Auxiliadora Obando

Auxiliadora, also known as Chilo, is one of our newer students in the Casa Esther girls home. She is from near where Sergio is from about 3 hours from our town of Jinotepe. She is in the adaptation process of our program and hopes to study a technical career related to business.

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Blackwell System

Blackwell System

Today I introduce the Blackwell System. The owner Alex Blackwell, is a good buddy of mine. His system is awesome. It can be reproduced all over because it uses universal parts. It is in his basement so he needs supplemental lighting. He is using an eight bulb, T5 fluorescent light. It has two settings to choose between flowering and vegetative stages. The grow beds are two heavy duty plastic totes bought at Walmart. The whole system is nested in a stainless steal utility shelf. The bottom  portion is filled with a 75 gallon aquarium. The whole system has a 2 x 4 footprint, so it is very space efficient. 

Lights on! The plants are loving their aquaponic home.

The system is growing peppers, green and purple basil, mixed greens, and two types of melons! The melons were just planted so they are only sprouts at this point, but the rest is going amazingly! We have harvested the mixed greens three times in the past 16 days! And the next harvest is not far away. 

Peppers started flowering not too long ago.

Delicious mixed greens. It grows about as fast as we can eat it!
Everyone here loves here "fish poop salad!"

The nutrient machines that power this awesome system are just as beautiful as the greens they produce. I never knew tilapia were such colorful fish until I saw these! They have doubled their length and more than tripled their weight (all estimates at the moment) in  the two months or so Alex has had them. They are super lively and have personalities I did not expect.

Cool colors that I did not expect from tilapia.
Leave it to aquaponics to teach me even more!

This system is a perfect example for someone who wants to set up an aquaponics anywhere in their home or business. It has easy to find materials and simple mechanics. The Blackwell System has lots of cool odds and ends that work awesomely. I will highlight these in upcoming posts.

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Marching To Our Own Beet

Lately Ive been thinking about all the work we put into this place, how hard it is, and how much fun we have.  The word that expresses it all is GRATITUDE.  I was once told that gratitude necessitates blessing.  This is a wise truth that I remind myself daily.  Spending so much time working at home, it often feels like we are in our own world.  As our neighbor said to us yesterday with a smile, "You know you guys are living in the 19th century."  (I was thinking it may not be too long until we are all living like we are in the 19th century.)  Well, we are definitely doing our own thing and loving it.  Yasir just harvested some beets from one of his first double dug beds.  They sure are massively bigger than the ones I planted in the kitchen garden last year.  And sweet as can be.  More kudos for double digging.  

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Commercial Backyard Aquaponic System Wolf Pack Aquaponics

Wolf Pack Aquaponics

When people get into aquaponics, they usually get the idea of setting up a big system in their backyard. While there are plenty of factors that halt their idea, cold climates, lack of funds, a nagging wife/ girlfriend who does not want an ugly system in their yard, etc. But nothing stopped the Wolf Pack Aquaponic crew from setting up their backyard system. 

The tour started off with the water collection system that can collect over 300 gallons every time it rains one inch! The tour continued to the back side where there was eight or so 300 gal IBCs with half 275 gal grow beds on top. There is currently only a lonely blue gill swimming around, but once summer comes again they will be filled with home grown tilapia. Each grow bed fills and drains via an auto-siphon into the fish tanks below. Each IBC is connected with each other with a four inch PVC pipe so the fish can swim from one container to another. 

Inside the Wolf Pack Aquaponic greenhouse.

Inside the greenhouse there are IBCs on each side, but you barley notice them as IBCs. They are tastefully covered and look great! There are lots of plants growing but most have been harvested for the winter. One cool thing is the whole system is run off of one hot tub heater. This includes all the IBCs outside too! The pump doubles as a heater too, keeping the water temp suitable for tilapia. The pump does have a draw back, the cost of running it. It costs about $2-$3 a day just to run the heater pump. Although it does not sound that high, consider the pump is running 24/7, 365 days a year. That is $730 to $1,095 a year just to run the heater pump. Plus you need to factor in the cost to run the air compressor that provided air to each and every fish tank and DWC grow bed. 

