mistakes for you!

To drive home some of these points, here is what not to do!

*Don’t freeze the glue materials before boiling.

*Don’t use decayed materials.

*Don’t use greasy, fleshy or dirty materials.

*Don’t burn the glue material in the pot.

*Don’t let the boiled solution sit around and decay at all before drying it out.

*Don’t make, use or dry glue during lightning/thunder storms (ozone supposedly affects glue quality causing it to lose it’s jelling power.)