Frosty Nights and Fall Colors

The night before last was the first real frost, last week there was a bit of frost in places, and last month there was also a bit of frost one night, enough to kill the plants in one of the squash beds. That was an unusually early frost. Emerald Earth is in a frost pocket, at least parts of it are.

Since we thought it might frost we prepared, picked all the winter squash left, and the basil. There were some huge basil plants, the largest one being the one I am holding in the picture, yes that is only one plant. We also harvested all the peppers off some plants and covered the rest and the tomatoes, to keep them a bit warmer. It worked they survived. We finished right before dinner and didn't have time to put the squash away until late so Anastasia and I each pushed a wheel barrow full of squash down and into the house she is staying in, she put a flashlight into the squash at the top of the load to have a headlight so we could see since it was already quite dark. It was all quite funny.

It is hard to get good pictures of frost, to capture the sparkles, but I did my best. It was very beautiful, the picture of the bridge is from last week, the rest from yesterday morning.

As for fall colors, there quite a few wild plants turning colors, oregon ash, poison oak, maple, some oaks, and a variety of fruit trees too, the pears are turning a really nice red, the apples yellow, some of the grapes waiting on pots to be planted into a half finished trellis have bright red leaves. I know Eastcoasters don't think of California as having fall colors, and we don't as much, you need to look and pay attention, you don't get hit in the head with them.

Light Through Colored Bottles

There are lots of bottles in the walls at madrone house, blue and green in the east and west walls, and red in the south wall and one red vase in the north wall too. The bottom picture is moonlight, the rest sunlight. It is nice both seeing the bottles glow and the colored light shining through them into the house.

Rocket Stove

Madrone house has a rocket stove, it is a special kind of wood stove, not a regular metal box stove, nor a fire place. It is way more efficient and heats the bench as well as the air in the room so it stays warm longer, plus you can sit on a warm bench.

The way it works is air is drawn in through the top of the barrel used to put the wood in, the fire is in that barrel and in the tunnel between it and the larger barrel, then the heat rises up inside the larger barrel which has two layers with insulation around the middle one to keep the gases very hot which makes the stove draw air in better and makes the burn cleaner, then the hot air goes down between the outside of the inner tube and the barrel then out a pipe running through the bench then up the stove pipe out of the house. We ran it once, it has been pretty warm, Michael who had a stove like this in the past helped me start it, it is quite fussy. When we went out to see what was coming out the stove pipe you couldn't really see anything, no smoke, which means it was burning very well and cleanly. Not only does it burn very efficiently and cleanly it keeps the heat inside the house, most stoves need to let lots of heat out up the chimney to make the stove draw air in and burn well, the rocket stove uses the heat riser inside the large barrel to do that instead. Since it heats the bench which has a high thermal mass so keeps the heat for a while, you can keep a room warm for a lot longer then the stove it running. Also the clay and sand mass around the barrel gets warm and radiates heat into the room, and the barrel gets hot enough to heat water or cook on.

It is really strange, you expect smoke to rise from a fire but although the top of the small barrel surrounding the fire was open no smoke went into the room, and the flames burned sideways, towards the channel going into the other barrel and the heat riser, not up. For more information on Rocket Stoves check out www.rocketstoves.com

October Work Party - Part Two - Building

We did a lot of building at the work party, worked on 5 projects, I think.

On the pumphouse we worked on the shake roof. To make everything fit together the shakes need to more or less rectangular, not curved, so any curved parts need to be cut off before they are put up. The way a shake roof works is using lots of overlap. The bottom row is shorter than the rest and the second row over laps it completely, with the seams staggered. You nail two nails into each shake at the top so the next row will cover the holes. You need to carefully position the shakes to cover both the nails and the seam between the shakes below. Since we split blocks of wood of different widths the shakes are different widths, the wood we split the shakes from were all the same length though, so the shakes are about the same length, which is nice. You want the tops of each row to be even straight lines, unless you want to make patterns. You need to leave a gap between a shake and the ones to the left and right of it so they will have room to expand when they get wet.

We also did finish plastering on the pumphouse, the wave pattern is tough especially for beginners, much harder than simple straight surfaces, since you want it really smooth and need to worry about all the edges.

Some of the group worked on putting dirt back on the El Nido roof, I will write more about the whole roof fixing project later.

Most of the rest of the building during the work party was plastering, we did a lot of plastering at strawberry house, the east and west walls on the outside, and some of the north wall. After the plain plaster was put up Liz did some sculpture on the west wall.

Monday morning half the group worked on putting finish plaster up on the roof of the garden wall, now it is ready for the linseed oil to protect it from water. It is an experimental roof made of cob with redwood branches put across it then cobbed over to make the overhang. The wall needs a roof to protect it from rain, otherwise it slowly erodes.

On Monday we also plastered the outside of the second bedroom at madrone house, the rest of the house is pretty much done but that room has been sitting unfinished. We wanted to get the first coat of plaster on the outside of the light straw clay and the strawbale walls before it got rainy since it protects the straw from moisture.

Map II

I made a map that should be easier to read online, if you click on the map to see a larger picture of it you should be able to read the numbers. The pictures of building below are in order based on the numbers on the map. Some I have uploaded lots of pictures of before, some may be new to you.

1)The Common House
2)El Nido
3)Fern Cottage
4)The Greenhouse, Bath house, Sauna, and Sauna Loft (a guest room)
5)Pond House
6)Red Root
7)The Sunny Gardenshed
8)Madrone House
9)Strawberry House
10)Oak House (it was started last year then the folks building it moved)
11)The Pump House

Planting Garlic

It is the first day of the October work party and this morning we divided into two groups, one working in the garden. We did a few things, weeding, pulling summer crops that were done producing, adding compost and amendments and turning the soil, and planting garlic into that newly turned soil.

We planted one and a half beds, the half with Boonville White, and the one with an unnamed variety, which years ago was given to Emerald Earth by members of another community who grow garlic as a cottage industry. First we separated the heads into cloves, making sure there were not two cloves very close together looking like one, since we don't want two plants together to compete for space. When planting we used a stick with lines drawn on it to help space them evenly, planting one every 8 inches or so. Flat end down, pointy end up since that is where they sprout. They are just pushed into the ground until they are all the way in then the hole is covered.


Boonville White peels really easily, and has big cloves, but not huge heads. It also has a stiff stem so can't be braided and doesn't last as long. The other variety has both mostly large heads and mostly large cloves, can be braided and lasts longer. So both, and other varieties, are planted to take advantage of their good qualities.

Walking Home At Night

I used to be in a tent right near the common house, but now I am the farthest from it, strawberry house is a bit farther but is not lived in yet. It is still not far but it is a bit of a walk across and up, through one garden and past another, up a hill and under a row of oak trees and up to madrone house. The walks at night have been beautiful. The first night the stars were amazing, last night the almost full moon was shining through mist and clouds, but still quite bright. So far I have not needed the flashlight, it has been light enough with just moon light.