I am no expert at any of this, but I do have a comment or two on a couple of things in your list. Hopefully, someone who really has a clue will chime in. The Arctostaphylos should be a really nice ground cover, and should do ok. The leaves, dried, made as tea, are fantastic for chronic or periodic urinary tract infections. Personal experience. The berries, while 'edible', were pounded with dried meats and fats as late-cold-season 'emergency foods'.... But probably not something you would want to bake into a pie. The pinon pine does grow at high elevations in New Mexico. But I am not sure how it would do in Colorado. Farther north, possibly higher and probably colder. And even in lower elevations and absolutely prime growing conditions in New Mexico, they are **very** slow-growing...... If the trees absolutely thrived in your area, it might be 40 years before you can really harvest pine nuts from even a large nursery-grown tree. I don't know about your other possibles. But I suspect there are other options, as well. Have you checked with state and local government sites, and gardening clubs/associations in CO? You might find some other possibilities. By the way, I *truly* envy your cabin in that location!!

Hi Bonnie, I think I second what Dafy suggested! I was surprised you said you put the veggies on the bottom, but why donÂt you try them on top instead. If the heating element is around the outside, perhaps the meat would be a better conductor of the heat than the veggies which arenÂt physically "connected" to each other. And if you use it on days when youÂre home, wouldnÂt it be easy to just give the whole shebang a couple big stirs every few hours to help "manually" distribute the heat? I wonder if possibly some brands of crockpots have more even heat distributionÂbut I really donÂt know anything about them. IÂm not sure IÂd be a very good crockpot person anyway. When something is cooking, I want to EAT it. IÂm not sure I could wait all day to eat something that smelled good all day! ;-) Whatever you decide to bring to the Swap, Bonnie, IÂm absolutely positive itÂll be delicious! Daffy, I found a Chuckwagon Beef Stew recipe by her, but I donÂt think itÂs the same thing Âcause it doesnÂt have carrots in it, but this one says to cook the meat and potatoes for 20 minutes and then reduce pressure normally for 15 minutes. In this recipe you smoosh the potatoes anyway, but it seems to me that even whole potatoes would be cooked pretty much to mush being cooked that long. Last week I pressure cooked some of my homegrown beets to slip off the skins, and even just for that I put the biggest ones in and cooked them for about 10 minutes (beets take longer than most veggies), and then opened the pot and added the smaller beets and cooked them for another 5+ minutes. I really think youÂd be happier with the result if you got the meat started and then added the veggies closer to the end of the cooking. It seems like a pain to depressurize the pot to open it to add something, but it heats back up again very quickly, and itÂs not that bad. I mostly use the pressure cooker for corn on the cob, and that I cook just barely 5 minutes on 15 lbs. of pressure. Other things like broccoli or cauliflower or beans I cook for just a couple minutes, but since they cook quickly (in a small pot) anyway, I usually just cook them in a regular sauce pan with just a little bit of water. And then thereÂs AliceÂs "steam them in butter" method for carrotsÂand other things. Happy cooking...... Make that, happy eating, Skybird

I'm not going to be much help, I've never baked bread anywhere except Michigan. this comes from your friendly local Extension service though, and those people know what they're talking about: "Yeast Bread at higher altitudes: Basic recipes for yeast breads are reliable at most altitudes. However, since fermentation of sugar is faster at higher altitudes, breads rise in one-third the time noted for lower altitudes. When baking yeast breads, carefully watch that the dough does not rise more than double its bulk. Since it rises faster, the flavor doesnâÂÂt have time to develop. Punching down the dough twice instead of once will improve flavor as well as texture. Start checking for the first doubling in bulk after about 30 to 45 minutes. Check for the second after 60 to 75 minutes. Salt acts as a yeast retardant so donâÂÂt bake bread at high altitude without it." So, I think you can reduce the yeast even further, and watch that rise as LindaC says, and put it in the oven when it's "ready". Good luck, and just think of all the yummy "experiments" until it's the way you want it, LOL. Annie

Though there may not be a 'conversion kit' available for going high to low, there doesn't really need to be. You would just replace the orifices that came with the high alt version with those that come with the normal sea level version. You would also most likely need to readjust the air mix shutter on each burner as well as the simmer setting on each valve. This is the same thing you do when going from NG to LP, or LP to NG. (Excepting a new regulator if needed.)