ERE Adventuring

[Alphaville]

thanks. btw i didnt mean the vit d and fish oil negate winter depression--winter is winter and the drive to hibernate is strong. the combo just reduces some of the downside for me, is all.

i mean i still get the winter blues, but just not as awful as without the supplements. apparently icelandic people are immune to winter depression. clearly im not one of them. in any case the solstice is behind us and the days are now slowly growing in this hemisphere. fingers crossed.

re:psychotherapy, might be worth continuing the experimentation until something works. not all therapies or therapists are created equal. eg. these days dbt is "curing" things that cbt previously couldn't. and psychoanalysis can be fun but... pretty useless

[NuncFluens]

thanks. btw i didnt mean the vit d and fish oil negate winter depression--winter is winter and the drive to hibernate is strong. the combo just reduces some of the downside for me, is all.

i mean i still get the winter blues, but just not as awful as without the supplements. apparently icelandic people are immune to winter depression. clearly im not one of them. in any case the solstice is behind us and the days are now slowly growing in this hemisphere. fingers crossed.

I'm clearly not icelandic then either, but it helps me to shift gears mentally. Winter is for different things than summer (e.g. more reading, less hiking). Once I adjust to that I'm mostly fine.

re:psychotherapy, might be worth continuing the experimentation until something works. not all therapies or therapists are created equal. eg. these days dbt is "curing" things that cbt previously couldn't. and psychoanalysis can be fun but... pretty useless

When I did therapy for non-depression-issues I approached it as free life-coaching and it was fun for a while. It did get to a point where there was nothing left to say, however. So I definitely get my fiance's reasoning of it not being worth the time she would need to put in when she's possibly at her worst and spread thin already. Especially after 3 times of it "failing".

I also think there's maybe only so much a therapist can point out and then you'll have to do the work on your own. The therapy frameworks we've both experienced were all limited to basically talking for an hour, though, and then you'd be left to your own devices again. So our current focus is more on skill-building, but intuitively, self-paced and without a therapist. But as far as I can see we're already implementing a lot of what CBT, DBT and ACT are trying to teach.

[Alphaville]

skill building is the way to go, although a therapist will be helpful in case there is a need to unpack traumas, fantasy bonds, recalcitrant delusions, toxic shames, etc. there is a danger when remembering or realizing things where one needs the help of well-trained hands or a support structure like aa. defense mechanisms exist for a reason.

for "normal" people however there is probably no need other than coaching yeah. me personally im not normal so im grateful for many years of therapy. some of it truly sucked, but eventually i was "fixed". well not so much "corrected" as taught to embrace my eccentricity rather than be at war with myself. it was quite an exorcism

[ertyu]

NF, I was having the thought the other day that the type of therapy that works best for you is very dependent on your personality type. The S, engineering types are more likely to do well with CBT, whereas I, an emo INFP navelgazer, do best with stuff like focusing: feel around the murky endges of the feeling, explore for your inner truth, etcetera. Someone CBT-ing me feels like they're trying to erase and invalidate the fact that i have an inner self and an inner reality. To the CBT people, what works for me feels like a waste of time. Etcetera.

[NuncFluens]

skill building is the way to go, although a therapist will be helpful in case there is a need to unpack traumas, fantasy bonds, recalcitrant delusions, toxic shames, etc. there is a danger when remembering or realizing things where one needs the help of well-trained hands or a support structure like aa. defense mechanisms exist for a reason.

Ok, that part I get and I'm sure it wasn't all useless, especially in the beginning when there was stuff to work out. To liken it to fitness, that is like surgery + rehab in case of a serious problem, which definitely needs to be done.

