Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

and then belt the living daylights out of them.

&*$%# $@$%^# dirty rotten $^%#@$%'s

That is worse than a kick in the teeth Burnsy. I feel sick in the guts for you.

Thanks for the thoughts guys, I just really feel for all the rest of the kids that have had a whole of school harvest and celebration day stolen from them . The responsible caring kids are not going to be happy at all. Who knows it might be enough to empower them to stand up for their community and start calling the police every time they see the same kids trespassing on school grounds writing graffiti or just generally vandalising the local area. It is such a normal thing for them to see, they think nothing of it and just keep walking. The usual offenders are so bold they don't even write tags when they graffiti, they write their own names .

I will be doing everything I can do get some motion activated digital surveillance in the area, it was something I looked into earlier and wrote to a major supplier about helping us out but they chose to not answer my letter.

I know it doesn't really help but if you want some fish to get going again we can help you out Mike.
Hopefully someone might have information on who the offenders are, and prosecute them accordingly.
I am thankful you at least saved mother marron before the holidays. How is the family now?

Thanks for the offer Faye. We have barra ordered so we will just get them in a little early I think. Not sure how mother marron is as she is in my class and I did not check when I went in other than to see all the plants and Koi were still alive.

Prosecution is hard without any physical evidence however we do report pretty much everything that we hear, thus the need for video surveillance to obtain real proof. The offenders generally like to blame each other when questioned and are young so the police have a hard time getting anywhere with them, it is the harsh reality of the society we all live in at the moment given current police resourcing and rates of criminal activity. Unfortunately a few dead fish and stolen potatoes don't rate to high when a 72 year old women is punched senseless on the way home from the train station for not giving a guy a cigarette .

The kids with genuine good intentions will truly be disappointed. Unfortunately in recent years, it is becoming more and more frequent that good intentions/behaviours are rewarded with bad/negative rewards/behaviours. I do hope that the good kids will take it as a lesson to empower themselves to assist with neighbour watch of some kind, rather than take this as a lesson to think that they should also be bad since the "goodness is rewarded with bad anyways".

I think digital surveilliance has come down in price by quite a fair bit.. I think a four camera unit with internet connectivity is only marginally above $1000. If the supplier does not want to reply, I am sure an appeal to parents and other local businesses might help to fund the system. Should really get it up and running before the Christmas break. Although I cannot contribute much, but I will be happy to contribute a few dollars if necessary.

Checked today and she is still in berry, any idea how long they carry the berries before they hatch? I am told once hatched they carry the juveniles for a week or so before letting them go?
The other three marron are still happy in the tank - thought all their Christmas's had come with all these dead trout lying around to feed on Tank is all cleaned out of dead fish and cycling again with just the marron in it and gilgies in the sump until we organise the barra.

Ivan, thanks for the offer, very kind but I am sure we will be able to sort something out.

Regards,
Mike

Looking at the system today, it appears the kids who did it did so by accident rather than it being a malicious attack. I think they tripped over the sump pump cord which is at the base of the electrical box and it was enough to dislodge the pins from the socket. In the dirt garden they had basically harvested some potatoes and a hand full of carrots that were not ready - potatoes were and look great. I don't know why, maybe they were disturbed or freaked out when they tripped over the cord but they left all the potatoes they had harvested in a pile along with a broccolli they had harvested from the AP beds.

In a round about way you could say we are succeeding when a few kids jump the school fence to steal fresh vegies

Perhaps you could get the power hard wired to a switch within a lockable enclosure Burnsey...

It is as you say, but the pump is plugged in to a GPO within the lockable weather proof box rather than hard wired to allow easy change over of pumps when required. The accident could have been avoided and is in part my fault as I should have slipped the cord into a slit pipe (which I already had ready to go but had not done) and attached it to the 200 x 200 posts with saddles

You must be a kind natured soul there Burnsy. It sounds like you have almost forgiven the little turds who destroyed all your hard work .
In times of misfortune the little jobs overlooked are always considered essential in hindsight but you can in no way consider any of this to be your fault. The blame lies squarely at the feet of the destructive little darlings responsible.
I hope your Kids who are involved in the AP project can rebuild and maintain the enthusiasm.

Good luck with it all

Well done. . . ." Mr Burns"

Big thanks to Joel and the BYAP crew who have donated a heap of trout to us so the kids can still experience harvest

Had my rant this morning to all the older kids and told them they are the only ones who can make a difference and it is time for them to stand up and demand change within their own community by no longer accepting vandalism, trespassing and graffiti as normal behaviour that gets ignored. Informed them all that they should call the police every time they see this behaviour and not just turn a blind eye to it. We will probably follow it up with some letter writing to the local Superintendent to let him know to expect their calls and might make some laminated wallet cards with the local stations phone number on it for everyone - see, there is education to be had in everything. As I wrote in the magazine article, AP in schools is not just about the science of AP and growing fresh food but is more so about the values, morals and life lessons that go with it .

Burnsy sorry to hear, I personally would beleive some kids would do that sort of thing deliberately, seems you're trying to blame yourself, but at the end of the day the the shouldn't have been there anyway, my missus works in the special ed unit at the high school here, we are going to try and get the powers that be to come down to the display at the spring festival and maybe a few words of influence from Mr and Mrs Rick she can get something going at Narrogin High, but we also feel vandalism would be a huge problem, a minority can't help themselves and have to *frack* it up for others, but eventually word will get around and the offenders will be named,

Are you talking about man traps Nocky??? We could use an aquaponics setup for the bait!

Sorry Burnsy

You lost me Rick

Here are the pics of what greeted me last Monday, only 3 inches of water in the tank. Third pic is of the BYAP trailer that I used to collect the trout that BYAP donated from their commercial system. The kids are very excited to have fish again, thanks so much guys. Just hope yesterdays weather did not effect them