the make me happy with pictures blog

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Check out more pix at uberpix.net!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see more Epic Fails

see more Epic Fails

see more Epic Fails

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Baby muscovy ⌚ update ⌚

Baby Muscovy duck

Baby Duck seems to be growing up nice and strong. This is our only one left out of the 5. If it wasnt goats it was the cold and poor parenting. 
Mostly the goats. Darn goats.... smh. 
Its handled now, 
Dont worry.

Muscovy and baby

Moma duck and baby keeping an eye on the barn cats

Barn Cat

Neighborhood cat watch.

Barn cats

I find barbed wire around the chicken coop and throw it on the other side of the fence to get out of the way, of coarse you know who wants to play with it.

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THE FUTURE WITH A P and Why Not

Local community makes UH D.C. exhibit shine

July 6, 2012  |  Tracy Matsushima  |  0 Comments

The University of Hawai?i has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to its exhibit tents during this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
Visitors have tried hula, lauhala weaving and taro pounding. They also learned about navigating by the stars, lomi lomi, aquaponics and taro patches.
The exhibit, however, has been about more than the University of Hawai?i. It has been about the community working together.
UH M?noa alumnus Rick Barboza co-owns Hui K? Maoli Ola, one of the largest Native Hawaiian plant nurseries in Hawai?i. The company transported the taro patch exhibit and aquaponics plants free of charge. 

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Is Aquaponics the Way We’ll Farm In the Future?

• On July 3, 2012
• By Meleah
• In Fertilizer, Indoor Gardening, Organic Gardening, Sustainable Agriculture, Veggies

Aquaponics has been on my “Must Learn More About This” list for a long while. So when I found out Garden Fresh Farms in nearby Maplewood was giving free tours of their aquaponics facility, I signed right up to go. The tour was scheduled for the middle of a week day and Maplewood is a pretty long drive out of the Twin Cities, so I didn’t expect much of a crowd. Whew! I was so wrong.

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Discover Aquaponics

Posted on July 3, 2012 in Neighborhood News by Isaac Gonzalez
Tags: aquaponics, sol collective

Sol Collective’s Liberation Permaculture is pleased to present “Discover Aquaponics”, as part of our ongoing monthly skill share series. Come learn about growing fish and vegetables together in a recirculating, environmentally-friendly, do-it-yourself system.

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Aquaponics – Growing Plants from Seed

Posted on July 4, 2012

I had heard about aquaponics from some gardening friends and the idea stayed with me long enough to do something about.
This long cold Melbourne Winter has been an opportune time to assemble a wonderful collection of posts about my experiences with an aquaponics method for food production. These will be published in an almost sequential order over the next couple of years…
If you want to learn more about aquaponics and how to go about doing this for yourself, I can recommend the following resources that were a benefit to me:

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Vertical farm in abandoned pork plant turns waste into food

• Features

 2012-07-06 11:45

• 
  Greens growing on floating beds in an experimental aquaponics farm in a project called The Plant in Chicago on June 21, 2012. Photo courtesy: AFP

1 of 8

by Mira Oberman
CHICAGO, July 6, 2012 (AFP) - Urban farming is being taken to new heights in an abandoned Chicago pork processing plant where environmentalists hope to "get off the grid" by using the waste from one crop to feed and power another.
Schools of tilapia swim in water cleaned by the roots of leafy greens that feed on the nitrogen and other nutrients in the fish waste.
A bakery will later move in that will be able to use mash from the brewery upstairs to fire its oven.

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From Slaughterhouse to Aquaponics Farm

Blog

Peer Foods, former owners of a meatpacking and slaughterhouse business abandoned a factory in the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. Plant Chicago recently bought the facility and started to restore it. Using a complex interrelated system, The Plant will create 125 jobs in the particularly economically distressed Back of the Yards Chicagoan neighborhood.