I think what's really missing for long-term success, at least as far as my therapy a few years ago goes, was the "getting help to help yourself" mindest. Whenever I would go there with a problem we maybe managed to solve it. But the tool/skill for solving that particular problem was never explained or even given a name, so I couldn't transfer it to other issues. In hindsight it felt more like getting my car fixed, instead of learning how to fix it myself later on, if that makes sense.

for "normal" people however there is probably no need other than coaching yeah. me personally im not normal so im grateful for many years of therapy. some of it truly sucked, but eventually i was "fixed". well not so much "corrected" as taught to embrace my eccentricity rather than be at war with myself. it was quite an exorcism

I seem to recall you going into your struggles a bit (in the Jordan Peterson thread?) and back then I thought "wow, I wouldn't have the tenacity to go through that whole ordeal". But I guess if it hurts too much, you do what you have to. The fiance and I are just at a point where it doesn't hurt so much anymore. Anyway, I'm glad you're doing better

[NuncFluens]

NF, I was having the thought the other day that the type of therapy that works best for you is very dependent on your personality type. The S, engineering types are more likely to do well with CBT, whereas I, an emo INFP navelgazer, do best with stuff like focusing: feel around the murky endges of the feeling, explore for your inner truth, etcetera. Someone CBT-ing me feels like they're trying to erase and invalidate the fact that i have an inner self and an inner reality. To the CBT people, what works for me feels like a waste of time. Etcetera.

I tested as ISTJ, which might explain my preference of algorithmic/toolbox approaches. If I would have just been given a list of concepts and some recommended reading, I would probably have worked out a problem fixing algorithm complete with flowcharts and everything. Although I have learned that the "inner truth" part is just as important over the last few years (especially during my research on ACT). So maybe I would have run into problems with my flowchart anyway.

I think what I'm disappointed about is that every highly paid professional therapist I've come in contact with or heard about, didn't have the flexibility to deviate from their own view of how to fix people. They might have been super helpful to the right person (where the "fit" was just there), but it didn't do a whole lot for my fiance or me.

[ertyu]

Oh, I definitely empathize with the part where after trying therapy a couple of times and it doing nothing for you you'd not want to do it again. Definitely the case with me. I didn't mean to invalidate this part, just to share that I only now sort of put together how there might be a link between one's MBTI type and the type of therapy one is most suited to. I have read many manuals and books on various types of therapy and I'd never encountered it before. Tbh I don't think it's part of your typical therapist's training at all. Nobody has asked or tested for this information when I went to them and it strikes me that they should have. You are correct: therapists tend to specialize in one approach, usually the one they personally find most relatable and helpful, and acquire progressive training in it. Makes sense on a level: I'd be most motivated to pursue an approach which I see as efficacious even if Evil Insurance Companies say that you only get 10 sessions of CBT for diagnosis A before financial condition B hits. Each therapist is thus a hammer, and all your problems become nails. The lack of flexibility you speak of is thus systemic. It makes sense that a double coincidence of client needs/therapist abilities would occur only rarely.

On another note, I wouldn't call the "inner truth" part a flowchart problem. You can simply expand or modify your flowchart, if flowcharts are what sparks joy

[NuncFluens]

I think MBTI has been "debunked" enough that it's not part of a therapist's curriculum anymore. I was skeptical about the system after reading about it at first too, but have since come around. It might not be holding up to rigorous scientific standards (says wikipedia), but it's a useful tool for me personally and I think it could at least inform the course of action for long-term therapy. Alas, it's mostly seen as pop-sci/cooky as far as I can tell.

With the flowcharts (and they do spark joy!), I've found that I become inflexible pretty quickly. That might have broken my neck in the past, but I'm moving to more of a "living" flowchart style of problem solving now. Once again I probably dismissed the inner truth part for too long because it's not cool in the more sciency parts that I frequent. But it's definitely become a big part of how I do nowadays.

[NuncFluens]

Oh man... I had this beautifully detailed writeup going a few days ago, but then my notebook crashed and took it all away. So I'll just do a shortened version of my december review and new years resolutions for now:

Finances:
I managed a 71% SR last month, with a total spending of 627€. Apparently I only went over my budget because I left so little in there at the start of the month, so it was good all along. Once I get my refund for a big item I returned, I'll put that back into savings and I'm golden again.

Since I moved the money around on the 1st, this will be put in next year's spreadsheet. Nevertheless I managed to reach my goal of having 45k€ invested* by the end of 2020, so that's great!

