Brian's Finally Building in northern New Mexico

rininger85

I love how there is a random weight just laying around the yard... you've gotten pretty serious about this workout thing that you need to have weights everywhere in case the mood strikes you wherever you are...

boss

rininger85 wrote:

I love how there is a random weight just laying around the yard... you've gotten pretty serious about this workout thing that you need to have weights everywhere in case the mood strikes you wherever you are...

I like the way you think, sir.

boss

Good morning!
My wife Nell shot this video April 30 through our kitchen door.

boss

I'm not making a lot of progress lately, because of pain. I have made an appointment with Taos Whole Health a Functional health center. I was thinking my pain was increased recently because I have been eating cereal after my workouts in the morning. I stopped the milk and the inflammation decreased, then I tried milk and cereal again a few days later and the inflammation came back stronger. So I started looking up autoimmune diseases and allergies and found a whole slew of information about the two issues. It makes a lot of sense to me. Long story shortened the foods we eat have a lot to do with autoimmune diseases in the body reaction to allergens. In some cases the body just makes the wrong decision in how to react to the allergen, hence the result is an immune system mistake about which part of our body is being invaded and my case it attacks the joints.
So in some regards, I am making progress.
Yesterday I figured out a technique for making the stilling well in the new RFF easily removable for cleaning gunk off the outflows.

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I ordered some EDDHA Fe to address the deficiency seen clearly in the Collards on the left. Thanks to everyone whose posts pointed me in the direction of addressing iron deficiency using the EDDHA Fe.

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On a sad note the hole I drilled in limestone edge of the dirt tank I am installing the RFF bracket onto cracked before I tightened the lag-bolt into. Yesterday I pored all the Crazy-glue I could find into the crack in the hopes that it'll hold together enough to tighten the bolt. Note to self, use a bigger masonry bit the next time I drill a hole for a steel anchor, doh!

scotty435

Sorry to hear you're having a lot of pain Brian. Hope you're able to knock the pain down to where you can get more things done.

FWIW, Antigen - Antibody complexes (immune complex deposits) are often bound up in the joints. Even though you feel it mostly in your joints, immune complex deposits are filtered out in some other places, like the kidneys and can sometimes cause problems there as well. Wheat gluten can sometimes play a part in joint pain and carbohydrates can as well.

BroHay

Come down to lower elevations and forget about all the pain/discomfort.

Stayed mostly away from fast food b/c it just does not taste any good and the price is a deterrent itself. I sooooo wanted cereal, but did not want to push it any farther than I already had.

Now ill get to see how i do/feel when back to higher elevations........

boss

Howdy
We've harvested 16 trout out of the hundred or so we put in our system several months ago. I think the breeder said they were 8 months old when we bought them. Most are plate size some bigger. I have been trying to catch them to cull the over-stocked system for a couple days with not much luck as I kept netting smaller ones. Well yesterday I guess I stressed the fish when I had sprayed white vinegar on the a few patches of mold on the woodwork on the ceiling in the greenhouse. Whoops, they were lethargic this morning. Luckily I rose crazy early this morning and noticed their behavior and started a water change and cranked up the aeration. I took advantage of their slowness and netted a dozen of the larger fish. Later in the day four turned belly up and I netted those and cleaned and gutted those too.
Of course I hope I haven't stressed them all too much. Time will tell and I'll keep watching them. I'd like to get the fish load down more as we grow out the remaining Brook trout into the Summer.

A lot has happened since I last posted. I've been getting steadily worse over the last few weeks. I found something out about autoimmune diseases recently that I really should have figured out a year ago.
We recently increased the immune system suppressants. Worried about my immune system and imagined how life would be if this just slowly got worse and worse I needed to take charge of my health. A very long story short is, I finally asked myself and the Internet what the immune system was reacting to so inappropriately harsh.

