Hillbilly Deluxe

Such a pretty truck...Ryan is apparently bored in the back.

So we decided to put something a little more interesting in (on) the truck.

Just kidding! That isn't Nathan's truck...but that is the truck we saw when we pulled up to do our little Tilapia deal today (from the guy who had advertised the fish in the classifieds a few weeks ago).

When we pulled up to the interesting property I was just about ready to jump back in the car and drive away, but the guy turned out to be really nice and he had a pretty cool tank/grow bed set up.

We ended up with 58 (if we counted right) Tilapia fingerlings (1-3" long).

The dogs don't really care - they would rather play in the sand pile.

Woolly Bully doesn't care either. He just wants to ram in the mulch pile. He got out through an open gate the other day and dove head first into the mulch. He's pretty nervous so he ran back in when Nathan walked towards him.

 We forgot the camera with the fish pictures in the greenhouse. I'll put them on tomorrow!

Spa Day

Don't worry, not dead.

Just resting after an intense first dust bath. 

The chicks all seemed to discover dust bathing yesterday. Apparently they do it to clean themselves and to get rid of parasites. Our hens seem to spend a large portion of their time at the little spa that they dug out next to a tree. It's pretty funny to watch.

Magpie's name should be Elvis. What is with her head feathers?? 

Abby looking a little too interested in the chicks.

 This is the chicken feeder that I made. I drilled a bunch of 1.5" holes in some 3" pvc. It should theoretically hold a bunch of food and self-fill as it empties, but the food seems to get a bit stuck in the elbow joint. It's still too big for the chicks but the hens use theirs. 

We are 2 days away from fish! Nathan got a test kit yesterday for the water. pH looks perfect at 6.8.

The water gets pumped out of the big green fish tank and into the grow bed.

 As it fills the grow bed, the water feeds the plants (after the nitrogen cycle has taken place on the fish waste water due to bacteria in the grow bed media). The water fills the grow bed slowly and then gets gets siphoned out quickly back into the fish tank due to this very cool (*nerd alert*) bell siphon that Nathan built, causing an ebb and flow effect through the bed.

The water in the tank was a balmy 26 degrees yesterday afternoon. We have to get some shade mesh for the tank - heat might be more of a problem than cold.

Oh, and one more bit of news...we go pick this up this afternoon:

I'm very jealous...but I've been assured that I will get to drive it (and not just from the backseat) as much as I want.