Bye-bye, Beetle

I spent the past day and a half tromping through the pine forest with Tulio and Dave collecting data on all the spots where the pine bark beetle has killed trees.  All of the spots were found last summer and fall, and almost all were treated in some way, either by chopping down the affected trees, or by chopping and then bulldozing and in a couple of cases burning.  The size of the spots ranged from single trees to about 25 acres, and they were scattered throughout the property, although there were a few areas where the spots were concentrated.  I have a whole lot of data to scrub to see if we can see any pattern to the infestation, but the unequivocally good news was that we found no signs of the infestation spreading at any of the spots, and we did not find any new spots.  I will be going out with Tulio every week or so to look for new spots and to make sure all of the treated areas remain clean.  We are hoping that we beat the animal for the year, and that if it starts to resurface next summer, it won't be as severe.

A perfect 10!

On Sunday, I did the first run with my recently finished wood fired oven.  I don't think the mortar was completely dry, because the oven was not as hot as expected.  The bread came out okay, and it was cooked through, but it wasn't beautiful.  I made bread again today, and this bread came out as I expected...nice brown crust, evenly done all the way through, and still moist.  Perfect!

Ready to cook with wood!

We had two sunny days at the end of the week, so Jose and Tulio and the crew got to work and finished my horno and the chimney.  The horno now has really cool metal doors, and the chimney is beautifully finished with a very pretty yellow slate.  The trial bread baking run for the horno is scheduled for this afternoon, so more pictures to follow.

The slate was pulled from a slate deposit next to a creek near the farm.  They load up the backhoe bucket and drive it right to the chimney.

Jose putting on the finishing touches.

The door on the front of the horno, with the finished chimney in the background.

And the cute little door on the smokehole on the back of the horno.

Brrrrr

I took this picture at 4pm.  I know it is cold in the north, really cold, but to us this is pretty chilly.