Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

just a quick test to make sure posting is working.
Got an e-mail from some one saying they are not able to post over here and asked me if I knew what was up since they couldn't figure out how to contact the administrator.

All is well

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Hey Lynx,

....are you still there?

How did you do with "Irma"...??

Cheers,

thjakits

We survived

Glad to hear it . I PM'ed Felix (aka MWDesign) down in Puerto Rico but still haven't heard back, this was a couple of days ago.

I did see a facebook post from one Farmer I know on the Island but for all I know, he may not have been on the Island. Pretty much no services or connectivity there unless you are linking by satalite and have some means of power. I fear most people on the Island will be camping out for a considerable amount of time.

Here at our place after Irma we were 8+ days without power. Oddly our power went out early afternoon on Sunday the 10th 6 to 8 hours before anything remotely stormy started to happen here. Apparently Duke energy's power outtage reporting system was already NOT functioning at that time. I'm glad we had already filled up all the ice chests and bath tub with water.

We had windows boarded over and generators and gas cans full before the storm. Took the cover off my seedling house and the outdoor kitchen area. Had all seedlings and microgreens and wheatgrass in the barn.

I should have removed all shade cloth and bird netting before the storm since that is the only man made structure on property that had damage (other than the fences the trees fell on.) No trees fell on anything other than fences. No other man made structures were damaged. We parked the cars out in open areas to protect them from trees or being blocked in. No trees landed on the house and neither of the trailers blew away or tipped over.

All people and animals here survived.

Monday morning we had to wrangle goats due to tree branch making a path over the fence.
Monday the cops were out telling people to go back home as it wasn't safe to be out driving.
Monday I did check the road out from the property and we were luckily not blocked in but we could only go one way out the drive way as a tree was across the road to one side. The side road was also blocked by a tree and everyone in the back of the neighborhood was blocked in (well, they cut through some ones property to get out to a different road if they really had to get out.) Apparently there were trees down on the side road in the front half of the neighborhood but must not have been trapping anyone in.
Tuesday the County Showed up to clear the roads but they turned around and left without touching anything because there were power lines in all the trees.
Wed evening we saw a power truck and some workmen who removed the power line from one tree and removed a power pole that was broken but for some odd reason they didn't remove the lines from the tree blocking the back of the neighborhood.
Thursday evening a neighbor got sick of the tree blocking the road and chainsawed a path through even through there were still lines in the tree.
Friday the county came back and removed the one tree but didn't want to remove the other because of the lines until we cajoled them into it seeing as some one had already cut a bunch of it up. (they just didn't want to mess with it cause they only wanted to use the big machine.) The Cook was finally able to patch together the fence on that side.
I was getting messages telling me that some areas would get power back Friday and others on Saturday and that 100% of power would be restored by Sunday Midnight.

We do not have a whole house Generator. We have a little tiny gennie that is big enough to run air pumps for each fish tank plus the water pump for the quarantine system. We have a bigger gennie that can run all the aquaponic systems or if we don't plug in the air blowers it can run the aquaponics Plus the fridge and freezer.
We were having to buy at least 15 gallons of fuel per day and alternate generators.

Come Sunday afternoon, when we still hadn't seen a power crew come to our part of the neighborhood (and we had heard that the front of the neighborhood had gotten power back on Saturday) I started calling the power company to say How ya gonna restore power by tonight when no one has even come to start work? They informed me that power was scheduled to be 100% restored that night and that they would make sure the company knew that our location was still without power.

Monday Morning The Cook Called the power company to report we still didn't have power and was informed crews were being dispatched to the area.

At this point I insisted we do a little reverse murphy's Law. We took all the big coolers to be re-filled with water. We stocked up on more fuel. AND, while the crews were working on the lines, we went to a friends house (who had power back) for a real shower and pizza party. 8 days with only minimal water camp showers is too long in FLORIDA SUMMER while doing heavy clean up work with NO AC. The Reverse Murphy seemed to work since power came back on between 7 and 8 pm while we were out. (Here is me thinking that if we had sat around watching the crews work and waiting for the power to come back on, there would have been some problem and we would have missed out on the invite to go get showers and still be without power.

NEXT TIME. Storm prep should include WASHING all the plastic garbage cans and filling them wish water and strapping the lids on so that we have extra water for washing. (The kiddie pool in back yard got too much debris in it and hubbie thought it was too dirty for washing.) We also have the Extra Large Chest Freezer that was mainly only used as a fridge for market purposes before the walk in cooler. Next time I'll plan to clean that up and plug it in as a freezer and put lots of containers of water in it to chill for extra clean and maybe even some still cool/cold water by the time we need it.