These are the floating raft beds (DWC).
This is where they start seedlings for transplant.

The fish tanks that lead to the floating rafts are filtered with a swirl filter. A swirl filter skims clean water off the top of the container while the heavy solids "swirl" to the bottom, also called a vortex filter. All of the solid fish waste that is collected is used as fertilizer for the "traditonal" garden outside. The plants love it! There were more tomatoes then they could eat, and pole bean galore! 

While the system is just feeding the Wolf Pack family for right now, they have plans to expand and have different offers that they are entertaining. There is lots and lots of work that went into making this system as well. The knowledge is being kept and collected to share with the public in the future. A "this works and this doesnt" manuel for aquaponics. 

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Adnas Lab crowdfunding for our very first project

Hello everyone,

it took me a while to post these last weeks, but Im going through my last month of practical work in the lab and the load is ever so big. I promise a lot of action these coming weeks, but today I have a treat for all of those who like science and entertainment mixed together. Remember when back in March I told you about my start-up? If you dont, freshen up your memory accessing here. For those who want to have a summary of what our first product is about please keep reading.

In August 2014, me and my wife created SciBoard Games, a Nottingham family-run business operating in the Serious Games Industry. We want to create and develop science games/applications for educational purposes, but maintaining a strong entertainment factor. As a family company we wish to promote a group-sharing ethos as we simultaneously offer and invest in collective education, communion and togetherness. Our mission is to encourage a growing understanding of science by the general public supported by entertaining pedagogical tools. 

Thus, we developed our very first board game named "Adnas Lab". The main goal in our board game is to build up a 25 bases chain from 5 to 3 to win the race. Players enhance their own DNA chain, but can also destroy the opponents DNA chain making use of different single cards or combinations of cards. 

This game counteracts the traditional tendency of board games to use luck as a propelling agent. With Adnas Lab the gained knowledge as one plays is the pacing agent. 

We wish to produce four prototypes to show schools and students the potentialities of this game. The response from those who tested the game was very positive and we want to keep improving its capacity and qualities. In that sense we need your help so we can move forward with this project. We promise your name wont be forgotten when we make this dream a reality and we will tell the world in our facebook page that YOU CARED!

To help us access here!!!

Any partnership that can help us make this dream come true is more than welcome. Just email us on sciboardgames@gmail.com or visit our Facebook page or Twitter page.

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Alma Bonilla

Alma is another one of our Nursing students. She was able to get into the local nursing school as a technician and is in her first year of school, with two more to go. Her long term plans are to become a licensed Nurse which is a 5 year course of study.  Alma is 18 years old and is from a rural community about 4 hours away by bus in the State of Leon.

She is a very happy young lady who loves her career and shows appreciation constantly. Her classes are all day long and when school is on break, she volunteers at the local health clinic or hospital a the direction of her school.

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Our Temporary Replacements are Here!

Mark and Tianna Owens from the Boise Vineyard arrived a week ago to help Julie and I out as we head back to Vancouver, Washington to welcome a new grand child into the world. The Owens are from Boise, Idaho and are part of the Boise Vineyard church. We came to know them through Boise Vineyards I-61 program which has a missions center in Managua, Nicaragua. Nica Impact is a partner NGO with I-61 as we are one of their training stops for the teams that come for training. (See I-61.org for more information on that ministry)

Mark and Tianna were looking for a short term mission opportunity that was a stretch for them yet didnt require that they sell all their worldly possessions to go serve in a foreign country for eternity. We are glad to have them as their presence will help provide some stability to Nica Impact while we are away. Their main responsibility is to manage the money flow and to help us set up a weekly Skype conference call with our Nica staff. Once that is done each week, they will have to implement beach ministry protocol at our Tupilapa beach house. This is an important component of a newcomers training, to enjoy time watching the ocean, reading books, and spending time in prayer and meditation while enjoying Gods creation. A daily walk on the beach completes the therapy.

