One Room Down!

 Tomato's are coming along!

 Sharp Shards Of Scrap Silver, HURT...time to act like we are welding!

 Could'nt have finished this first room without the mighty strength of Ms. Kathleen

Time for Rum and Ginger Beer!

Rainy Day Metal with a Side of Pantera

 Yesterday I went down to Phoenix and picked up the galvanized metal for the interior of the grow houses and the exterior of the laboratory, 59 (20 foot by 3 foot) pieces in all should do it!  The next step is to finish off the drains that will be sent out to a drain line past the fields out back of the barn, equipped with a p-trap and grated off.  Then I'll seal the concrete floors of the grow rooms and put up the metal interior.

'There was a murder in the red barn, a murder in the red barn.'- Tom Waits

Got two sawtooth grow houses almost complete, just have to figure out what size door to frame the front with and then put the mid supports in around the structure

"As he sauntered to the ring" - Ballad of Lou The Welterweight

Louie the Welterweight in a stunning new Bow-Tie! Final two drains drilled and up go some more frames!

Cement, nail gun, frames up! OH MY!

 Dreaming of a bottomless beer after a long day!

Miss Kathleen in here crazy new shoes.

 Spent some long hours cutting out one of three concrete drains by hand, but it was nice to finally frame up three walls for the first grow house!

Day: (Som(a)e Day)

Been caught up in hydroponic strawberry land for the week since Mike had some intense surgery.  But i was back at it a few times this week grinding up some cement for three drains for the grow houses, constructing and framing the walls and this week the structures should be standing and ready for metal interior installation and insulation.

Kicking up some serious concrete dust with a super heavy gas powered saw.

Day 9

 Started Framing the exterior structure for the grow houses that will be insulated from the outside and covered with metal inside.

Weekend Side Note

Check out an art exhibit combining FLY AGARIC and REINDEER URINE: http://www.artlet-blog.com/?p=1253

Day 8

Finished cleaning out the bad-land of black widows and now its time to realize a structure, drainage and a scrapping and repainting of the concrete pool surface.

instead of demolishing the concrete pool structure, I'm going to use it as a foundation to frame the laboratory/incubation room.

Day 7

I don't like spider and probably never will, so it's been a nervous morning cleaning out this pool/green house originally build for hydroponic lettuce growing because it is home to many many Black Widows.  The one below was on a piece of PVC and still gives me the shivers, but she is dead now, her and a dozen others.  Soon this nice insulated structure will have walls and a roof and will be my laboratory and incubation area for developing stock cultures to work from.

Day 5-6

 I shut in all of the eve's of the roof at the grow barn and the birds still found a small sliver of light to use as their front door, so i'll fix that today and then the barn will be sealed.  Mike and I talked about the construction of the gothic structures for the grow houses to control moisture flow and rain drop fall and decided against it and to go with a sawtooth structure, that will do the same thing and maximize space for more growth.

 The sawtooth roof style has the advantage of a sloping roof that draws air from the ventilation system in a circular motion around the grow house and carries water droplets from the high humidity levels to a side drainage pit that shoots out the back of the houses.

This is a diagram of the Stamet's design for small to medium grow rooms and is the bases for our temperature control, but it will be modified for costs efficiency and for the size of the rooms they will be controlling the temp, humidity and air exchange in.  This system is the key to growing successfully, when the mycelium runs throughout the substrate it is growing on, it produces a LOT of CO2 and needs timed fresh air intake exchange that is controlled (run through a heating and cooling unit and a course and HEPA filter) to make sure their is fresh air and no stale pockets of CO2 rich air that can ultimately kill the mycelium by spreading disease and harmful bacteria preventing mushroom fruiting all together.

Ganoderma Lucidum or the "Reishi" mushroom has become of extreme interest to me.  It has been used for over 2000 years in parts of Asia as the 'mushroom of immortality' with it's unlimited number of medicinal uses, it prevents and cures a number of 'ailments' like, Neurasthenia, Debility from prolonged illness, insomnia, anorexia, dizziness, chronic hepatitis, hypercholesterolemia, mushroom poisoning, coronary heart disease, ulsers, hypertension, altitude sickness, carcinoma, bronchial cough in the elderly, inhibition of cholesterol synthesis, It promotes longevity, sex drive and many many other things among its ever growing list.

So in studying this mushroom, i could really like to grow it here, it is gaining popularity and is generally consumed by boiling for tea water, or cooked into soups and even grilled as a side dish.  Among this mushroom, i would love to grow Grifola Fondosa (Hen of the Woods/ Maitake) and Lentinula Edodes (Shiitake) to begin with.  These three mushrooms are all delicious and extremely Medicinal.  I'm still interested in the King Oyster and Pink Oyster, but only have three grow rooms so we will see what grows, what sells, and what we need to rotate to bring to the Markets.

Day 4

 Finally today was time to power wash all the birds and their nests out of the barn and clean up the mess they made.  Tomorrow ill be filling the eves of the roof with planks of wood to stop any birds from entering the barn. There is also a new Goat here at Chino Valley and Blacky the goat would rather snack on my shirt than hay!

Day 3

 Spent the day hauling large pallets up to the loft of the barn with the bobcat and winch and composted TONS of rotting red onions.  It's 8 pm i just finished for the day and the barn is almost clean; time to feed the cow, goats and pig and have a beer...or five!

Day 2

 Continued to clear out the grow barn of a million pallets of Onions from last season and boat loads of other stuff.  Then i bracketed a winch to the welded boom arm in the barn loft to hoist all the pallets up top to make way for building.  Hoping to finish the clear out tomorrow and make way for a heavy cleaning, patching and sealing of the eve's which are clogged with bird nests of all kinds.

Then its off to the laboratory/incubation area to clear out all the chaos!