*As net worth is fluctuating daily, I decided to measure only the money I put into my investments (no appreciation), since I can control that fully. NW is ~53k€ at the moment.

Next year's goal was set to be 60k€ of my own money put in, at a lower 52% SR due to my impending pay-raise. I think I can push this up to 65k€ at a 65% SR as a stretch goal, though If I can keep this going consistently, it would reduce my time to CoastFI from 8 to 6.5 years, which is hugely motivating.

Mycology
Wild mushrooms hunting is on hold for now, as winter really isn't the best time for this, it seems. I'll make sure to bring my mushroom basket along on hikes, but I won't go on dedicated mushroom hunting trips until spring. Although... maybe I should visit "my" oyster mushroom tree one last time to see how it's doing.

As for home-growing, the grow-kit batches have basically stopped developing. They need both fresh air and humidity and whenever I provide the one of the two, the other becomes uncontrollable. I'm pretty sure things will go south, but I've learned enough to build a dedicated fruiting chamber to control all variables for the next try. This would all be so much easier if the shops were open, but I think I'll get around to it by the end of january.

At least my liquid culture from the enoki spores is growing something. As it's mostly white and fluffy, I'm quite sure that it's not contamination. Things should become clearer next week, but for now I'm excited.

Fitness
As january will be a no-drinking-month, I decided to work on my nutrition and fitness, as not drinking makes it so much easier. The goals would be to lose a bit of weight, increase my daily activity while keeping up the long hikes, and rehabilitating my elbows so I can start with calisthenics. Since I've done this a few times in the past I'm reasonably sure it's doable. I even did a writeup/instruction manual after the last time, so I have all the key points laid out for me (thanks past me).

[NuncFluens]

The big review of 2020
I always like to take a look back on what happened the past year every january. Normally I do this as part of a structured goal-setting workshop, but since journalling has been such a great experience and huge help over the last 6~7 months, I thought I'd do it here. This will mostly be for me to come back to next year, so it's a lot of repeating what I wrote before. An extended summary of the last 14 pages, if you will.

Relationship
My now-fiance left me mid-2019, and for good reason. We started our relationship at 17 years old and as things developed, we ingrained a few dysfunctional habits that needed to be worked out. At the beginning of the year, we were pretty much together again, although not officially. The working out of all our problems was still going on, but I was quite optimistic at that point.

On February 14th, which would have also been our anniversary (totally accidental, long story), we decided to officially announce that we were once again back together. She also proposed to me on that same evening. This might seem impulsive, but we made up our minds about how important we are to each other over the past few months, so it was a no-brainer, really.

Then the coronavirus hit in late-march and we were forced to quarantine for a few months. As noone knew when the rules would change and whether we would be able to see each other if we lived apart, we decided to move in together again and keep my appartment as a fallback. In the following months of being together 24/7 it became obvious that we worked quite well together now, so I quit my appartment by mid-september and moved in for real.

Overall, I think we're in a much better place right now than we were 2 years ago. The separation was god-awful and the worst time of my life, but in hindsight, I might have needed this cataclysmic event to set me straight and work out my stuff. Anyway, a lot of the baggage we carried for the first 14 years of our relationship has been unpacked and we're continuing to work on any issues that come up. As it stands, I have no doubts that we will live happily ever after, though.

Finances
As I was 100% focused on getting my fiance back, finances took a backseat for the first half of the year. I don't think I saved much at all during those first 6 months. When things started to look up again, however, I needed to revive this part of my life. So I went through all the blogs and ressources I knew of once again, which brought me to this place. Since I started journalling during the separation, I thought why not put up a journal here!

We're 14 pages in now, and while I worked through a lot of other stuff on here too, my finances have really benefitted from the constant involvement with the ERE-community. I think the ERE-focus on systems-thinking and an integrated lifestyle helped to make me the person I am today. At least, if you'd ask me "who is NuncFluens*" now, I can give you a much better answer than I could have before coming here.

*Horrible nickname by the way. I should have taken more time to choose, instead of just taking the name of a Cynic track.