Please pray for the Owens time in Nicaragua and for Julie and I as we travel back to our hometown.

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Year Two Putting Our Roots Down

"Gratitude necessitates blessing."

July 1st marks the second anniversary of Soul Flower Farm.  For two years now we have been stewards of this small piece of land on a hilly slope, nestled in the east bay area.  How our lives have changed as we have settled in and grown a deeper relationship to the soil, our animals, and each other, is difficult to describe in words.  

In the last year, while our days have been filled with the tasks of starting seeds, caring for chickens and goats, and tending the garden, we have also been watching with awe, our boys grow into men.  And when we look back at this second year here we can remember some extraordinary experiences; learning to build with cob, discovering a wonderful community, catching slippery kids as they dove their way -nose first- into the world, bringing home our first jersey cow and then breeding her.  There have still been countless cups of tea, back breaking work, blood, sweat, tears, swarms, and so much laughter.

With the invaluable experience of neighbors, trial and error, a fearless curiosity, and of course a bit of risk taking, our knowledge is increasing, as is our confidence.  Having the opportunity to tap into the rhythms of nature in our daily lives will never be a blessing we take for granted.  

getting dirty at sustainable building workshop

finished cob oven and bench

fresh goats milk cheese

aerial view after community work party April 2012

2011 kitchen overflowing with harvest

natural beekeeping

first born set of kids

Oberhasli/Sable Saanen cross

feral chickens we adopted

We pray our adventures will continue.  And what is in the plan for year three?...aquaponics, a super adobe in-law unit,  more classes, community outreach, perhaps a CSA box, fresh raw cows milk that can only come with a little calf, and a family vacation!


Top Photo by 
Lori Eanes

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Raising Baby Tilapia Aquaponicly

Tilapia Fry

The Blackwell System recently had babies (fry)! There have been a few mothers holding eggs, but we never stripped them in time. This time was different, we were ready! 

We were trying an experiment with two mothers at the same time. Alex bought a small terrarium with a screen lid which was submersed into the large aquarium to make a small holding tank. With the two mothers holding eggs, we corralled one of the mothers into the holding tank. Our reasoning; the mother would spit the babies out and then we would release the mother back into the tank and keep the babies in the holding tank. The second mother fish would act as a control, to see how the babies survive (or dont) being spit into the tank directly. 

Things did not go as planned. On the third day, we went to check on the mother in the holding tank first thing in the morning. The mother was in there (where else would she go?), but she was definitely was not holding eggs any more and there was none in the tank. She ate them.

The control mother was still holding her eggs though. We had watched a movie on YouTube about stripping mother tilapia of their eggs the day before, and have decided to try and strip the control mother as we were tired of loosing babies. 

So we set up a bucket we could strip the mother in (that sound dirty!) and caught her in the net. While we where trying to get a good grip on her, she started spitting the eggs out! So we quickly got her in place and got all the eggs out. There were close to forty eggs and newly hatched eggs swimming and sitting in the bowl! It worked! 

We got a turkey baster and transported the eggs and newborns into a plastic vial. We strapped a fiberglass window screen on top so they cannot swim out and placed that under the grow bed drain. And there it hangs!

Water returning from the grow beds flows into the tube and replaces the water.
There are about 30 tilapia fry in the tube.

The fry are growing every day. After the eggs yolk sacks were gone, we have fed them crushed fish food. A good way to tell if fish are healthy is the food test. Fish that eat and have no physical symptoms are usually doing alright.

After they start to crowd this tube, which should not take long, the plan is to move them to the holding tank originally designed to house the holding mothers. The holding tank used to be resting on the bottom of the aquarium but too much fish poop was falling in it. It is now hanging kinda like the hatching tube but is semi-submersed.

Holding tank originally used to house tilapia mothers holding eggs.
When the fry are big enough they will be transferred to this tank.

Being able to strip the mother and raise our own babies has allowed us to close the loop in our system that can now be perpetual and not reliant on buying new tilapia after these ones... Well after these current fish make a tasty meal!

