Annie wrote:
I have been in touch with Mr C-Head who suggested that a sustainable alternative to peat would be equine pine pellets. Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? I've heard of cows being fed all sorts of things that no self-respecting cow should have to swallow, but didn't know that people fed wood to horses!
Anyway, I'm sure some of you composters will investigate and report back.
I thought I'd share this, in case it helps someone.
All this summer, I've been troubled by a dry cough, getting particularly severe in August. It ties up very well, timewise, with the four months I spent cruising aboard Weaverbird. When I described the symptoms to someone, they reckoned it was asthma that I was suffering from. So I did some research on this, and came to the conclusion that this was probably right, but what was the trigger? There's not much aboard in the way of common asthma triggers that could be to blame. Some more research, and I came across some papers in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India that confirmed that the workers who process coir fibre in southern India are very likely to get asthma. It's a known allergen, not just a dusty irritant, and there's a latency period of from six months to several years before the effect will be felt. That ties up with the fact that I've been using a composting head for about seven years now, using coir fibre as the medium all that time.
Yesterday, I went to my doctor, and said "doctor, doctor, this cough is going to be the death of me." And he replied "it's not the cough that carries you off; it's the coffin they carry you offin!"
No, he didn't really, but he did agree that my self-diagnosis is probably correct, subject to an x-ray confirming that there's nothing more serious.
So now I'm looking for an alternative for next summer. I won't use peat, as it's unstainable. Mr C-Head mentions the pine pellets, and also cypress and red oak coarse sawdust or fine shavings [the pine pellets are used for stabling, in place of straw, Annie]. In the UK, it seems to be very easy to get wood-based pellets for horse bedding and cat litter, from various sources, including: https://www.purewoodpellets.co.uk/. Sorted. I hope.