On to the numbers! Since I rekindled my ERE-spirit in mid-june, I managed to save 8102€ with an average SR of 60%, which was a huge jump up from what I achieved up until that point. On the basis of those numbers, I came up with a plan that would enable me to CoastFI in about 8 years. If I can manage to keep up my current 3-month average SR of 72%, I could probably CoastFI in 6 years. I can almost see the end of the tunnel

So overall, for finances, 2020 was a mixed year, with a steep upward trajectory. I really hope to be able to keep at it like this.

Work
For the last few years work was very unfocused and low-stress. This was about to change in 2020, as I foolishly fell in love with a technology that can actually be leveraged into projects with paying partners. Due to the coronavirus, the first of those projects started in july. I was put in charge and had to work to deadlines from now on. This was quite the change as I was suddenly responsible for keeping the partner (i.e. customer) happy. In the beginning it was quite okay, as I always lamented our lack of planning before.

Later that year, the boss decided to switch from siphoning off grant-money to doing more partner-projects across the board, which eliminated most of the low-stress work we were doing up until now. We very quickly began to ramp up the meetings, working on strategy and presentations, while working with other departments to leverage each other's strengths. While this might sound exciting, and sometimes even be exciting, it also multiplied the work stress.

In octobre this year I thus evaluated if I might not get another job, as the changes made me very unhappy. I quickly noticed, however, that I have a lot of perks and freedoms in my current job, that still make it better than most of what I can find out there. So I decided to keep the current job for now, while working furiously on my financial freedom.

The work as it was still kinda sucked though, so with a little help from you guys, I decided to change my relationship with work by establishing clear limits around my working- and free-time. As I was doing little things here and there all the time (even weekends), this was a much needed change. Since then I've worked 4-day weeks and found ways to reduce the work-stress I felt in my free-time

This is still an ongoing thing and I don't know how to handle it. On the one hand it's exciting that we're actually working towards tangible goals now. On the other hand, I don't like the various responsibilities (marketing, project management) that are heaped upon me now. I really enjoyed being a basement-programmer before. Anyway, the time to CoastFI is quite short (6-8 years), so I might be able to stick it out. If not, I'll find another (probably better paid) way to make it there.

Adventuring, Fitness & Nutrition
Once again, the separation from my now-fiance had me completely neglecting this area of my life. When I tried to get back into a regular hiking routine after a year of doing nothing in june this year, I found that I couldn't just ramp back up as I planned. My knee had deteriorated and so I embarked on a long journey of trial and error. I can now hike for ~20km again, after completely overhauling my walking technique and muscle-activation patterns.

Strength training was similarly hard to start up again. This was mostly due to me not having a home gym anymore. I tried this and that, but nothing really stuck. I guess it was mostly a motivation problem, and an unwillingness to change things. When I finally found the spark to start with calisthenics in decembre, my elbows were acting up like crazy. Right now I'm unable to do countertop-pushups and doorhandle-rows without nagging pains

On the bright side, my eating habits have markedly improved. In the past I would "eat right" for the in-season, but fell off in the off-season in late september. This year I really focused on my food quality and eating habits for some reason. I'm sure part of it was me trying to build a web of goals, in which fitness and nutrition plays an integral part for me personally. Anyway, I kept my weight pretty constant through the holiday season, which saves me a grueling 3 months of dieting down again for the in-season.

Overall I'm super disappointed with how hiking and fitness developed over the last year. It was a real uphill struggle and I'm nowhere near where I want to be. I'll have to do a lot better this year, focusing on kepping on hiking, elbow rehab and keeping up my eating habits.

Mycology
This was the big shocker this year, and I'm not sure how much bandwidth I want to give this here. I have a self-diagnosed periodical hyperfixation, so I'm not at all sure that this is something I want to keep doing after the initial rush wears off. But let's be optimistic for now.

Anyway, starting this summer I became interested in mushrooms, as the berry-season sucked hard. The usual blackberries just didn't grow, but I would find all kinds of mushrooms on my foraging hikes. I didn't bother learning about them then, but the seed was definitely sown.

Around octobre this year, I had the grand idea to cut down my food budget by living off the land, which led me to picking up mushrooms again. Sadly, the season was basically over, so I decided to go looking for winter mushrooms. I did a lot of studying on my own and even found some wild mushrooms, but nowhere near enough to make a dent in my food budget. The whole thing was great fun, though, and I learned a lot. With very little to be found, however, I decided to look into indoor cultivation.

I ordered my first grow-kit in decembre and as of now, it doesn't bear any fruit. I did learn a lot, though, and plan on professionalizing my operation in the coming year. If this takes off, it might save me some money, but the much more exciting point is that I could leverage this into a side-business. As always, the regulations around selling food-stuff, the interaction with customers, etc. have me scared out of my mind. But I think this would be something I wouldn't mind doing for a job.

Overall this might be an exciting new hobby/part of my life that might integrate into my ideal future really well. I'll have to see how it goes, but right now I wouldn't mind being a mushroom-person for the remainder of my life, as it opens up a lot of avenues for the future. I could become a real mycologist, lead mushroom-gathering-trips, sell my own produce, etc.

Overall
A lot of bad things happened this year, but somehow I turned out much better than I was. Normally, I'd make a list of all my achievements and feel good about myself for a while. But this year I'm mostly resentful of all the things I had to do to get there. 2020 did not feel like achieving things, but rather like wrestling down life's challenges to get something out of them.

I've been sitting on this review for ~4 days now, as the ending was so depressing, so I thought a lot about how to turn things around in 2021. The main problem with 2020, I think, was that I get very reactive when life starts throwing rocks at me. So for 2021 I decided to be more proactive and forge my own path, instead of just reacting to whatever happens. I already have a vision forming, but I'll put off writing about it until I'm completely sure that I want to pursue it.

[Alphaville]

hm, sounds to me like you're being too harsh on yourself and maybe a little pessimistic? maybe it's culture or personality, not sure, but it seems to me like you had a great year of learning and progress in spite of adverse circumstances, so it's definitely a victorious one. in your place i'd celebrate the achievements, and then... brace myself for what's to come, becomes something always comes

anyway, congrats on making it!

[NuncFluens]

Thank you. I'm very happy with my achievements last year, but the process just turned me into some kind of stone somehow. I became all stoic and just bore the brunt of it, leaving me unable to appreciate the good stuff and move forward. But I've taken some time to reorient myself and am already feeling better. I just need to figure out how I want to play this in 2021, so I don't just white-knuckle everything again. But I'm getting there :p

[NuncFluens]

So I've thought a bit about how I want to approach the coming few years and I think I should maybe make an effort to boil it down here to help me think. This is not the concise vision-post I imagined, but it will have to do :p

Some background & the Vision
In 2018 I did my first real mountain hike during a workplace outing. Soon thereafter I started hiking around my hometown. On one of those trips, I came across a sign showcasing the local long-distance trail. As I already romanticized long-distance hiking at that point (with great help from The Trail Show podcast), this was a dream come true. I bought the guidebook that same day at a nearby train station and started planning out the routes on the included map.

In 2019 I restructured my life around hiking the trail in a section-hiking style. I'd work whenever I could to get time off on weekdays, then use my weekends to hike even more. In May 2019 I hiked over 400km in just a month, all while working my 32h week. I ate ungodly amounts of food, while my body turned into a streamlined endurance-machine. It was glorious, even though I managed only ~40% of the whole trail, as I got sidetracked by all the mountains that weren't on it. I even managed to hike the whole West Highland Way in late september, which culminated in my climbing Ben Nevis via the Càrn Mòr Dearg Arete, my greatest achievement yet.

But along the way, my now-fiance separated from me and I fell into a deep hole. It would take half a year until we'd reunite, and I'd once again make an effort to rebuild myself. Since then I've been plagued with knee-problems that I had to work out in a painstakingly slow rehabilitation process. This made it impossible to really hike consistently, so I let my focus slide. With the coronavirus looming, the only real constant in my life was work. With the new mandatory home-office solution, I got into a few bad habits that I've worked on changing ever since.

So for 2021 I'd like to renew my hiking-obsession, doing whatever it takes to get out as much as possible. This will take some changes (oh how I hate those), but I'm intent on seeing it through.

The future of (my) work
In 2019, all I wanted to do was hike, so I picked up work whenever I could, to ditch the office as often as possible. For example, if I hiked on friday and wanted to go again on sunday, I'd have to rest on saturdays. So the only hiking-related thing I could do on saturdays was working the hours it took to take next wednesday off, too. With my very fluid arrangement at work, this was often possible, so I went for it and cut out multiple weekdays with no impact on my overall work performance.

This came back to bite me in 2020, as I was used to work whenever I could, but had no outlet for all that overtime anymore. With my obsession on hold, I'd get sluggish and quit work early, only to work the hours back in later. This messed up my relationship to work big time, as was showcased here a few months ago.

So I've thought long and hard about my relationship with work, and how I want to handle this going forward. I've worked a strict 4-day week for all of november to get rid of my bad habits, but I think in light of my new vision I'm going to change that up again. As I see it now, the problem is not working overtime or working on weekends. The problem last year was that I didn't do it for a good reason. So going forward, I'll re-adapt my fluid working hours again while keeping the better habits I developed in late 2020. I'll probably work weekends again, whenever it is feasible to do so, if and only if it meshes with my planned activities.

This whole process of fitting work into my vision (as opposed ot the other way around), has also led me to once more make peace with the concept of wage-work in general. As I see it now, work need not be my friend, nor my enemy, nor both. I'd rather use it as a tool to facilitate the life I want to lead, making my relationship with work strictly transactional again. I did it once and hope to be able to manage it again, but we'll only see if it works once the rubber hits the road.

Hiking in 2021
I have a long list of trails I'd like to do this year, but due to the coronavirus it's probably not going to happen. Even finishing the local long-distance trail might be hard, as day trips are discouraged and all the cabins and huts are closed indefinitely. So I've come up with another challenge to obsess about: I've taken the hardest day from my planned itinerary for the GR20 on Corsica and transferred it to the local mountain range. This would be a 36km hike with 2.500m of elevation, preferably as part of a 5-day backpacking trip.

With this specific goal in mind, I've dusted off all my gear and already started training on tuesday. As it stands, a 13km trip with 400m of elevation wipes me out good, so it's going to be a long way. I do however have a sensible plan to get back up to speed. This is also the main reason for why I'll have to be flexible at work, as the weekday sessions are unrealistic if I start them at 4PM.

---

So overall I'm feeling excited and renewed. I get out of bed easily now, and there's a spring in my step that I was missing for a long time. This new vision has definitely given me something worthy to work towards, that will take a lot of the time I'd have used for brooding and sinking deeper. We'll see how it meshes with work, both time and energy-wise, but I'm hopeful that is the right way forward.

[NuncFluens]

Adventuring
Since my last post, it has become quite apparent that my vision of becoming a dirtbag-hiker wasn't fleshed out enough. The main oversight was that hiking in itself can become quite expensive. I've never much cared for gear, but a 20€ train ticket for every trip outside of town gets expensive real quick. In the 2019 season I've spent ~150€ per month on train tickets alone, which would push my ERE-timeline back by a good bit.

To keep costs down, I have thus decided to pick up bikepacking to increase my radius of action. It's still an imperfect solution, as it seems unrealistic to bike 30km one way, hike, and then bike back. So this would at most enable me to do multi-day trips where the first and last days are mainly for biking to the trailhead. Which also means I'll have to leave the fiance alone for 3-4 days per trip. I'd also have to get into camping to save on hotels/cabins. This is still a bit tricky, but I'll keep thinking.

As far as actual hiking goes, I started my prep-phase last week and managed 2 trips in the first week, totalling 24km with a bit of elevation. Since I slipped on my second trip, I had to cut it short as my bad knee got twisted. Recovery took another 3 days, which cut into my second week, but I still managed to do another 2 trips, totalling 26km. Since it snowed quite a lot this week those were far harder than the first week, which has me hoping that I can hike much farther once it's sunny again.

Mycology
On my last trip I visited the tree where I found my first oyster mushrooms to see if the second flush was ready for harvest. Unfortunately, oyster mushrooms apparently aren't as resistant to the cold as they are made out to be, as all the new-grown mushrooms were frozen and withered. I'm not expecting a third flush in this climate, so I'm back to hoping I find some on the wayside when I'm out.

As far as homegrowing goes, I reconfigured my setup by adding a fruiting chamber made out of a plastic tote. It took me a few days to get the hang of keeping the moisture high enough, though. In the meantime all the tiny mushrooms that were growing on my two grow-kit batches have dried out, so there's not much hope for them either. Since I've got a much better system now, however, I ordered everything I'm going to need for a second batch. With what I've learned since I started, I should be able to make it work this time.

[white belt]

I'm following the mushroom cultivation closely. In my region of the USA, humidity is quite high so I feel like we might have favorable conditions to grow mushrooms outdoors (from spring to fall).

Indoor humidity is a bit trickier, but here are ideas I have that I'd like to get your input of whether you think they would help:

-grow in a basement/cellar (these usually have higher humidity levels naturally)
-grow mushrooms above/near stove so that they can take advantage of the vapors created from cooking
-grow mushrooms in bathroom (seems like you already tried this without positive results)
-grow mushrooms above/near clothes line drying area or dish drying area (this assumes you are not using machines to dry clothes/dishes)
-use containers/plastic to create mini greenhouse conditions (seems like what you are doing now, but imagine there are challenges with balancing humidity and air flow)

I was reading about mycology tonight for the first time and just happened to search the forums and see you've been working on it. Great stuff!

Edit: Maybe I could try growing it in my worm composting bin? It's a humid environment. I'd be a little concerned about light and air exchange since there are only a few air holes on the sides for the worms. On youtube there seems to be a few people who have inadvertently had mushrooms colonize their worm bins. I'm unsure if the worms would eat the mycelium when they are growing, but worms usually don't feed on surface food so it might be worth an experiment.

[NuncFluens]

Well, I'm only at it for ~2 months and haven't produced a single mushroom yet, so take this with a grain of salt :p

I'm following the mushroom cultivation closely. In my region of the USA, humidity is quite high so I feel like we might have favorable conditions to grow mushrooms outdoors (from spring to fall).

Indoor humidity is a bit trickier, but here are ideas I have that I'd like to get your input of whether you think they would help:

-grow in a basement/cellar (these usually have higher humidity levels naturally)
-grow mushrooms above/near stove so that they can take advantage of the vapors created from cooking
-grow mushrooms in bathroom (seems like you already tried this without positive results)
-grow mushrooms above/near clothes line drying area or dish drying area (this assumes you are not using machines to dry clothes/dishes)
-use containers/plastic to create mini greenhouse conditions (seems like what you are doing now, but imagine there are challenges with balancing humidity and air flow)

Humidity seems to have been my biggest problem in the later stages. I started growing my first two batches in plastic containers, but once I took the lid off, they started to dry out. Oyster mushrooms specifically need a humidity of 55-70%, some say even higher. Which is why I've ordered an analog hygrometer to keep track in the future.

I've also thought about putting them in the basement, but right now it's way too cold down there. Another factor would be that mushrooms generally need a lot of indirect light, so my basement in particular might be too dark. Growlights might help here.

Not sure about the stove or drying areas, but the bathroom turned out to be too dry in my case. It might be because we use the heater to dry some of our clothes :/

Which is why I decided to go the plastic container route following this tutorial. I'm still missing the hygrometer and perlite, but I managed to keep the inside walls wet for a few days now, so the humidity problem should be off the table. Fresh air exchange should be possible through the holes in the container, paired with fanning air into the container 2x per day. I'll only know in 4-8 weeks, though, when my new batch is through.

I was reading about mycology tonight for the first time and just happened to search the forums and see you've been working on it. Great stuff!