All lettuce that was planted out got thrashed by the shade cloth and netting. One raft actually broken and several blown out. Only reason any rafts were out of beds was from the bird netting blowing about and snagging them and lifting them out of the beds. In parts of the system where the birdnetting couldn't reach down to the beds, no rafts were blown out, just the lettuce thrashed wind and by the shade cloth as it flapped and pulled free.

I had lots of rain water to start but due to a few issues, we lost a lot of water. By the time we got power back I had several raft beds that were drained almost completely.

Now I'm ready for the fall cool down

Glad you made it through!!

...any word on Ryan??

thjakits

Wow, I'm happy you and family are okay. Wow, what an ordeal! While not a disaster like what you've been through, it's been raining all week in the sunny southwest. Of course we're not used to rain, let alone rain for a week straight this time of year. We received our annual rainfall for the third time with this rain. Extreme weather does seem to bring out our rapid response resourcefulness. Sounds like you had a full week of quick thinking too.

With rapid changes to our climate, I believe we'll all need to stay on our toes from here on out.
Thank you for eloquently letting us know how you all did. Your story made the horror of hurricane survival more palatable for those of us who live far inland.

I don't really have any contact with Ryan so I couldn't say.

Just 7 miles down the road a friend's farm (not aquaponic) had some major damage, flooding, destroyed greenhouse and lots of trees down.

We seem to be in a nice sheltered place. In some ways that is good, in other ways not so good as we seem to be in a weird rain shadow and don't actually get that much rain here most of the time. All around us has been getting rain today but it is dry here and I would prefer to collect more rain more often!

I grew up in a place where as far as I was concerned, natural disasters were very rare (Northwest Lower Michigan.) Unless you count a blizzard but to us those were expected. If it is expected it isn't really a natural disaster, just a weather event that kids think is great because of snow days. Forest fires were very rare and I don't ever remember any being close enough to impact us, closest I remember was a few county's away. I do remember the summer of 1988 being very dry with a high fire risk and a burn ban all summer (as in you could be fined $5000 if you were caught smoking outdoors or even throwing a butt out a car window.) Even then, we still got to enjoy fireworks because they always set them off over the Bay well out of range of fallout causing a fire.

Tornado didn't seem to be able to do anything there (too hilly I guess) and though some thunderstorms seemed pretty spectacular to me as a child, they never did more than occasionally strike a tree or building with lightening. Nothing like the storms with hail or wind damage I see elsewhere.

I never saw issues with flooding, mud or land slides there.

The worst was very occasionally a snowstorm would be overly wet and cause power lines to snap or trees to come down on them or even worse, a rain that then freezes really fast to cause something more of an ice storm but those were both more common in southern Michigan and I think I saw each only once when I grew up. At least we had natural gas which meant we had heat and could cook when the power was out and when it is snowy out, not much issue with keeping food cold.

I do feel for the people having to basically camp out from now till the indefinite future in the Islands and Puetro Rico. I think if I was living such a place, I would be an extreme prepper.

TC, after reading this I have to ask... does TC stand for Traverse City? "Northwest Lower Michigan"...

How long ago did you move from winter wonderland to snowbird land?

Thank you TCLynx for sharing. Here in northeastern New Mexico our wimpy growing season is done. Not uncommon at all either. We have some unpredictable challenges ahead for next season.
I wish we could afford to adopt islanders paying their way here out of that nightmare. I feel doubly sad for our US island territories people because they already couldn't own their means of food productions on farms, This Jones act is a horror for islanders, great for off-island merchants. Now I hear the one utility the Puerto Ricans benefit from is their electric grid. With the grid down the corporations are seeing another opportunity for take over. Sorry for the rant. Poor Puerto Ricans for sure.

YES, TC does stand for Traverse City. Before the Internet and Social Media there was CB radio and (Now I'm probably dating myself) as a teen the rule was you never used your real name on the air so my handle was Lynx. When the internet came along, Lynx as a screen name was already taken so I decided TCLynx would have to do (even though I was no longer living full time there as I was already at University.)

I was working on traveling shows and cruise ships from about 1996 and then I went and accidnetially got a job at Disney that started in 1998. So I guess I've sort of been down in FL to some extent on/off for about 20 years.

Growing seasons are definitely different in different places, as far as I'm concerned, the good growing season in Central FL is just beginning (August through October being the period when I have very little other than micro greens, wheatgrass and shoots to harvest.)

Boss, I don't know anything about this Jones Act you mention but I know farmers on the Island so I don't really understand what you are talking about there? The farmers I know certainly own the "means" to grow and sell food (I don't know if they own the land or if that even matters if they can still farm?)

Happy Holidays everyone.

Thank you, you too! I hope things are back to normal for you and you are able to enjoy the Holidays.