Current News You Can Use

            Too many people have told us lately that breathing through masks is bad for us, carbon dioxide supposedly being bodily waste.   Our bodies have several organs that expel waste: the urinary system; the lower intestine; and sweat glands.   Lungs do not expel toxic waste, mostly just unused air, carbon dioxide and water.   Carbon dioxide should not be maligned as waste; it plays a vital role in the body’s ability to get oxygen to its tissues.   Hemoglobin grabs and holds oxygen tightly to carry it through the body.   It can’t let go of oxygen until the blood is sufficiently acid with carbon dioxide.   This is how oxygen gets to where it is most needed. Sinuses regulate how much air goes in and out with erectile tissues that inflate and narrow the airways when they detect too much smoke and dust.   They filter out pollutants and germs with mucus that is swept down to the throat to be swallowed.   Th...

The same mask that stops colds and flu in the winter can help you breathe easier when forest fires are filling our air with smoke.  Your breath moistens the inside of the mask; smoke particles get caught up in the moist cloth, greatly reducing the amount you take into your lungs.  A bandanna cold mask has more cloth to catch the smoke than a dust mask or medical mask, and more room inside it to breathe easily.           You can breathe easier in your yard by using misters to clear the smoke by taking it to the ground, where it becomes good fertilizer.  The snakelike standing plastic misters with twin emitters that you can usually buy at the Grange Coop or Diamond Building Supply work very well for this, as they produce a very fine mist.  They also can be moved around, as they are made to be used on a hose.  (The hose should be heavy duty 5/8” or cheap ½” to take the pressure.)  Individual mist emitters tha...