Brian's Finally Building in northern New Mexico

boss

I've been busy, focused entirely on my pond, well minus a few emergency situations like after a three year drought that almost sent us fleeing from this place as the Anasazi reputedly did hundreds of years before us, this year we've had possibly triple our annual rainfall, maybe more. If I wasn't so focused on my aquaculture project I'd have measured a few of the deluges.
Extreme weather is the reason I'm building an earth-sheltered aquaponic greenhouse. Our garden got pulverized by a hurricane like hail storm in mid-September.
I've spent my days off this Summer working with a young man (I'm 60) who has been volunteering his efforts and friendship. We've been busting limestone out of my backyard. We got the rock down six feet in a V shape.
That is how I spent the Summer getting in the best physical condition I've been in twenty years at least.
So where am I at?

Earlier I posted these before and after photos

Another photo with some lines drwn showing where features are going to be

Most of this stuff including extended text descriptions can be found on my site
I do have questions, actually lots of questions. Right now before I go outside and start back in on rock work I wondering about plumbing. I bought 1.25" white PVC pipe, but most pond guys appear to be using even larger diameter pipe. It makes sense less strain on the pump. I'll get as much information posted or transferred from my site to here as I can as I know it is impossible to answer any questions with knowing the particulars.

Ozgal

Wow you don't do things by half measures. How's it progressing?

Colum Black-Byron

You're a brave man putting a bridge over your fish pond. I'd be going swimming with the fishies if I did that.

boss

haha a fine line between brave and nuts
I'll post a progress report in a minute

boss

Shortly after my daughter Brittany’s and Adam’s visit, the pain in my lower abdomen kicked into high gear.

Nell, bless her heart, bottled me up and rolled me into the emergency room. It got very bad there, sick bag bad.

a CAT scan showed that it wasn’t a strangulated hernia like I got everyone worried about, but another set of kidney stones, this time on my left side. Apparently none of the specialists got any interior footage of that side, because the radiologist found I had two ureters on the left side and a couple 4 and 6 mm stones too boot.

Once they had the excruciating pain managed, I was open to semi-coherent bidirectional conversation.

The nurse said one of the doctors there at Alta Vista, I don’t remember his name, called our area the stone belt, because of the dry mountain air combined with extremely hard water. I almost had the energy to chuckle, but managed to interrupt with, “the stone belt?”

Stoner belt maybe, hoho, no just kidding. But that crack I made after they asked if I was allergic to any medicines, “I like all drugs,” probably didn’t help my credibility. They did a urine test and thank goodness it came back clean, quickly. Probably due to that Stoner belt phenomenon

When they explained when the CT scan showed, I kept thinking of the line from, The Hunt For Red October, The *frack* cook? It was the cook?

A damned kidney stone. I mean I just barely got off the operation table with the urologist. How the hell did they miss that?

Oh well I better not start on my whole conspiracy theories and health care rant. I’m so glad I don’t need to get the hernia surgery right now. That is such a relief.

boss

Edited for image links that no longer work

Nell-Brian-team-up-cleanup-acrylic-channel-panels3

Nell-Brian-team-up-cleanup-acrylic-channel-panels3

Nell-Brian-team-up-cleanup-acrylic-channel-panels3

We bought these from a friend and they had been stored well in a barn. We got three 48 inch wide 14 foot long panels for a 100 bucks.

They had been in the barn for a long time possibly more than a decade. The protective film was in bad condition and stuck to the panels in many places.

Both ends leaked dirt inside which we cleaned with a clothes hanger wire with a wad of cloth on the end. This technique worked fine but there are a lot of little channels to clean.

Nell and I went to the hardware store after picking up my prescriptions from the lovely Christmas day emergency room visit.

