Summer kitchens, fire & bread

What a pleasure to use the outdoor cob (wood-fired) oven for summer baking!  On these hot days I am so relieved to keep the house cool and do my weekly bread baking outside - either early morning, or early evening.  I can understand the usefulness of the old fashioned "summer kitchen" (here are some modern design ideas), usually separated from the main house, to do the canning, preserving, summer cooking and dish washing.  It makes so much sense.  This week's breads for the CSA included broa (Portuguese corn bread), 10-grain rustic peasant loaves, multigrain flax Italian sourdough, and savoury pesto rolls.  Each week I get a little better at this, learning the cob oven temperatures and firing techniques to get the proper length of baking heat for the amount of baking I need to get done.  And I am fascinated by the parallels between the fire and the bread - making a fire for a few hours in advance in the same duration of time that the dough is rising, both are an ancient meditative process, both take and give energy, and both are not to be rushed.  I love this cob oven!