I'll buy pretty much any of the answers, or combination thereof. Yup, they're clinkers. What's in em? From Bushman's link, (which talks ash in general) mostly good stuff, calcium, potassium, phosporous, and a bunch of trace metals, all of which are good for the ground in small quantities. They'll be fertilizer come spring, if they're not used for traction on the hill in the driveway first. What caused em? Burning hot, I guess. Can't say I've been taking it easy on the stove the last week or so.
All in all, a good head scratching was had by us, and some time got wasted on the way to warmer days ahead.
Speaking of which, these two guys need to get outside FAR worse than I do!
All the signs were there - moodiness, irritability, talking to himself. If he wouldn't have been miles away from any form of civilization, perhaps someone could have gotten him to realize it and get help. Nevertheless, when he started sifting through the ashes, even Steve had to admit to himself that cabin fever had set in.....
He scrounged through an old box of catcher's gear he'd had since little league retrieving only his mask and a jock strap. He changed from his carharts into his new 'uniform', saluted himself in the mirror and dove off the deck of his trailer into a snowbank. Then he went to the woodshed, gassed up a dolmar, grabbed a hookaroon and some rope, threw it all in his pickup and drove to Green Bay with his head out the window since the windshield was caked with permafrost......