The flood gates opened: If you or someone you know suffers from one of numerous types of autoimmune diseases, I suggest you Google "allergies and autoimmune disease"
At first I was trying to find out what I'm allergic to that triggered my immune system to begin with.
As I dug and dug I found out about our guts microbiome.
This issue is rather in depth and heavily researched. There are many TedX Talks on subject of gut health. I ordered one book called Autoimmune Fix, by Dr. Tom O'Brian and can't for it to get here. The slogan is, "the cause of autoimmune disease is on the end of your fork."
Meanwhile our only running vehicle broke on Wednesday night. I hustled and found the part and ordered the strut mount a part that has busted before on the lifted Jeep. I contacted a friend who agreed to install the part on Friday morning when it arrived. On Thursday I had a ten AM MRI of my hip, my attempt to give western medicine one more change to find something or at least tell me something.My daughter followed me as I drove the Jeep very slowly to town while the shock absorber / strut made horrible noises on even unseen bumps in the road.

On Friday another friend came out from town and drove Nell and I to Ziggy's auto repair shop to pick up the Jeep.
It turns out the part was under warranty and we got a full refund and Ziggy figured out that both shops that fixed this issue before hadn't installed the heavy steel washer on top on the strut in the Jeep.
Thank you thank you. We are blessed!

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Today Nell made a raw salad sweet potato, broccoli, white and yellow potatoes, with a avocado dressing. Real food satisfies so completely. Next we will have some tasty trout with it.
So we're on our way to balancing the good and bad bacteria in our guts which in turn once the problems in the gut are resolved the immune system which is fed by the gut can start working again.
I am so very enthused about getting healthy and hopefully then my immune system can get back to doing what it is supposed to do.
Thank you for reading me.
Brian

rininger85

I've read that a lot of sicknesses we see today has to do with not having the bacteria in our guts that our ancestors did. Kids don't eat mud pies like they used to, adults carry antibacterial soap with them everywhere they go. And we don't eat right anymore. I for one do not use antibacterial soap if I can help it. About the only time I use soap to wash my hands at all is after going to the bathroom, or if my hands are covered in grease... otherwise I usually just wash with plain old water. From what I've read that should keep some of the good bacteria around that we need. I've watched quite a few of the documentaries on Netflix about our food supply vs. old days food supply and the impact on our lives... Pretty interesting and pretty convincing stuff... We just watched the magic pill last night was a good one...

gnoib

Be careful with raw potatoes, they still contain Alkaloid Solanin, which is a poison.

Hope you find something which helps you, fast.

boss

Happy mothers day!
Thank you for your comments Rob. I agree wholeheartedly. One of the researchers said compared to some of the junk-food we eat, we'd be better off eating a mouthful of dirt. All of our food is sterilized now.
This animation really opened my eyes

There is also a way to prepare vegetables that makes them the food for probiotics called "prebiotics." It's a type of pickling, like sauerkraut.
I have had Kumbucha, which is one of the prebiotic foods, I liked it okay, now I want to learn how to make it. We're also going to try Kimichi https://www.mnn.com/food/recipes/stories/how-to-make-kimchi-in-5-easy-steps

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I just saw your post gnoib, I agree, but once in a while I guess it's okay to eat raw potato. Our goal is to do this 7 to 30 day pickling process on most of our raw food. I'm now looking at lids and jars for pickling.

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One of the reasons we're so happy about these old food preparation techniques is it is like the opposite of what a diet is, instead of removing foods, this program adds foods I couldn't eat likes beets. This will bring many more root vegetables back into our diet too. I'm guessing home grown root stock foods are good because they are grown in the dirt where all the bacteria lives!
For me this realization drives home the importance of wicking beds in our foods. I hope in a few months I'll have a healthier gut microbiome and be able to work again. The first thing I am going to do is build wicking beds.
On the fish side of things I have a better idea of what happened to our fish. At some point a few days ago I got the bright :laughing3:

idea to drop the old water pump in the 2600 gallon fish tank and give the fish a bit of current to swim in, doh?@!
It surely stirred up a fish poo storm in the over-stocked tank. Sorry guys. I cleaned and froze about twenty five fish so far.
I'm not saying I don't make stupid mistakes when I feel good, I do.
That mistake was particularly stupid. I am changing water again today. The drought-devastated yard appreciates the water.
I'm hoping I can drain the tank about a third of the way today or tomorrow and switch the pipe that goes through the side of the tank from the current SLO and reroute it to the new RFF. At the moment after moving hoses around in the yard, it feels like someone is pushing a nail into my hip.
I have hope again, I'm going all-in with that :bootyshake:

BroHay

Day old sticky rice with kimchi and a fried egg or two....... YUM!

