Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ooo, pretty clouds. Happy New Year!

Happy new year to you and yours as well Mel!
How are you doing these days?
I've been doing physical therapy (with massages!) I'm also working out for an hour each morning. I'm starting to see and feel the difference in my condition. I had a small setback with a inflammation flare in my left foot, but it isn't getting me down this time, I'm determined to get it together and head toward happy and healthy for 2018.
I did 12 tiles yesterday with no ill effects this morning, yahoo!

Our greenhouse is still going strong although we still have not had a below zero temperature.
We let the guineas in for a few days and they ate most of the plants in the DWC, which somehow doesn't bother me. They are still really cute kooky birds. They of course love it in the greenhouse when it is cold outside.
I've got a lot of drafts to fix in our house and as soon as retirement money comes in tomorrow, we'll buy more door seals and outlet seals. For now we have a blanket rolled up under the front door. This happens every year about this time, hehe.

Morning Brian,
good to hear that you folks are doing well.
Tiles look great.
This is a nasty winter for us, it is soooooooooooo dry, 1.2 mm moisture in December, everyday in the 50F, nights are cool, upper teens. We have no burn and at least once a week red flag.
No Monsoom last year.
I have to water the plants in my outdoor garden, once a week, in January!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have to haul the water for it, 1200 gallons a week just for the plants.
Completely nuts.

Dang! No monsoon and now no snow, blows.
If they were not making snow on Taos Mountain I don't believe they might not be open, which is really bad for them.

I felt well enough this morning to run another 12 8x24" tiles. I am enthused about working again.

Now I am doing a filter clean out on the MBBR & RFF the Guinea Fowl decided to take advantage of the open door.


This channel helps keep cold air off the grow beds in a typical earth-sheltered greenhouse. Generally speaking cold air drops to the lowest point.

better watch it that guinea is looking at your tomatoes!

I love their single-eye view of the world.
I guess they don't care much for tomatoes, but boy-howdy they love cabbage and straw berries

Oh hallelujah, I did a day in the forest working collecting Pinion and cedar firewood while cleaning up another section of thick forest. Amazingly I do not hurt even with the big blocks of wood Jason and I loaded and unloaded from the truck.

This is the third time in forty years we've worked this area. There are hobo camps along this ancient trail where travelers could be safer from Indians than traveling through the nearby Great Plains. Our location is known as the place where the foothills of the Rockies meets the Great Plains.





Of course these are not Hobo Camps in the sense that the trains tracks are out in the Plains. These were hidden tracks and used for moving goods from the north down to the rails in Las Vegas and the Santa Fe trail where it goes through town.
I can't begin to describe how good it feels to be back in the forest working and enjoying the the warm weather. Also it is seriously dry as we haven't had snow in at least a month, which I took advantage of by going for Pinion wood hoping it is going to be dry enough already to burn after we split it and get more air on the wood. Generally speaking Pinon has so much sap it burns whether it been cured or not.
Having been down for the count all Fall I wasn't able to get the quantity of fire wood we'll need to make it through Winter, so this feels like a life saver on top of getting back in shape and being able to move around without pain.
Happy days

Wish I could say the same about it being warm with no snow, and not hurting from my working... We are supposed to warm up today but looking like it won't hit 30 until 11 pm, most of this week will be highs in the 40s though so do have some warmer weather coming. Supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow today.. just what we need before it warms up and turns to mud again.

My knees are killing me from doing this flooring yesterday and today even though it's padded flooring I'm sitting on. I just put the last bit down, debating about finding some construction adhesive to glue some of it down that is popping up. I pulled the last of the floor trim up in this room to finish the floor, and as I'm cleaning up I heard what I thought was a mouse in the wall so I went upstairs to get glue traps I just bought the other day, come back down to set them along the wall just in time to see a bat scurry back under the drywall. So I pinned it down with the cardboard glue traps and luckily had a mudding trowel within reach so I killed it before it got back I'm the wall. Damn things, I don't mind if they want to stay outside but this is the fourth one I've had in the house in three years that I lived here. The first two I let outside but the last two I said enough is enough you come in my house you are gonna die. So now I have to wonder where they are getting in and how many more are there.

