Oh, no!  Not aquaponics again!  I hate to bore you again with that subject again, but, yes, that's it, all over again.  The continuing saga of aquaponics.  The never-ending (it seems) story. 

Well, at least now it has a gutter to help divert the rain, and a piece of corrugated vinyl to help keep the rain off.

After installing the gutter on the edge of the roof, and the corrugated vinyl to keep the rain off, and adjusting the water flow on the flush tank, I thought I had the whole thing figured out.  Wrong!  Without full water flow the flush tank would not flush!  And, every time the flush tank flushes, the grow beds would get too full of water.  No good.  Even though the grow beds were draining completely when I got them first set up, as time went by, they were draining more and more slowly.  Now, they will not drain quickly enough with the full water flow from the flush tank, so that they were overflowing every time.  Very frustrating.


My only option now is to bypass the flush tank entirely, and just water the grow beds using a timer.  It still works fine, but it's too bad, after going to all that work to get the flush tank put together and getting the thing finally working.  Well, the important part is to keep the fish alive, and to keep the plants properly watered.  Since the green bean seeds still have not started coming up, I decided to re-plant.  I figure with all the flooding and drying out over the last week, they probably died.  So, new green bean seeds last night.

Nope.  Nothing to do with aquaponics this time.  No, this is something totally different.  For those of you who have been following our family lately, this is something we (that is, Brenda and I) have been dreaming about recently.

Yep.  That's right.  A travel trailer.

It's ours.  We got it about 3 weeks ago.  We don't know beans from applesauce about how the thing works, but we are learning.  It's a steep learning curve.  It's 16 feet long.  I know.  We were talking about getting a cute little old antique from the 50's or 60's.  The problem we kept running into was that the ones we could afford were junk.  The ones that were really nice, and were in really nice condition, and useable, were terribly expensive.  This one is nearly brand new.  It's only 3 years old, and the company that owned it hardly used it at all.  The toilet never got used at all.  We got it for half the price of a new one.  You just can't beat that kind of a deal.


It even has a microwave.

We took it in to an RV repair shop here in Springfield to have it checked over, since it hadn't been used for a while, and everything checked out good.  Brenda and I are going to try to take it to the lake over the weekend just to try it out sometime soon.  We are getting some RV books and videos to study to learn about how the thing works.  We need to get a membership in some RV clubs and campground memberships and stuff, so that we know where we can camp out when we travel.  We are thinking about doing some traveling when I retire next year.

The toilet will be quite an adventure the first time we use that.

The table folds up and then it makes up into a full-size bed for Brenda and I.  It has heat and A/C.  It also has a refrigerator and a stove.

It only weighs 2,000 pounds, so it will tow very easily behind the Land Cruiser.  Really, it doesn't weigh any more than the older antique trailers from the 50's and 60's and they didn't have all the nice things in them that this one has.  So, we are very pleased with this.

Yup.  Aquaponics again.  I got it all finished yesterday.  Sort of.  I bought some goldfish a couple days ago and put them in the fish tank.  Then I got the rock and the grow media washed out and loaded into the grow beds.  Then I got the plumbing hooked up and the holes drilled in the workshop wall next to the fish tank.  Then I got the fish tank pump hooked up to the flush tank, and everything going and circulating yesterday evening.  Then we went to bed.


That's right, there are dead goldfish floating on the surface. Yuk.  You can see the water returning from the grow beds into the fish tank.  The black tubing is coming from the fish tank pump that goes to the flush tank on the grow beds.  I added more water later, so the water level is higher now.

The black tubing is coming from inside, goes to the flush tank.  The white pipe is the drain pipe that drains the water from the grow beds back to the fish tank.

This is the flush tank.  When it gets full, the water bottle pulls the flapper open, flushing the tank and emptying the water into the grow beds.  That waters the plants (which will be there eventually) and filters out the fish waste.

Now, back to the story.  Brenda and I were sleeping peacefully.  About 5 o'clock this morning we were awakened by the sound of thunder.  Now, it has been very hot and dry for some time here.  The grass is brown and dry and crunchy.  The grow beds are positioned directly under the eaves of the workshop, which do not have guttering or downspouts.  I am going to be installing guttering to keep the rain from pouring into the grow beds, but that is one thing I have not done yet.