We find ourselves gravitating to Asian markets/cuisine.

boss

I don't know if I'm up yet, or this is just insomnia. The coffee is set to start now at five AM. "We'll see," my mother used to say.
Yep, good morning!
I had another whoops yesterday evening. I was trying to get as much air into the aquaponics system as possible and busted the inflow pipe off the air manifold. Oh crap! I have a plan and most of the parts to rebuild the air delivery system on my system, but I soon found that I didn't have absolutely everything. I'm missing an end cap for the PVC manifold I'm planning on building. The reason is, I forgot I was going to use 1 1/2" (38.mm) for the manifold and hadn't bought an end cap for that size. Much to my dismay I did find in my stash of PVC parts: 4 1" PVC end caps, 2 2" end caps with no pipe that size and 1 1/2" end cap. I wanted to use 1 1/2" PVC as it has more surface area to fit the threads for the taps. Also I lent my PEX tools and stash to my Son-in-law the day previous.
Time to think on my feet.
Walking back and forth from building to shed looking for parts I could make something from quickly was hurting my hip, so I had to minimize that.

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I need to go from PEX to threaded pipe and I didn't have the PEX crimps. :think:

I found that the 1/4" #80 pipe thread tap fit nicely inside of the 1/2" PEX pipe.
:laughing3:

Oh man that was lucky!
Catastrophe averted. Right now was not a good time to lose air bubblers.

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I'm also in the process of switching from aquarium size vinyl tube to 1/4" (6.35mm) polyethylene. So I had to adapt some fittings using plastic aquarium style tees I had bought many months ago which had both sizes. Lucky again.
I did a water test yesterday morning after a 30% water change the day before. I figured I'd caused an ammonia spike after foolishly sticking our old water pump in the fish tank to give our trout some extra water current to swim in, causing a proverbial shit-storm in the fish tank.
Yesterday water tests showed the levels had stabilized with pH 7.6 which is normal for our well water sourced top up. Ammonia was .25ppm nitrite .25ppm Nitrate 20ppm water temperature 63F
I did another super slow water exchange yesterday for most of the day, maybe another 30% fresh water and the fish are looking better this morning.

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My dog is all excited; one thing I've learned with research into improving gut microbiome health is, work in the dirt, which I did yesterday planting more onions as well as, pet your dog more. Buddy likes that last part :wave:

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I have a lot to learn about growing strawberries, but they are still alive and fruiting some too.

boss

Howdy folks! I think I'm back from the dead. We've drastically changed the food we eat. More raw high fiber foods. Thanks to my loving wife taking such great care of me. Unfortunately I gave her the cold I had. I've stopped eating food with gluten as well as milk to see if I can find out what's causing this inflammation. I do feel better today and had two cups of coffee. I got to say, coffee without Half&half is terrible :support:

, but it seems to be helping. So be it. I want my life back and immune system suppressants seem like the wrong way to handle autoimmune disease, hence that cold. I never got colds. :lol:

I think now I'm on the right path to better health. I hope and that is always a good thing.

Green Time

boss wrote:

Happy mothers day!
...I have had Kumbucha, which is one of the prebiotic foods, I liked it okay, now I want to learn how to make it. We're also going to try Kimichi...

I have been making Kombucha for years, it is super easy. I was driven to making my own when all of the local shops stopped selling the original GT and went to the "enlightened" (watered down) version (I really enjoyed the original multi-green GT). I received my first scoby from a business associate that had been making it for over a decade. I then purchased another scoby from KombuchaKamp. I combined both scobys in my brew due to each scoby imparting unique characteristics to the batch (like different types of yeast to beer or wine). It is nice to pour a fresh ladle over a glass of ice, drop some fruit in, wait (like you would with a fresh draw of Guinness or Murphy's) and then enjoy :thumbleft:

Kimchi is one of those things I have wanted to make for awhile and haven't gotten around to it. Look forward to seeing your updates on it when you give it a go.

boss

That is so cool Michael. I've yet to do either Kimchi or Kombucha, but now I'm over the cold and hope I can do stuff today.

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