My son is down from Taos for a few days. I did not do much yesterday except fix a fence to keep our cows out of the Ex's yard. I'm out of practice with pretty much everything I used to do, so it took a lot of fence wire to repair a small section of fence.
I'll need to put my welders gear on and build a new stanchion between the cattle guard and gate because I broke the post while trying to fix it back when I was still in poor physical condition. I had the weight to bend the T-post, but when it broke I nearly went ass over tea kettle because my muscles were still weak.

That was a month or so ago. Now I feel well rounded in strength and able to walk normally without swerving and losing balance.

The tile clips I ordered didn't come in on Friday like Amazon said, which I believe was because of that tangled mess the gate and cattle guard had become.

Rob, so sorry about your knees. It sounds like you knew they were going to cause you grief doing flooring. I hope you got it finished over the weekend.

I messaged @Old Prospector as I hadn't heard from him in a long while. He said some how his user name got messed up and thus he can't post, although he still gets private messages. I hope that gets resolved. I miss hearing from him.

We're going to go back in the forest again today for more wood while the weather is dry.

Hi Brian, I hope you and Nell are doing well. Things are a bit quiet over there. Hopefully you're enjoying time with your son and life is good!

Howdy StJohn
Yes we're doing great. We even got an inch of snow as a little teaser. Silly Guineas Fowl slept in a tree last night. I couldn't get all of them in their house. This happened when one doesn't want to go in. They are okay, although I wish they's learn one lesson, but generally they are recalcitrant creatures. I let them into the greenhouse for a couple hours this morning. They continued to argue because the Cocks where on the roof over-seeing the situation, I suppose. Now they are all in their house with unfrozen water and a heat lamp.
Both Nell and I are going one day a week to physical therapy which is helping a lot. I workout here at home for about two hours in the morning. You may know how much I enjoyed pushing the hours of physical labor I did around the ranch and house. I'm pretty happy about the effort I put into exercises, but again I'm pushing my boundaries.
I may be more flexible than I was tow years ago when the inflammatory arthritis began.
I feel so much better too. My head is clearing up to.
Exercise has definitely cut my social media time down to nearly nothing.
I'm so glad to hear from you David, thank you.

I'm glad you are doing well too. Silence is often cause for concern so I was hoping all was well. I went skiing for 3 days this past weekend and I'm feeling the effects of age and a sedentary lifestyle. I ride my bike to work a couple of times a week, but I need to increase the frequency and duration. Today I rode 9 miles to work, so hopefully I can keep that up 3 times a week.

I live 22 miles from work so I drive to a good parking spot and ride the remainder. I have it easy when I need to charge my electric car as there is free charging 3 miles from work, so that's a short ride. Maybe I can do that the other two days a week. Otherwise I hope to build up to riding the whole way, but there are a few BIG hills so it takes a long time to make the trip.

Thank you David. That is a good and ambitious plan with the bicycle.
Speaking of silence... I was in the parking lot of the pharmacy waiting for Nell to get some stuff refilled and using my phone on social media the other day. I had the phone in my lap and looking down. After ten or fifteen minutes a guy knocked on my window asking if I was okay? I must have looked dead It was really nice of him to check.
Good start to 2018.
Brian

Good morning.
Our Koi pond needs a little work, but I didn't get a chance to fix a broken pipe. Luckily it broke near the top of the water line so it only leaked a few inches of water out. I have the parts I need to fix it, but had to instead insulate the spa pond on the downhill side where the pipes are exposed. I used bales of rotten hay from the dysfunctional hay compost pile.
It is cold in the Koi pond, but when I clear the SLO. I can see the Koi move out of the way. The FT temperature is just above freezing.
The Charter School AP project didn't get approved by the local university, although LANL aproved the project. Typical BS from the university, while their charter says their priority is community outreach they would rather do this in their property. Well that's what I was told. It's some kind of bureaucracy issue. I will move forward with getting donations and hopefully begin work in the Spring.
Here is my artist's view

I wish I had experience with Autocad or something. Oh well. Once I get more technical details clearer I will use this for a presentation to Kiwanis on the 30th.
I am feeling better with daily exercise.
This is what I'm now dealing with after being on my back for three months. Well my spine has likely been like this for much longer.

As you can imagine my lower back aches pretty good, although not enough to need pain killers, so that's good. I just need to be careful what I do when working and exercising.

Speaking of careful, working in a small space such as our new powder room didn't feel real good, oh well what can I do? I got a lot of work to catch up on around the house.



Nothing says I'm back like an image of me in the house again with a chainsaw!

looking good.