So, you can imagine my consternation when we were awakened by the sound of thunder at 5 o'clock this morning.  I ran outside to find that the rain was already pouring into the grow beds which was already pouring into the fish tank.  If I didn't do anything, the additional water would very quickly overflow the fish tank.  So, I unplugged the water pump, preventing the pump from pumping water from the fish tank into the grow beds, and then I unhooked the drain pipe from the grow beds, allowing the water from the grow beds to drain onto the ground, instead of draining into the fish tank.


Brenda and I were soaked to the skin with the rain, but at least we saved the fish tank from getting too much rain water into it.  Later today I plan to install gutters on the roof, and a shelter over the grow beds to protect them from getting rained on again.  Then, I can re-start the circulation.  I planted bush beans in the grow beds yesterday, so with all the rain and warm temperatures they should be coming up in a few days.


Tilapia.  I plan to get some tilapia this weekend to add to the fish tank.  If things go well, they should be ready to eat in about 6 months.

Why tilapia, you ask?  Well, the idea is, that tilapia are much more tolerant of water conditions than other types of fish.  So, if the water isn't just the right temperature, or just the right amount of oxygen, or just clean enough, or just the right acidity level, and so on, they do just fine, while other fish would just die.  Tilapia are tropical fish, so the water does have to stay warm all the time.  That's why I have them in the freezer.  (The freezer doesn't work)  I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but the freezer is very well-insulated, so it will stay at a nice warm 80 degrees all year-round with very little electric heat input.  Which is why I have the two aquarium heaters in the fish tank.  The water actually feels cool, but that's because a person's skin temperature is 94 degrees, so 80 degree water will feel cool to touch.

Back to aquaponics again.  Yep.  I've been working on my aquaponics setup over the last two weeks, trying to get it all put together before the growing season ends.  I got water in the fish tank, one hundred gallons of water.  At first, I tried using the water from the rain barrels.  Each rain barrel holds 55 gallons, so you would think that would give me more than enough.  Nope.  The problem is, that as you drain the water off, the pressure gets lower and lower until you can't get any more water out.  Then, the drain is not in the bottom of the barrel, it's about three inches from the bottom, so that when I draw water from the barrel I don't get the dirt and sand off the roof.  So, there's always some water left in the barrel.  Anyway, I was only able to fill the fish tank about half full from the rain barrels.  So, I filled it the rest of the way from the well water.  Oh, well.

Fish tank.  It has two aquarium heaters to keep it warm, and an aquarium air stone to add oxygen.

So, this is what a chest freezer looks like when it's filled with one hundred gallons of water.  Brenda says it looks like a baptistry.  Pretty close, I suppose, except for the lid.  The next step will be to add fish, I guess, but that will have to wait until I get the grow beds hooked up.

The new grow beds.

This is the new grow beds system.  On the right end is the flush tank.  The fish tank has a pump that pumps water from the fish tank inside the building through the wall next to the door on the left, over to the tank on the right.  When the tank on the top right fills, a mechanism in the tank trips, sending the fish water through the pipes on top of the grow beds to water the grow beds.  When the tank is empty, the mechanism closes the valve and the tank starts to fill again.  The grow beds fill with the fish water, which filters through the grow media (clay pellets and rocks) and then it empties by gravity through the white plastic pipes at the bottom back to the fish tank, now clean.  When I have this all finished and going, I will have the grow beds filled with those bags of clay pellets that are sitting there at the bottom, and they will be planted with vegetable plants.  The vegetable plants will help to filter out the goo from the fish tank, which, of course, feeds the plants.  You have to have the right combination of plants, bacteria, worms, and fish all going together in harmony in order for this to work properly.  And, of course, it helps to have warm temperatures and sunshine.  As soon as I have the outdoor system up and running, I plan to get started building the indoors system.  Hopefully, having done it all once, it will go a bit smoother the second time around.  Also, I will already have the fish tank part done, so only the grow beds will need to done.  Hopefully, I will be able to get the indoors part put together before the weather gets cold.

New chickens.  Today we have new chickens.  We had chickens last year, some production reds, and then we had some Old English Bantams.  The rooster was real pretty, but he disappeared one day.  Since then the girls have not had a fellow around to give them protection.  Earlier this week we had an opportunity to do a trade, so we traded one of our production reds for three roosters.  The fellow who had the roosters said he was getting tired of all the crowing.  Since we have ten young hens that will be laying here in a few weeks we can afford to let go of one of the older hens.  So, we did the trade.  We got two barred rock roosters and one big dark colored rooster of uncertain breed, but he is pretty.  Now the girls have plenty of guys around to give them protection and, well, companionship.

