Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What a precious photo BW.
There was also a nice photo on FB with a fire fighter and a koala standing together on a footpath watching the bushfire roar past a little further along the path.
And still Smoco of the COALignition is burying his head in the sand.

It's an odd thing that they have no problems hanging with humans. I'm guessing they taste disgusting and as a result dont have predation worries.


I picked up a large male that was bleeding from the face by grabbing him under the arm pits.

We put him in the car and took him home (it was late at night) to take him to a vet the next morning. He had no issues with me picking him up, and no issues with Mrs bullwinkle pushing him back whenever he tried to wander into the front seats of the car.

When we took him to the vet first thing the next morning, we were pleasantly surprised to find that generally, Australian vets treat all native animals for free.

Sadly our koala was put down because his mouth and jaw was too messed to allow him to eat (probably hit by a car).

We had been lifting him an moving him around with no issues, but it was interesting to see the vet put on a pair of enormous asbestos gloves to handle him

Apparently they can actually get nasty and mess you up.

All my fish in the IBC are dead.

The ones in the sump are still alive, but the water stinks.

I've disconnected the tank from the sump, and am running a small pump straight from the sump to the growbed.

Hey mate. Sorry to read of your run in with the bloody bush fires. We know what it’s like. Hope you and the family are safe. I’d just pick up the koalas too!

Hope you can have a good Christmas despite what you’re facing.


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Hey mate. Sorry to read of your run in with the bloody bush fires. We know what it’s like. Hope you and the family are safe. I’d just pick up the koalas too!

Hope you can have a good Christmas despite what you’re facing.


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I'm not actually in any danger these days. I live in the suburbs 150 houses or so away from the edge of the city.

Those were pictures of my friends place just down the road from where we used to live in a place called Cudlee Creek.

And I just found that photo referred to...

https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/cf8 ... width=1024

I'm guessing the gods just thought Australia was too damn pleasant, so they stuck eucalyptus trees everywhere and set fire to them with lightning after the 4 hottest (average temperature) days on record for this bit of the world. We went from 46c to 26c the next day after some lightning set fire to some stuff.

To anyone that doesnt know them, in that link, that's a healthy young tree that's burning like something dead that's had fuel poured all over it. And that's just the trunk. The leaves burn like a pile of toilet paper with fuel poured all over them.

Then the gods thought it might be a good idea if some were sent to California to see what might happen.

And then humans thought it might be a good idea to make the fire seasons overlap so we couldn't share water dropping planes etc. That ones my fault (sorry to everyone who had kids - my bad)

What kind of muggle designs flammable trees.

It's a good thing I describe myself as profoundly atheist, or I'd be upset toward at least one of them for sure.

And sorry to the other half of people that read this. I'm a little cranky at the gods just now.

Anyway. In keeping with my normal rant on facebook at this time of year.... Give some money to the Fred Hollows foundation. He's no longer with us, but his work goes on. His foundation restores the eyesight of people for AU25 bucks per person (that's like $20 in real money). Imagine that. Being able to see again for the price of... I dont know... whatever you do that costs $25. Whatever.... you do it all the time. Do it one time less, or extend your mortgage by an extra minute, and make someone see again for $25$. Fred Hollows would probably love aquaponics, so it's on topic.

Please.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to link to stuff, but just do a search for his charity. Fred Hollows. Do it !

and (click) sleep!

Plan to flog the footspa in the new year and donate. Speaking of sight, the other day observing the pond, and a 'fish' like insect swam to the surface (thought it was a dragon fly nymph). Once it hit the o2 it shead in an instance and emerged and flew off. Never have i seen this and would love to know from ap land what this might be? I am used to nymphs climbing up and then changing, but not instantly!

So yeah good idea to donate.

Wow! Freaky.

I love it.

Just when you least expect it, nature just walks up and freaks you out.

Ever mindful of just how bizarre the universe is and willing to help it on it's way to being yet more bizarre, I logged on just now and noticed that the user robertblake was the most recent user to join.

I just thought I'd say hello in case you ever read this thread.

Hi robertblake!

Welcome to BYAP.

Do you by any chance have an old canon digital camera? There's a hack you can do to make them detect motion... apparently quick enough to actually do lightning shots. I've never used it for lightning, but it allows you to divide your view into a grid of ... say... 32 squares, and make one or 20 or all of them motion detecting... this way you dont get false positives when a tree moves or a fish or whatever. Then end result is you might be able to capture one on film. My old canon is a sure shot I think. You load the hack by putting it onto a memory card with the read only tab selected I think. The software overrides that, and there are 20 new features like motion detection and a stack of other cool things.

