Brian's Finally Building in northern New Mexico

boss

Good morning! I'm up early again.

I'm feeling more relaxed having answers to questions I've been asking for years: What am I suffering from? Inflammatory arthritis. Will random inflammation be what I have to deal with all my life? Answer: There is no cure for Inflammatory Arthritis. Lucky for me I don't need strong drugs which suppress the immune system, often reeking more havoc on the body than the disease. Thank goodness!
Will I know when inflammation starts and where? No. It takes months to see results if any of sulfa drugs. The hoped for results is the inflammation is lessened to a dull roar. Is IA an autoimmune disease? Yes, but it is a milder form of RA that most likely does not deform and damage joints. Thank you Jesus! Out of four answers, two are very positive two, well yeah, I'm sick and I'm taking steps to reduce the life altering symptoms.

gnoib

boss wrote:

Good morning!
Yesterday was exciting; Spent the morning working the many tomato vines in our greenhouse. With health issues for my wife and myself and our house addition, I've let the tomato plants go hog wild. I put a stop to that yesterday. So many suckers the plants made massive clumps at the top of the greenhouse. I got pretty good at following a vine to its end to see if there were tomatoes on the branch I wanted to remove. Let's just say I ate a lot of tomatoes while I worked. I decided it would be okay to let dead leaves fall in the pond as I could net everything off. The netting worked well, while some of the debris made it into the water column. Now that I installed a quad-wave-maker power-head the dynamics in the pond has changed for the better. I had to reach down to the power head and remove leaves twice. It is deep enough that I had to dunk my face in to reach the impellers. I'll need to rig the bracket so I can pivot it up for cleaning. :think:

I removed 80 percent of the plant mass and added it to my weed-bale compost pile, started when I removed the cover from the Koi pond this Spring. We put a temperature gauge down in the sunken center of the 20 bale pile and it wasn't warm. I think it needs more fodder, so I re-stacked what was there piling the bales higher. I was counting on the heat from this pile to heat the Koi pond, but if I don't get the pile double in size while the weather is still warm it may not do what I wanted it to do. See above excuse list. :laughing3:

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Barely a lunch break under my belt and my wife says she needs to go see a doctor because she has dizziness and a rash on her legs. We can not take chances with her as the doctor can not get the Coumadin level stabilized leaving us with fears she'll get a bleed one week and or a blood clot the next. After checking her out, doctor sent her to the ER for an EKG when she expressed chest tightness, sheesh here we go again. Everything checked out great and they released her around 5:15 PM..
I know she is suffering and I'm right there with her. I suggested we go to a Coumadin Clinic in the city. I hope we can get this set up soon. We got to get some relief from worrying for both of us. This has been a rough two years for our health.

You will never get any good heat out of straw, no protein.
It rots slowly but can not produce the heat.
If you use Hay, than you get the heat. Even to the point were it could start to burn.

Try to find some old hay.

boss

gnoib wrote:

You will never get any good heat out of straw, no protein.
It rots slowly but can not produce the heat.
If you use Hay, than you get the heat. Even to the point were it could start to burn.

Try to find some old hay.

However this isn't straw. this is rotting weeds and seeds, which I choose specifically because straw doesn't decompose well.

Mel Redcap

Congratulations on the diagnosis! It sounds like you're on the same spectrum of autoimmune arthritis that I am, just kind of on the other end of it. :support:

Hopefully now you can find a good treatment and get it under control!

Do be aware that your immune system can decide to take it out on things that aren't your joints, and if your doctor doesn't think to mention it (...like my first rheumatologist... :evil:

) you may not realise for a while that other 'random' symptoms are connected to it. The ones that leap to mind (because I've got 'em!) are dry mouth and eyes, brittle hair and nails, and assorted gut and stomach problems including IBS. :upset:

boss

Thank you Mel. I do feel better knowing answers. Have you used Sulfonamide?

Mel Redcap

boss wrote:

Thank you Mel. I do feel better knowing answers. Have you used Sulfonamide?

Yup, my main arthritis med (sulfasalazine) is a combo of a sulfonamide and a salicylate. :thumbleft:

gnoib

boss wrote:

gnoib wrote:

You will never get any good heat out of straw, no protein.
It rots slowly but can not produce the heat.
If you use Hay, than you get the heat. Even to the point were it could start to burn.

Try to find some old hay.

However this isn't straw. this is rotting weeds and seeds, which I choose specifically because straw doesn't decompose well.

For what you try to do you need a fuel source.
That fuel is sugars and proteins.

If you do hay you conserve those. Good hay has nearly the colour of the grass plant and has about 13 to 18% protein and sugars. That stuff makes it so critical that hay has not more than 15% moisture when you bail it.
15% is already critical.
Top moisture will not do much, maybe a corner rot. But if you can soak the center, that moisture stays. The outside works like an insulation and prevents the moisture to evaporate. Stack them and you have an oven.
The bails get so hot, that they can start to burn. Even being wet.
For what you are trying to do for the coy pond you need something with a source that has lots of protein and sugars or ammonia, or all 3 of them. That is the fuel

boss

gnoib wrote:

boss wrote:

gnoib wrote:

You will never get any good heat out of straw, no protein.
It rots slowly but can not produce the heat.
If you use Hay, than you get the heat. Even to the point were it could start to burn.

Try to find some old hay.

However this isn't straw. this is rotting weeds and seeds, which I choose specifically because straw doesn't decompose well.

For what you try to do you need a fuel source.
That fuel is sugars and proteins.

If you do hay you conserve those. Good hay has nearly the colour of the grass plant and has about 13 to 18% protein and sugars. That stuff makes it so critical that hay has not more than 15% moisture when you bail it.
15% is already critical.
Top moisture will not do much, maybe a corner rot. But if you can soak the center, that moisture stays. The outside works like an insulation and prevents the moisture to evaporate. Stack them and you have an oven.
The bails get so hot, that they can start to burn. Even being wet.
For what you are trying to do for the coy pond you need something with a source that has lots of protein and sugars or ammonia, or all 3 of them. That is the fuel

Oh, okay now I see
The weeds don't have the proper mixture of sugars and protein.
That explains a lot about what's happening. I see the neighbor has a dozen small oats bales left out in the field before this five day rainstorm began. I assume they are ruined now. Will oats work?

gnoib

Only if it is Oat Hay.
What makes hay such a great foot for livestock.
The proteins and sugars it contains. You cut, when the plant is at its prime, full of sugars and protein. The first cut has the hay with its seeds, underdeveloped seeds. The second, if possible, will have ne seeds, but because of it, all the energy goes into the leafs. That's why seconds have mostly a higher protein level.

What is done, you cut, dry it as fast as possible and than, press it and get it out of the sun. That conserves most of the sugars and proteins. For years. Even the vitamins are conserved.
For the animal combustion engine you have a prime fuel source. High fiber contence and the real fuel, sugars, proteins and the needs vitamins and minerals.
For your idea you can use that fuel source to produce heat, what makes the animal combustion engine going, does the same thing in the slow rot process, its a form of combustion.

Look at those oat bales, if they are green inside, they should work, because than the plant was still alive and all that fuel still stored.
Its Solar Energy

But than you need a source that starts the process, the fermenting of the sugars and protein, which is water, that allows the needed bacteria to develop. You have to soak the bales really good, dripping wet. A good bale can handle some rain, its pressed so well that it is hard for the rain to go deep.
You can jump start the fermenting, if you add ammonia to the water.
Pee in a bucket and just empty it on the bales.
If you do that, don't be surprised if the stack starts to steam in the winter, or starts a slow burn.
Stack your straw on the outside, first class insulator.

boss

Thank you so much Gnoib. I'll check with the neighbor asap. One parameter outside of you discussion is the dried part. The oat bales must have been washed off pretty well as our wet season is having a third go at us. This time it has been steady rain since Monday and we're still socked in.

dstjohn99

Hi Brian, it's awfully quiet over here. I hope things are going well and look forward to updates soon - Getting the floor in the addition I hope.

boss

Thanks David. Unfortunately my condition has deteriorated further. Currently, I can not stand or walk for more than a few minutes. Floor tile project is on hold. To date I seem overly reliant on hope, which I still possess, thank goodness.

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Mel Redcap

(((((careful hugs))))) That's a bugger, Brian. :cry:

Hope is good! I had several bad flares and issues with meds that didn't work for me early on after my diagnosis, and spent a lot of time stuck in the house, hobbling from chair to chair. So... been there, done that, it REALLY SUCKS, and I hope that you end up with everything under better control and this just a bad memory.

boss

Thank you Mel for sharing your experiences it has helped me a lot, I really appreciate this. It does sound like I am in the same phase as you were. The doc is trying meds to determine which sub group of inflammatory arthritis I have. With all the hope I have I still couldn't have believed it would get this bad before the remission drugs started working.

gnoib

I hope you get better and they find the proper med for you.
Mine depends on the weather.
Monday was rough and in my job I do about 5 to 6 miles in 7 hours.
When I got home I checked my weather station and the stored data.
At 6 am the barometer showed 1012 mb, by noon it had droped to 956 mb, same as Maria as a cat 4 Hurrican. By 3pm, it was up to1006 mb.
No wonder I was hobbling along, like an old man

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Brian's Finally Building in northern New Mexico

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