Mark giving the chickens their daily afternoon scratch feed.

It didn't take long at all for the fellows to get very well acquainted with the girls.  One of the roosters has been following the big production red hen around ever since we brought him home.


This is a tomato hornworm.

You may ask, what does a tomato hornworm have to do with chickens?  Well, I noticed that something has been consuming our tomato plants.  With some investigation, I found this creature.  A tomato hornworm.  I fed the thing to the chickens.  They ate it.  It did take them a while to figure out that the thing is good to eat, though.  With more checking I found more hornworms.  Lots more.  So I have been feeding the chickens.  They have figured out that tomato hornworms are tasty treats.  That big production red hen and I are real good buddies.  She comes along with me when I check out the tomato plants.  Yesterday when I was checking the tomato plants she kept jumping and snapping at a tomato leaf.  I couldn't understand why until I found a big hornworm attached to the underside of the leaf.  I pulled it off and gave it to her.  She ate it.  Then I found a great big one on a potato leaf.  I gave it to her, but the rooster snapped it up, instead.  Why are they called hornworms?  Because they have that bright red horn-shaped thing on their tail end.  When they are completely still on a tomato stem, they are almost invisible.  You grab them and pull them off, and they squirm and try to bite you, and hit at you with that horn thing, and then they throw up nasty green stuff to make you let go of them.  They are like a big fat balloon.  The chickens snap at them with their beaks, and work on them for a while until they deflate, like letting all the air out of a balloon, and then down they go.

This is the chicken house.  Two houses.

We have three chicken houses.  I know, it is a lot.  The small one on the right is the one we started with many years ago.  It is heavily insulated, so it is very warm in winter.  I recently re-sided it with new plywood all over the outside, and new roofing material, and a new nesting box on the back.  The big chicken house on the left was there when we moved to the new place a year ago.  It is a metal building with a fiberglass roof, not insulated, but well-ventilated.  I did a lot of work recently to get it all cleaned out and renovated.  I built some new nesting boxes for it.  So it is in good condition now.  It is much larger and it will accommodate up to twenty chickens.  The one on the right will hold only about six or seven.  So, right now all the chickens are housed in the big house.  The small one is unoccupied.  When it gets cold,  I might try to move some of the hens to the small house, but chickens don't like change, so we'll see how it goes.  The third chicken house is what I call my summer house.  I built it at the last place.  It is a metal building.  I painted it white to keep it from getting too hot in the summer sun.  I haven't used it, since we have this metal chicken house that works just fine.  I may end up getting rid of it since we don't use it.

Antique cast-iron wood burning wood stove.  As you know, I am going to be remodeling my kitchen to accommodate my Kineo B wood burning cook stove.  You probably think I'm a little bit nuts for doing something like this.  Yup.  You probably are correct in that way.  I probably am a little bit nuts.  I think of it as a challenge.  I like keeping the old ways and the old skills alive.  In some ways we have become too dependent on modern conveniences and modern technology.  In many ways I do enjoy having modern conveniences.  I like having air conditioning and refrigeration and gasoline powered automobiles.  I really do.  I would hate to live like the Amish.  But, I recognize that all of those modern conveniences are based upon fossil fuels that aren't going to last forever.  And, when they run out the old skills will need to be re-learned.  People are going to need to preserve the knowledge that they developed over many years.  We don't need to reinvent the wheel.


The old cast iron cook stoves were developed in the 1800's as a direct result of the development of cast iron.  Iron foundrys were developed in the 1700's and really became prominent in the 1800's.  Cast iron became common during the 1800's and was used in many big construction projects, including bridges and skyscrapers.  One place cast iron came to be used was in the kitchen.  Pots, pans, kitchen utensils, and especially, the stove.  People had been cooking over the fire in the fireplace before this, which was very inefficient.  Almost all the heat energy went up the chimney.  The cast iron stove immediately changed that.  An air-tight wood stove can convert 80-90 percent of the heat energy of the wood into heat used in cooking and heating the room.  That's a huge improvement in efficiency.


The cast iron wood stoves continued to be sold until the early 1900's when gasoline became available and was cheap enough to be used, then electric stoves and natural gas stoves took their place.  Then the old cast iron stoves went out to the scrap yard.  Many of them ended up out in the wood shed or the dump out in the back yard.


