moisture

He credits their health to the wood-chip mulch around his property and hugelkultur mounds — logs covered with wood chips and compost — that attract and retain moisture.

But cornmeal is also thirsty, and my first attempt — which leaned on a mixture of olive oil, melted butter and a single egg for moisture — was dry, almost crumbly.

The position of the high pressure also meant that winds often blew out of dry continental Europe rather than from the moisture laden air of the Atlantic.

The pitch was built on a base called “the permavoid,” a substructure designed to support the field while allowing air and moisture to move under the root zone.

“We are taking readings almost every single hour, if not more than that. We have systems in here that are looking at the ambient temperatures, the ambient moisture,” Benedict said of the multimillion-dollar process.