It was -6 degree's F here this morning. According to Google Arkansas is 40 degrees presently (windchill not withstanding).  Seems a mite cold for slow cooling anything small outside. 

 

I've annealed similar material in ashes but my experience was in the summer when it was well above 80.

 

It was 6 deg. this AM, 34 high temp today, still too cold for outside treating at my place.  I still won't be able to forge outside until we get some rain to make the burn bans go away (I forge outside next to some woods).  Probably not until this weekend or first of next week...WAHHHHH!!!

 

Will be trying both ashes and vermiculite when I can get back to the forge.

UPDATE on annealing my touchmark:

 

As Stephen Olivo, Thomas Powers (and others I may have missed) have suggested, I put some additional heat in my ash bed to lengthen the cooling-off period to anneal my touchmark.  I heated two pieces of axle, each about 1 1/2" diam. x 5-6" long to yellow heat, then brought my touchmark to non-magnetic and quickly thrust all three together in a large bed of ashes to lengthen the cooling time and anneal it.

 

Result:  the two large hot pieces did the trick!  Pulled out the touchmark the next day and I could score it easily with a file, so the slower cooling definitely helped the annealing process.  Thanks to all who suggested adding some hot iron to the ash bed to help anneal the touchmark.

your welcome.  Always fun to have something work out.  Good luck on your touch mark.  Looking forward to seeing it.