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Our first twins

We had our first twins born, such an exciting day. The perfect twins, one boy for dinner and one girl to replace mum.

They were great at birth, sitting up, walking around not long after. Following mum.

Day 2, not looking as great, wondering if we should catch them and take them off mum. But they are still running after her so would have been hard to catch. We make the decision to wait till the next day and see what is happening.

Day 3, I got to check on the and find the poor mum standing by her dead lambs. Poor little things, poor mummy sheep. It was just heart breaking and I felt terrible for not taking them. But if they didnt need it I dont want to go snatching of the mum.

I am thinking maybe there is something amiss with the genetics of our flock. So we are buying some new ewes and hoping things start working out better for us. Will update with pictures when we get them on the weekend.

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Our students as of June 2012

Since acquiring the property we call El Trillo, we have since been able to construct a Rancho, or covered meeting area that has no walls. Our rancho can fit about 35 people comfortable for meetings with our students and also we loan it to the local church where our student receive discipleship training and have home group. We have had numerous get togethers with our students. In the spring we got together for a dinner and some training.  The pictures of our boys from the Casa Juan Marcos, and our girls from the Casa Esther are shown here.  

Almost all of our students come from poor to extremely poor homes. Most are also from deep into the countryside where transportation limits their ability to get to a University or Vocational school. For this reason we have homes located in Jinotepe, where both Universities and Vocational schools are readily available.

In this group we have student engineers in many disciplines (Agricultural, Industrial, Mechanical, Computer Science) and we have 4 in Medicine (both nursing and PhD.) We have Business administration and Accounting. We also have a handful of auto-mechanics.

Our program is not easy to participate in. These young people are required to set high goals, be productive and give voluntarily to others.

We believe that in the rural areas, as well as the cities, there are many young leaders who are overlooked because of a lack of opportunities. Our program mines these exceptional kids and offers an opportunity not only to achieve a career, but to be a standout in life. In a country that overlooks these kinds of young people, and excellence in general, we believe our students have the potential to stand above the crowd. They are the future of Nicaragua.

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Alpaca Cria

Our first alpaca cria, born 08:00 April 25 2013

This little girl is still a little wet as she is less than 2 hours old in this picture

Big sister having a look

Mum having a good look, must be an interesting little one!

Sure is dry out here

drinking some milk

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Should we attack our dark angel H pylori The concomitant role of H pylori in Sjogrens syndrome

Writing my thesis hasnt been easy when there is so much to do. At home a 2-year old that is a hurricane, running my tiny science serious games business is also mandatory, fulfilling my role as the Midlands Ambassador for PARSUK whilst trying to find a job with the scarce seconds I have left to relax, complicates everything even further. 

This very busy agenda has made me aware of how difficult it is to update the blog, and if I do it its because of my passion for science communication. I could not leave unfinished my Sjogrens syndrome posts on unveiling the concomitant role of Helicobacter pylori in triggering this autoimmune disease. Especially when yet another friend of mine, a woman this time, came to me saying that she has been recently diagnosed with Sjogrens and she actually had a pylori infection prior to the actual diagnosis.

***

Literature says that a genetically susceptible individual can develop an autoimmune disease such as Sjogrens when the environment conspires to bend and break him. H. pylori being the fierce survivalist we all know remains untouched and no agents can actually get us rid of the bacteria that easy. Tell me about antibiotics, this bug is pretty hardcore hiding and masking its presence. You can very well undergo three courses of broad spectrum antibiotics, most of the times you are just flushing out your commensals and endangering your immune system. And by all means please do not think that because you have an autoimmune disease you have a reinforced immune system working over hours. All you have is a disturbed immune system so rage-drunk a dog it cannot recognise the master hence going bite-happy.

H. pylori is the mail man that really drives our immune systems dog crazy. Hasni et al (2012) talks about findings linking pylori with a deficiency of platelets in the blood [1]. But the most intriguing thing is how does pylori work in repressing our system and surviving such complex and adaptive defenses for longer than 58 000 years ago in human ancestors? Something somehow symbiotic has got to be at stake here, as suggested in [1].