You can pick up something that will work for $20 or so (they are like 3 megapixel cameras so are free).

https://www.google.com/search?q=canon+h ... e&ie=UTF-8

Nope... Canon PowerShot

@Asitis


The hack bundle even includes a game of Snake you can play on you camera to nullify the need to resuscitate your old Nokia 5110 from that draw full of phones you probably have

I've recently just spent a few days emptying my inbox and visiting a shipload of forums ((fora?) Did you need a plural for "forum" in Latin?... I guess.. a forum was just a place to stay stuff))

Turns out yep.

Fora.

And at the risk of alienating people from all the other fora I write to, (usually under different names so nobody will know) This place is by far the best online community I've ever had the privilege to meet. And I really am on a LOT of forums.

I just posted to the "member skills" thread, and as I tend to do, I read a few bits of it to remind myself of who we have, and their interests and skill sets.

I've probably said it before in some prescription induced haze, but this time it's substance free for a change

Joel, the moderators and by far not least of all, the users of this place really are the most excellent bunch of humans you could ever want to be part of.

Cracking effort Joel.

Cracking effort moderators.

Cracking effort humans.

Fifty odd years ago, I grew up in Papua New Guinea as a white kid envious of my friends.

This place feels refreshingly like a village.

There's even an abundance of fish and green leafy vegetables.

So now I'll launch into a story (I'll keep it short [edit - shortish])...

This one time... when I was a kid... we went to a village called "Hood Lagoon". Maybe three or four hundred people. No idea really I was just a kid. And it wasn't just once. Anyway... It turned out to be three villages, but we white people were blind to the boundaries except for one.

One village specialised in carving (canoes, bow(s) and arrow(s), bowls, religious artifacts etc etc), one in fishing, and one in growing veggies. the only obvious one was the veggie people, because they had an island that they didnt live on, but just grew veggies on so everyone's household pigs didnt eat it all.

I never did learn how they traded for the boats to get themselves there without first having boats to get to the island.... perhaps they lived on the island at one point and the boat builders would visit.

Who knows.

They traded all their needs between themselves, and all got along swimmingly and got to marry outside their families etc.

At my house, I know the neighbors on each side of my house, and wave to the painter guy from across the road when he pulls up in his van. I have no idea what his name is. I've lived here for five years or more. He lives less than fifty steps away.

The other day I was walking to the local shops and met a dude in a red turban. I asked him where he bought his pants and we ended up talking (some language difficulties) for so long that Mrs Bullwinkle rang me to see if I had died or something. He turned out to be Sikh and was a very interesting collection of human cells indeed. I ended up with blisters on my feet because I wasn't wearing shoes, but didnt want to leave the conversation. I dont ever wear shoes*, and never like to leave an interesting conversation regardless of how hot the ground is.

I wonder if that's what the problem is... take off your shoes people, and see if it makes a difference. Walk on some scorching molten tar, and talk to interesting people and try not to cry.

Anyway... I got the feeling that this guy had that same kind of community I knew from PNG (we talked about a lot of stuff as it turns out people who are from sencible cultures are not in a hurry to get to the shops)

I need to foster some kids or something.

And I never did find out where he bought his pants.

Does anyone know where to buy those pants?

But one thing is certain, I'll see him again one day because of who he is.

There's no hurry.

But I really want some light cotton pants, and lightweight collarless long sleeve shirts.

Anyone?

Have I finished yet?



*except to get into restaurants (you can even get into bunnings without shoes if you tell them you've come to buy shoes as you dont own any. Not that there is anything sold at bunnings that you could tread on that might hurt you, but you can wear sandals and drop an axe on your feet at your leisure (and that, kids is why litigation is completely stupid sometimes) Bracket))

*In Australia, it's not legal to be barefoot in a restaurant, but it is legal to have your dog in an alfresco dining area without any shoes. I guess they think dogs have clean feet.

Do you know what I love...

I love it when you used to own [myfullname].com but then you were too poor for a while to pay the $14 a year to renew it so you let it lapse, then you offered the cyber sitter $500 one day to get it back and he said no, and asked for $20,000. I set an annual reminder in my phone to check for it's availability, and sure enough, ten years later, It's mine again for $14 a year... yay me!!

I dont even use it, but at least it's mine again, and the bad people cant sell their shoes and handbags under my name any more.

Basterd bad people.

Yay me!

kisssss myself

Oh BW, thank heavens you are off the daze inducing stupor. I haven't laughed so much in ages. And very poignant writing too.

BTW, yes, that was the photo.


Welcome back!