Some intrepid soul in the Bangor, Maine Public Library scanned the 1912 catalog of the Noyes and Nutter Manufacturing Company in Bangor.  Here's the front of the catalog.

Noyes & Nutter

They scanned it, put it in .pdf format, and made it available on the internet for people like me to find.  So what, you may ask?  Well, as it happens, Noyes and Nutter is the company that manufactured the cast iron stove that I bought.  My Kineo B.  And, if you look in the catalog, on page 26, there it is!

There it is.  Page 26 in the catalog.

My Kineo B stove.  If you closely at the shelf in front of the oven door, you can see  the words, "Noyes & Nutter Manufacturing Bangor, Maine."

It's pretty cool, having that documentation.  In a way, it's hard to believe that wood stoves were still being manufactured that late.  I suppose there were some people that still were not connected to rural  electric clear up into the late 1950's that had to depend on kerosene lamps and wood stoves.  Noyes and Nutter went out of business during the Great Depression along with a lot of other companies.  People just weren't buying anything during those years.

Aquaponics.  This is my latest brainstorm.  As if I needed more hobbies and things to be involved with here on the Pearson farm, right?  For those of you that don't know what aquaponics is all about, I will give you a crash course.  You may be familiar with the term "hydroponics."  That is, growing vegetables and other plants in a water-based nutrient solution.  The problem has been that the plants produce waste products, and they use up the nutrients, so the water has to be renewed, and there's a lot of waste, and it's expensive to replace the nutrient solution.  Aquaponics solves a lot of those problems.  You raise fish in a tank.  The fish produce waste, the waste water is pumped over growing beds that grow plants.  The plants, and the microbes in the growing beds, and the worms in the growing beds utilize the waste products from the fish waste to produce vegetables.  The water is cleansed in the process, which then goes back into the fish tank, clean.  The water is completely recycled, except for what little evaporates.  The only thing that has to be added is the feed that is given the fish, since the plants live off of the fish waste.

Bathtub aquaponics.  The fish are in the tubs underneath.  The veggies live in the ones on top.  The water is pumped from the fish tanks to the grow beds on top, which then drains back down to the fish tanks underneath.

If you live in a tropical environment, you can do it this way.  But, not in Missouri.  Here, the weather is only warm enough to grow fish and plants for six months of the year.  The rest of the time you have to grow them indoors.  Therefore, the freezer.  The freezer, you ask?  Yup.  An old, broken-down chest freezer.  Doesn't work any more, but the insulation is great.  Which means that it holds the water temperature inside really well.  It's an 18 cubic foot chest freezer, which means it will hold about 100 gallons of water very nicely, and with two 300-watt aquarium heaters it will hold its temperature of 85 degrees year-round with very little electricity input.

Tilapia tank.  It may look like a chest freezer, but it's actually a tilapia fish tank for aquaponics.

The plan is to put two grow beds outdoors and grow veggies outside during the six months of warm weather, and then have two grow beds indoors and grow veggies indoors during the six months of cold winter weather.  You may ask, why bother to keep it going during the winter?  Why not just shut it down during the winter?  The answer to that is, that it takes 8-12 months for the fish to reach eating size.  If you start with baby fish in May when the weather gets warm, by the time the weather gets cold in October the fish won't be big enough to eat.  They would need another 4-6 months to get big enough to reach plate size.  Tilapia are the fastest to grow.  Catfish are even slower to grow. 12-18 months to reach full size.  If you let the water get cold, they stop growing.  They don't die, but they don't get any bigger.  So, that means it takes even longer.  The other option would be to buy bigger fish to start with, but then if you are going to do that, you might as well just go to the store and buy fish to eat.  The whole point of this is to have a whole system of growing fish and vegetables year round to grow and eat.


Barrel aquaponics.  I will be doing my barrel aquaponics indoors like this.

The barrels hold the gravel which is the grow beds for the plants.  The tank at the back holds the water from the fish tank, which flushes through the grow beds when the tank gets full.

This is more like what the outdoors grow beds will look like, except that the flush tank will be on top, at the far end.

The fish tank (the chest freezer) is inside the workshop, and the plumbing will run through the wall of the workshop to the outdoor grow beds.  Then, during the winter, I will drain all the water out of the outside grow beds, and switch everything to the inside grow beds.