Edit: Maybe I could try growing it in my worm composting bin? It's a humid environment. I'd be a little concerned about light and air exchange since there are only a few air holes on the sides for the worms. On youtube there seems to be a few people who have inadvertently had mushrooms colonize their worm bins. I'm unsure if the worms would eat the mycelium when they are growing, but worms usually don't feed on surface food so it might be worth an experiment.

I don't have a composting bin, so I haven't looked into it yet. I've come across a few posts where people threw their "failed" batches on the compost, though, and they managed to grow in there for some reason. But that's all anecdotal.

As far as ressources for homegrowing goes, I've found that most youtube videos are made by commercial growers, which focus on absolute sterility in all phases of the cultivation process, to increase their yield and operate close to the optimum. If you listen to them you shouldn't even start before you have installed a flow hood in a separate room, which is slightly demotivating. The magic mushroom growers on the other hand have developed a few less-than-sterile techniques that seem to work well enough, though. So for my dirtbag-level operation I mostly refer to shroomery.org or reddit, until I want to get more professional.

[NuncFluens]

Work
This was my first week of work after my vacation. It started off with another meeting about those presentation slides that I reworked 5~6 times already because they were never good enough. Surprisingly, everyone was blown away and congratulated me on my great work. This was huge shock, but also a great weight of my chest, so I'm quite happy right now. Other than that, work was pretty uneventful, but pleasant enough.

Mycology
After my last post I decided that I had learned everything that I could with my failed home-growing experiments and thus decided to abandon them and start a new batch as soon as possible. However, two days later I noticed that they started growing again . Currently, one cluster is ~4cm big, while the second batch is sprouting mini-clusters all over. Exciting times.

Adventuring
As for actual hiking, I've managed 2 Hiking trips, totalling 28km this week.

I've also decided to completely ignore any pain in my left knee for now. There have been a dozen little things over the years that suggested a psychosomatic/neurological cause for the pain, but I've always shoved them aside. Instead I worked on strengthening and mobility, with minor improvements. But the pain is still there on almost every hike I do, and it doesn't follow the rules for useful pain. When I train through it, it might get better. When I take it easy, it might get worse. It's completely erratic and none of the several doctors I went to over the years could find anything wrong with my knee. So the working theory is that it's a neuropathic issue for now. I've only just learned that word, so I'll have a bit of research to do, but since I stopped focusing on the pain it's become a lot better. We'll see, I guess :/

[Alphaville]

decided to abandon them and start a new batch as soon as possible. However, two days later I noticed that they started growing again .

that's great

--

curious: what kind of shoes do you wear for hiking?

[NuncFluens]

that's great

--

curious: what kind of shoes do you wear for hiking?

Oh sorry, I didn't see the question about the shoes up until now. I'm mostly wearing trail runners (Saucony Peregrine 7). Right now I'm wearing boots (North Face Chilkat III) because of the snow, however.

[Alphaville]

Oh sorry, I didn't see the question about the shoes up until now. I'm mostly wearing trail runners (Saucony Peregrine 7). Right now I'm wearing boots (North Face Chilkat III) because of the snow, however.

eh no worries

this just as a curiosity, because it's not for everyone... but i used to get knee pain from heavy shoes and heel strike... have you experimented with minimalist shoes/forefoot stride, etc?

it's not for everyone and takes some adaptation, and some people even get injured, while others say knee pay requires more arch support, but... have ya?

i used to wear vibrams, but toe fit was an annoyance, and now i wear mostly xero, vivo, etc, which.... have change the way i walk to forefoot strike (different tensions) or just a more gentle step.

but even with heel stike there are differences, see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czmeT9h3sno
or more detailed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vQP0nJT76Q
then there's this one: https://gokhalemethod.com/blog/67807

i was just thinking about this mystery pain... a real puzzler but maybe stride related since there's nothing wrong structurally?

also was thinking about what you said re: pain from inactivity. and walking is good as is stimulates cartilage growth... issue is how much maybe because too much of anything will hurt.

anyway idk this was just 2 ideas for consideration not an attempt at a prescription or anything (not saying "this particular one is for you", just "maybe worth exploring options") since you already do glute/hamstring work which stabilizes knee tracking.