We bought enough plywood to fill in between the panels as well as foam weather striping for between the plywood and plastic to aide in expansion.

ice-snow-diverted-rafters-dried

ice-snow-diverted-rafters-dried2

Nell-ready-to-go-to-Curtis-for-post-Christmas-get-together

Nell-ready-to-go-Jeep-snow-washed

Nell-ready-to-go-to-Curtisfor-post-Christmas-get-together

Snow sorted best I can. Waiting for Jason bless his heart. Thinking in short disjointed segments, because last night the second kidney stone of the episode is making life rough and I didn’t sleep well.

boss

BMN-Jason-Brian-Nell-push-the-boundary-endurance-Its-a-ROOF
Good morning

Wow! What a nice holiday break, well except for the visit to the ER Christmas day. Nell stayed with me the whole time, I tried to get her to go back home to have dinner, but she wouldn’t leave my side. Go figure why I am so lucky.

Jason-Brian-Nell-push-the-boundary-endurance-Its-a-ROOF-inside
Of course we still need to add more 5/8ths plywood to the edges and tar paper over it before the tin goes up. Two more walls, one gets the old insulated door from Outland Tech when it was on Mills Avenue.

The South wall we’re going to buy a new double pane glass 6 foot wide by 3 foot high sideways sliding window to allow for cross ventilation to the door. The sliding open sideways feature will enable better access to the kiwi planter so we can add soil amendments like worm castings.

Jason-Brian-Nell-push-the-boundary-endurance-Its-a-ROOF-biodiesael-tanks
I wanted to leave these pictures for the bottom of the newsletter to help protect our nature. So if you’re one of the fantastic people that read my newsletter to the end, this is for you. P.S. don’t tell any of your hunter friends please. Don’t mention them in Facebook comments either please.

Elk-Day-after-Christmas-2014

Elk-Day-after-Christmas-2014a

Elk-Day-after-Christmas-2014b

Elk-Day-after-Christmas-2014c
Well that is just about it then.

I took one pain killer before bed last night, so I hope I can make all the way through the day working without them. I’l bring one along just in case. I’ve got quite a bit of residual narcotics after effects in my head. I just hope the pain doesn’t start up again.

I felt one stone come out a few days ago, but I think the big one is still stuck in there somewhere. I’m going to buy some apple cider vinegar and lemons and try the holistic approach.

Thursday is New Years. I’m uncertain what my schedule is this week. If I’m able, I’ll work through Wednesday. Got to keep the cash flowing.

Happy new year folks

Brian Got Stones Rodgers

Pond_Sucker

Wow! Amazing Elk photos. Really hope you are feeling better soon. I've climbed cliffs out there and I've been inside some of those Anasazi dwellings I was looking a corn cob pressed masonry from 1500BC-1300AD inside privately owned land in Utah... its just part of his land. A lot of the dwellings on his land had not even been accessible, I felt like Indiana Jones climbing up to go inside for a look.

boss

BMN-Tusas-Tower-trek-December-31st-2014-thar-she-is-cococold
Good Morning

A little bit on the brisk end of the thermometer this morning.

I’m here to tell you it felt far colder than 18 degrees up there on top of the ridge.

I wore a pair of insulated pants from Jona, Rachel and Sara as a Christmas present. Thank you Deans. Those alone with one of the new sweatshirts you gave me and had I remembered the chemical hand warmers the Alarid family gave us, I might have been fine.

Holy crap my fingers got cold all of a sudden. They’re still aching. Stupid me.

Tusas-Tower-trek-December-31st-2014-up-another200-feet

Tusas-Tower-trek-December-31st-2014-looking-back-from-halfway

Tusas-Tower-trek-December-31st-2014-looking-accross-Crestone-from-halfway
My expensive LCD Volt meter gave one readout which I didn’t believe before blipping out presumably because of the cold.

The system was in a overload reset mode, without my meter I have to guess because of a lack of sun on the 25 year old photo-voltaic panels caused the batteries to go too low. I dusted off the panels and restarted the system. Bingo.

Another little irritation this morning was our water being frozen, still frozen even after leaving the door into the old trailer open all morning, sigh.

