Thanks Shed....yeah the cervical vertebrae are a different beast. I have been used to the lower back injury for so long......where as long as I avoid certain motions I am generally comfortable and even then I have learned that I can trash the lower back with physical work but as long as I use proper form and get a good nights sleep, the area resets every day.
Not so with the neck area. I struggle with finding a tolerable position to even sit or stand in where the muscles aren't just churning in knots and building up lactic acid and burning like hell. I do a lot of pacing with my hands behind my back trying to stretch and help with the tension. That makes life real difficult. I thought the lower back was bad.....but I can't seem to avoid irritating the neck and shoulder area like I can with the lower back.
Working on a couple solutions for the current soil problem. I am going to swap the soil into smaller 5 gallon buckets and bring a couple of them up and set them near the wood burner. The general temp of the upstairs is 68-69 degrees if we aren't running a fire and its closer to 80 when we are running the wood burner. I think those temps are 5 degrees or so higher near the insert so thats going to be the first thing I do.
I can't afford to throw more energy (meaning watts) at the problem. Sure it would be easy to get a big 400 watt heat matt and have my soil on that, but we just can't afford to run 1 or 2 of them for a month at a pop. I think once we get the climate controlled area where I can keep the temps in the 70s, we will be fine. My other solution for this year will be to mix my yearly requirement of soil at the end of spring and cook in the nice warm summer temps. Just eliminating the winter cook might make the most sense. I know
@beez0404 has been on my case for getting a used cement mixer to do all my mixing, so doing it all in one weekend with cement mixer might be the most fool proof solution.
He also had the good idea of having a foam box where I could maybe regulate the temp better for the cooks....which is another great idea but its not tested at this point. I think I might experiment with that idea though. I know what the results of outdoor soil cooks are.....and aside from the inconvenience of needing to mix up a few hundred gallons of soil in a short period and needing to buy more soil bins, it will likely fix my future issues with badly cooked soil.
hope alls well with the stanks and pup.
. I don't even own a pH pen anymore.
