I haven’t written much at all…that usually means that we are out and about (on the farm) doing stuff. The pond is completely dry now; this usually happens every year except for one year which was an unusually wet-dry season. You would think that the geese would be up in arms with the loss of their swimming pond but they seem to have forgotten about it. These days, the different goosie factions are securing and taking over designated bucket areas like a bunch of mafia geese. It can be quite entertaining as each group guards their water stash jealously in the usual goosie-aggressive way…just don’t get caught in the cross-fire!!
We had to save our tilapia frys (I know…it sounds like fried fish but that’s the technical term for them according to size…just means that they are teeny weeny!!) ; we do this every year when the pond dries out. This time, we had a tonne of them…if you look at the above picture of the pond site, there is a smaller dug out pond on the right side…this was a Gnome idea and it works really well…when the pond dries up, the last bit of water ends up in this little pond with all the fish. When this happens, Gnome simply goes down and harvests the little fishes with a hand net. Initially, we had made all sorts of complicated traps but we have found that this is the best hassle-free method of collecting fish. The fish are in a big container right now being fed chopped greens:
The water was getting quite murky so Gnome had made a swirl filter with a bucket and bits:
The fish water is pumped up through the top pipe in the swirl filter; the middle pipe is the out-flow for the filtered water and there is a lower pipe (which you can’t see) which can be opened to release all the gunk. Yes….you’ve got it!! This is the start of our aqua-ponics project…:)
Anyway, Gnome says there are too many fishes in the container so we have to start harvesting them. I am thinking of making an anchovy type of thing with them…I don’t know how to do this so I will have read up on the preservation method. Have a great weekend every-one!!
We have been hearing all sorts of weather predictions and looking at reports on the Internet with forecasts of hot, dry weather…forever (well, it feels like that anyway). This morning we were sitting down with our cups of tea (can’t take the Scottish out of either of us…still like a cup of tea to hit the spot) and lo and behold! Grey clouds gathered right over us and it started raining. What a relief! It wasn’t torrential but it was enough for the plants and trees to quench their thirst for a wee while. This is one of the longest dry seasons that we can remember. Every year, the season tends to end abruptly and we are usually left thinking,
The truth is that we are actually both very healthy and fit from this lifestyle…a lifestyle that we like to promote to all our patients…we reckon that the only way to give advise is to do it (not just talk).