Something must be up with planetary alignments because it seems like more than a few things went bad yesterday.

I’ve been needing to hold the LAN cable on my Linux Netbook up in order for it to work. This is a pain in the ass because I need a LAN cable in the early stages of setting up the Wireless Internet for my work.

I thought maybe the solder came loose on the jack. First I tried cleaning the pins with a Q-tip. At one point in my electronics servicing career I was proficient at doing board level repairs on laptops.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that just because I used to be able to do stuff ten years ago doesn’t mean I have any business trying to do it now.

So, yeah I broke a little tiny connector in my laptop while trying to get to the circuit board with the LAN port jack. The really stupid part is the LAN port isn’t soldered to the main board. It has a little tiny cable. Doh.

So I borrowed Nell’s glasses and looked more carefully at the jack and the pins. Sure it looks a little worn. It ought to, I have owned the Netbook for five years, plugged and unplugged the LAN cable probably a thousand or maybe more times. It is tired.

I used a sandpaper style nail file to clean the contacts, something I would never had done as a professional. Indeed I used to tell VCR repair clients, I admire their desire to open their VCRs, but I couldn’t fix one very well on a kitchen table with a butter knife, either.

Double Doh.

I’ll never find the little connector to put my Netbook back together. That is probably part of my past now. Sigh.

With the new Desertgate WiFi technology I can almost do the entire WiFi installation with my phone, but not quite, I still need a LAN port most days.

Time for a new system. I’m hopeful I can do a tablet this time and simply use a USB to LAN dongle, when I need it.

I got some stuff to figure out that is for certain.

Who needs a New Years Resolution when we got this many fixes needed first thing in the new year?

Happy new year anywho

Brian Stuck in 2014 Rodgers

2014CRESTONENEW MEXICONEW YEARS EVETUSASTUSAS TOWER
Post navigation

Colum Black-Byron

I think I stuffed up my laptop as well

The power cable wasn't working, you needed to hold the end of the cable at a certain angle for it to charge. The car charger worked find, so I nipped the tip of the broken plug, and solidered the two cables together, red to red, black to black. Heat shrink it all so nothing contacted.

Plugged it in, and nothing happened. The charging light wouldn't come on, the laptop won't start. Stuffed if I knew what I did wrong. I pressed the button on the bottom that disconnects the battery (ultrabook, so no easy removed battery).

I've ordered a new cable, hopefully a proper one will make it work

I've also got to say, your server for the images is quite slow, at least in Australia. Took almost ten minutes to load the pictures, and I think some still haven't loaded. Photobucket might be a good idea

team41

Hi Brian,

Just for a contrast - in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) today the temp got to 45c or 113F.

Tomorrow's forecast is 42c.

Fish tank water was up to 30c - warm enough for a bath!

Hope the stones dissolve without causing anymore grief.

boss

haha Winter /Summer flip around guys, yuck it it up, you'll get yours. On the domain hosting: Yes I know and it distresses me to no end that I pay ~$10 per month to Godaddy. for that crap service. I should move it. But like most things in my life I've shuttered all attention to anything unrelated to my earth-sheltered greenhouse aquaponics project. I'm certain this sounds terribly familiar to all y'alls

Colum Black-Byron

Photobucket is free, you can use it to store all the images for your website, and hotlink them all to your page. Once you upload them, they'll give you the links, with all the code needed to upload them onto your blog/website/emails/here.

Then you can still use your domain for all the text stuff, but the images will be stored on the faster photobucket site for free (unless you go viral, and they'll charge extra).

Just an idea.

boss

it is a good idea. I've got to hammer and chisel change into my life it seems these days. Nothing is easy

Pond_Sucker

As a web designer that would drive me insane, if you go that route, at least keep a solid back up of EVERY image hosted offsite. But otherwise there is nothing wrong with doing it that way except maybe a bit more time? Maybe not that much difference, just don't lose your source images.

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics