The whole family took a quick trip up to Cathedral Gorge this weekend. It was great getting away from everything and being outdoors. Cathedral Gorge is a neat little place, sort of like a mini Bryce. There are a bunch of caves carved out from the hill side by the rain which are great for exploring. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
With the aquaponics garden back together and most of the yard cleaned up, I let the chickens out to roam around on another beautiful spring day. Here you can get an idea of the lighting I put in for a little night time ambiance. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Since I had to empty out the garden bed, I took advantage of the opportunity and washed all the rock. Washing rock one or two buckets at a time was a terribly long process. I cleaned two and a half tons of rock on my patio table like this. Each table load was about one and a half buckets of rock. You can see how dirty the rock was. I spent several days washing rock like this. I finally got all the rock done and back in the planter. Once I got the cycling working, the plants were moved back in. I hope they do ok. They were definitely stressed. Most of the plants were wilted. I also got a different liquid seaweed. This one seemed much better. It really smells like the ocean and seaweed. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Last week we took a little trip to LA. When we left, it was raining quite hard, but I thought nothing of it. When we got back I noticed the block supporting one of the legs under the garden bed had cracked. Each day, the block was more and more depressed in the earth. Over the week, I also noticed water loss and the ground on the side where the depression was located was wet. I thought, where’s the water going? I must have a hole in the pond liner and that the ground was made soft by it, thus allowing the bed to sink. By the time the weekend came around, there was nothing to do but empty the garden bed and drain the pond. So, that’s what I did. I searched all over for the leak, but found none. The ground under the liner was also only the … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
I’ve been working on finishing up my back yard landscaping. The aquaponics garden is going good. Our chickens are laying everyday again and its time to finish up this year long project. My good friend Don has really helped out. I am awful when it comes to design – no creativity. Mechanically, I can build about anything, but I just have no artistic ability. This weekend I had a lot to do. I started off by going to the nursery and buying plants for the backyard. Once I got the plants home, I shifted focus and spent the next few hours working on my truck – resealing the intake manifold because of a water leak. By 3:00 in the afternoon, it was time to get back to the yard and get my plants in the ground. In this small corner area just off of the aquaponics garden you can see … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
It’s been so long, I can’t remember the last time I posted. I took some time off from my project over the holidays, and have just begun to get back in the swing again. This month, I began testing my tank and grow bed by filling them with water and cycling the system to insure the bell siphon would work properly. I’ve now got it set where it takes about 35 minutes to fill the grow bed, then 10 minutes to drain. This picture is of my first siphon setup. I’ve since changed my bell from 2″ to 3″. With a 3″ bell, I no longer needed the cap on the filter, as the bell fills the 4″ filter completely, not allowing any media to enter. I also added a 2″ to 1″ reducer on my stand pipe which greatly improved the starting and stopping of the siphon. Unfortunately I … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
