With one of these…

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I briefly visited a ‘preparedness 101’ fair at a LDS church in Plano earlier today.  They had several tables set up with different themes about being prepared.  As I was looking at and talking about the items on the ‘things other than food’ table, I noticed a picture of a gun.  (guess a real gun is not PC)  A woman next to me said something like “If I had one of those, I don’t need to worry about being prepared, I can just go take what I need”.  I responded by telling her everyone I know that is prepared also has one of those, and isn’t going to let you just take their stuff.  It was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard anyone say, but for some reason it really bothered me.  I think the reasons it bothers me are:

-It represents a common attitude.

-Even at a ‘preparedness fair’ there are people who have no interest in taking care of themselves.

After thinking more about this, I’m sure this woman didn’t actually think about what she said, and I believe it was not an original thought of her own.  She probably heard this dribble from someone else and it sounded good to her, so she stored it away and repeated it at the appropriate moment.

Personal responsibility.  It is a really big deal to me.  The lack of personal responsibility is the source of a large number of our problems today.  Don’t want to take care of your family?  That’s all right, we have social security and Medicaid.  It is someone else’s responsibility now.  Don’t want to seek out your own medical care?  That’s OK, Healthcare is a basic human right, so everyone is guaranteed that, for ‘free’.  Send your kid off to public school to get a good education, because we pay people for that with tax money, let the professionals do their job, why bother being personally responsible for your child’s education yourself?  Your neighbor bothering you?  Just call the police, or the city, or someone else to take care of that problem for you.  (you really shouldn’t have to deal with your neighbor should you?) Personal responsibility is the other side of freedom. Most people I know will GLADLY trade freedom if it means they don’t have to be responsible.  Very interesting.

Not only will this person refuse to take responsibility for themselves and their family, but they advocate using force and violence and stealing from others in times of crises. People like this scare the hell out of me.

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Finishing up the Aquaponics Install

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I love drilling holes in nice things.  This was my first time to use an abrasive hole saw, and it was an impressive experience, went right through the brick and mortar wall.  I installed a large waterproof junction box with some cable clamps on the bottom edge, then ran a power cord and the air line through the box.  It cleaned up the install, I had the cable and hose running underneath the garage door.

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First Seedlings Planted

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I spent $5 at Home depot on 12 seedlings this afternoon.  (4 broccoli and 8 lettuce)  I planted half of them in the aquaponics growbed and the other half a raised bed.  I added some seaweed based liquid fertilizer to the aquaponics system.  It is a pain to get the soil out of the roots when transplanting seedlings.  I’ll probably be doing lots of comparisons between aquaponics and dirt gardening this year.  At this point, I have no fish producing any nutrient, so I don’t expect them to do very well.  I also broadcast some lettuce and spinach seed in the growbed, just to see if they will sprout.

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Aquaponics Drain Version 2

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I made lots of progress on the aquaponics system today.  I found some native gravel that I think will work OK.  It has lots of different shapes, some smooth, some rough, and in general the size is between 1/2″ and 1″.  ($50/yard)  It is very dirty, with lots of the river sand/mud still in the rock.  I tried to wash it out as I shoveled it from the pickup, but there is still lots of mud in with it.  I read that someone else left their gravel dirty because they didn’t like the idea of wasting all the water, and that it cleared up in a few weeks after the growbed settled down.  My original drain leaked, and I dropped a rock down the drain.  I took it all apart and made a few changes.  I replaced the metal close nipple with a plastic PVC piece, so now there are no metal parts anywhere.  I also drilled out the slow drain holes to 3/8″.  I also added a debris trap so that other rocks dropped into the drain should not make their way into the main drainpipe.  (you can unscrew the plug in the bottom periodically to clean it out)  I plumbed in the pump with a union for easy removal and a bypass valve I can use to lower the flow going to the growbed if I need to.