Symbiotic or Amphibiotic?

Could the answer be that whenever we try and treat pylori we switch on a bacterial defense protocol that eventually will lead to unbalanced autoimmune responses? Hasni et al (2012) states that epidemiological data suggest an increase in asthma and autoimmune diseases in populations wherein H. pylori infection is aggressively treated and being eradicated [1].

Point 1: We get to a point where trying to eradicate a bacteria that has been with us for so long and known to cause harm might trigger an immune system imbalance.

Point 2: However, eradication of pylori is not associated to an increase of indigestion in patients with Sjogrens syndrome.

Point 3: Some studies suggest that H. pylori has a protective role in our human biology.

Could it be that we are facing an axiom indicating that H. pylori is likely to be an agent that has a low profile role in our human biology through an amphibiotic relationship (symbiotic or parasitic depending on the context of gastric equilibrium) with us humans?

[2] talks about H. pylori slowly and progressively disappearing from humans gastric mucosal tissue in the industrialised populations, and with it so are gastric cancer rates falling. What is this dark angel responsible for? Can pylori actually protect us? I dont really think so!

My personal opinion is that as expected H. pylori is terrible for us. But because we are still incapable of getting rid of it that easy it is better to maintain it dormant (reducing stress, changing our diets, etc) and then when really necessary apply a strong, specific and effective pylori treatment. That is in my opinion better than to try and err time and time again with Amoxicillin and Metronidazole that flush away the good guys too. The moment the bacterium recognises it is under attack it will start a process of masking and counterattacking that might as well be responsible for the immune system self/nol-self conflict that characterises Sjogrens syndrome.

Lets explore that in the coming article to be posted as early as January 2016.

[1] Hasni, S. A. (2012. "Role of Helicobacter pylori infection in autoimmune diseases". Curr Opin Rheumatol, 24(4), pp. 429-434.

[2] Blaser, M. J. (???). "Pathogenicity and symbiosis: human gastric colonization by Helicobacter pylori as model system of amphibiosis". nDepartment of medicine and microbiology, NYU School of Mecicine, New York, NY.

Image taken from [2]

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Erling Jose Perez

At 19 years of age, Erling came to us a few months ago with hopes of studying medicine. His goal is to be a Doctor of Surgery. He still needs to take the entrance exam and pass with very high scores if he is to continue in our program. Presently he is volunteering a lot of time at the old folks home during the morning hours and studying for the exam in the afternoons. Erling is also very involved in the youth movement at church. He is a solid kid who comes from a very poor home south of Rivas about 2 and a half hours away.

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Our Family Cow

Meet Ginger, our lovely new Jersey girl.  She has been with us for a little over a week and it is safe to say we are all quite taken with her.  Ginger is a yearling heifer (Im learning all the cow lingo) and a dream come true for me.  She is pregnant and due in October.  Although sweet and gentle she is not yet halter broken, which means we have some work to do with her to get her tame enough to walk with us where we want her to go.  But so far she is making fast progress.  I remember back in my vegan days saying to someone that I would never drink cows milk unless I had my own cow.  Well, here we are.  Somehow, all of a sudden, our little farm feels complete.   

In all the excitement, I am trying not to be naive about how much work she may be.  We are phasing out our rabbit operation, selling some of the goats (after kidding of course), and generally trying to get things in tip top shape around here.  The main concern has been pasture management, getting rid of the poison hemlock, cutting down some foxtails, making plans to sow some good nutritious cover crops for her.  But for now, each day we are busy trying to get her used to us and with all the hustle, she seems to be settling in just fine.

Reaching out to some knowledgeable friends has been helpful in getting down the basics like, how much alfalfa to supplement with, what are the important vaccinations, which trimester to add grain to her diet, etc. 

Besides the fact that Im dreaming of milk (butter and cheese too!), it is so fascinating to get acquainted with her, learn her personality and establish what I hope will be a very long friendship (dare I say love affair?).  And did I mention she really loves oranges? 

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