[Sca-cooks] pennsci hay

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

Tara is certainly right; I was speaking from my personal perspective as 
a farmer's daughter, and the fact that you don't have to worry about 
straw bales the same way you do about hay.

> >	Yes, similar concerns apply, though wet straw is nowhere near as likely 
> >to reach combustion temperature internally, since it is more completely 
> >dry. There will be fewer weed seeds since most straw comes from cereal 
> >crops that are intensively farmed and often treated with selective 
> >herbicide. However, that does not stop there from being weed seeds.
> >
> 
> (Call this a disclaimer, or call it a plug ;) but, my husband and I are 
> in the process of starting a business building straw bale houses...)
> 
> A straw bale is highly unlikely to ever reach combustion temperature at 
> Pennsic.  The reason why this can be a concern inside a wall is that the 
> enclosed wall will contain the heat, and there are many straw bales 
> stacked together which would be equally damp and fermenting all 
> together, allowing it to reach a much greater temperature than would 
> happen within a single wet strawbale that's dissipating it's heat to the 
> atmosphere.  Plus, it takes some time to initiate fermentation within 
> that bale - not very likely to happen within the two week span of Pennsic.

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it screams
'Why don't you ever listen to me?' and lets fly with a club."