Trench to locate pipes underground

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Progress of Seedlings

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

Most of the seedlings are doing great.  A handful of them are questionable from the last batch of pepper seeds.  I was wondering if they were going to live in the freezing cold garage, but they did.  Since today was sunny most of the day, I set them outside for real sun and some wind.

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Aquaponics Growbed is ready for rocks

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

The growbed is ready to be moved into position and filled with rock.  Tuesday night, I installed 1″ foam insulation board on the inside surfaces.  This changed the dimensions to 36″ x 91″ x 12″.  (area: 22.75 square feet or 2.1 square meters; volume: 22.75 cubic feet or 170 gallons or 644 liters).  Tonight, I installed the pond liner and the drain.  Turns out the pond liner is cut a few inches bigger, so I had enough material to fold over the top edge of the growbed sides.

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Red Green taught me how to use duct tape

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

Bryson used duct tape for the first time tonight. It was a beautiful moment.  I hope he understands the importance of Red Green when he meets him tomorrow.

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Betrayed by De®vaes Family

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

I’m not going to spend a lot of time writing on this subject, because all the points have already been made and I’m not a very good writer.  I was sad to hear that Jules Dervaes trademarked common names, namely ‘urban homestead’ and ‘urban homesteading’.  Why am I upset?  Because this family represented themselves as something they are very much, not.  They stood for going against big corporate life and living the wholesome life you want on your own terms, in spite of the big city surrounding you.  They stood against the ideals of companies like Monsanto patenting lifeforms.  Their pathetic behavior after the fact of is more evidence of their true underlying character.  Now I’ll go back through my blog and update every post I’ve ever made praising this family and state they are hypocritical sellouts, embracing the very things they claim to detest.

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Aquaponics Growbed Drain

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

This little gizmo serves as two drains in one.  The first drain is an adjustable ‘slow’ drain.  It will need to slowly drain about 75 gallons of water over a 30 minute period.  The second drain is an overflow, and has to be big enough to take away all the water my pump can throw at it.  I didn’t bother to try to calculate the flows and hole sizes and pipe sizes, all trial and error for me!  I wound up making a huge mess of my work area after I used the saw, drill, and grinder on these little parts.  I started with a 1-1/2″ PVC to 1″ female NPT adapter, attached to a 1″ close nipple.  I ground down the OD of the fitting so the 1-1/2″ coupler fits on it loosely, and can be easily turned.  The turning action is how I’ll adjust the size of the ‘slow’ drain.  If the holes are all lined up, I’ll have (2) 1/4″ holes.  I can twist the coupler to make the holes smaller.  The large 4″ pipe fits over the whole drain to provide air space to prevent roots from growing into the drain and clogging it up.

1-1/2" PVC to 1" NPT adapter w/ 1" close nipple

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Aquaponics Growbed Frame

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Brian Gallimore

Here are some pictures of the growbed frame I built for my aquaponics system.  I changed the dimensions on the fly because I wanted to minimize the number of cuts I had to do.  The bed is bigger than I had originally planned, and too big for the 5′ x 10′ pond liner that I ordered.  (3″ too big).  These pictures represent it still unfinished.  It is missing a 2×4 along the bottom and bolts on all the supports.  I’m not sure the external 2×4 supports are actually needed, but I wanted to make sure it doesn’t bust apart with 1000 pounds of water in it.  Lumber list and size information are below the pictures.

legs: 48" wide, 38" tall, 2x6 at 24" height

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Inside dimensions: 93″x 38″ x 13″

24.54 sq-ft, 26.58 cu-ft, 199 gallons.  Filled to 10″ depth, 20.45 cu-ft, 153 gallons

Height is 38″.

Legs: (4 )

  • treated 2×4-48″
  • (2) 2×4-38″ (angle cut on one end)
  • 2×6-48″

Tie support – bottom of legs

  • 2×4-96″

Bottom:

  • (11) 2×4-96″

Long Sides (2):

  • 2×8-96″
  • 2×6-96″

Short Sides (2):

  • 2×8-38″
  • 2×6-38″
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