Not only is The Plant creating new job opportunities and restoring a prominent building, the whole organization will be self sufficient in energy needs.
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Summer progress! PortFish Aquaponics Model 3

  June 30, 2012 | Aquaponics, Journal

PortFish Model 3 Aquaponics System continues to move forward. The greenhouse frame is now constructed, and our vision is coming to life!



Check out the latest collection of progress photos in our Facebook gallery.
 Please like us while you’re there, too!
Check out the aquaponics page to see the floor plan and other details about the project.
Want to learn more about aquaponics and have some spare time to lend a hand?
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Aquaponics and the Homeless

Hi,

Over the past several years, Ive read about a variety of aquaponics endeavours (like this one) that have sought to provide aquaponically-grown food to homeless people.

With the short growing cycles involved, it seems like a no-brainer....in terms of food production.

With some more integrations (a la Microponics), it has even greater potential.......particularly if
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Aquaponics And Conventional Agriculture

Aquaponics differs in many ways from conventional agriculture and other kinds of factory farming.

I have made a chart of the differences between aquaponics and conventional agriculture:

Conventional Agriculture	Aquaponics
Conventional Agriculture	Aquaponics
Grows crops in soil.	Does not grow crops in soil. Grows crops in recirculated fish waste water, either on its own with the crop plants suspended at the surface in plastic net pots on floating polystyrene rafts, or suspended in the flowing water by an intert growing media fill such as expanded clay balls (Hydroton or Hydroleca brands) or pea gravel.
Uses artificial fertilizer from a natural gas (methane) or methane from oil refining feedstock.	Does not use artificial fertilizer. Nitrates dissolved in the recirculating fish water from the intensive fish farm, flowing through the grow beds or floating raft deep water containers fertilize the plants. The source of these nitrates is the ammonia excreted by the fish in the intensive tank-based fish farm part of the aquaponic recirculating aquaculture system. Aquaponics uses liquid organic fertilizer sourced via the solids removal and mineralization section from the fish excreta. Fish excrete ammonia through their gills and a certain amount is also dissolved

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Scrutiny reveals troubled Sweet Water

July 2, 2012

By Michael Timm

A $250,000 public loan supported Sweet Waters outdoor expansion. Former employees have criticized Sweet Water management for past failures. —photo Monica Ray

Sweet Water Organics, the Bay View aquaponics farm, is a media darling. But scrutiny of the local startup business, which angles to be a leader in a globally emerging urban agriculture industry, reveals a darker tale.

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OK...Holiday is over, now its catch-up time.

Back Soon

O Z Z I E

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Mid Week Blank

This is great, my mind has jacked up on me. So we wing it Again. Or just say nothing and go straight to work. Which of course is the easy option and probably the best one from your point of view. I probably will have the opportunity down the page to sound off about something, so I might as well go that way.....

Farming inside the box: Urban agriculture of aquaponics
by Emily Gadekand Michelle M. Schaefer
Snow falls outside a nondescript one-story warehouse on Chicago’s South Side. But inside, its the growing season. Hundreds of fish swarm and fight for food in tanks surrounded by beds of basil, rainbow chard, and mint.

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Green power to grow greens
by Emily Gadekand Michelle M. Schaefer
Vertical farming indoors presents a promising solution for some of the challenges of agriculture in Chicago’s cold climate. However, these solutions also come with their own set of concerns. 

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312 Aquaponics develops advanced aquaponic technologies for commercial urban agriculture.  The application of our systems will usher in a new era of sustainable food production and distribution.                                                ...oooOooo...

Aquaponics Makes My Basil HUGE!

Ever since our trip to the Big Island last August, we have been working on our garden.  We have been applying great tips from experts at UH and local farmers to our backyard garden at the Lahaina Bungalow.  

 Check out the size of that leaf! One of the most impressive plants Ive seen with Aquaponics is Basil.[MORE]
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Welcome to the factory of the future: Fish farming
by Emily Gadekand Michelle M. Schaefer
While many recent college grads are searching for their first jobs or taking time off the see the world, Andrew Fernitz, Brian Watkins, Mario Spatafora and Arash Amini founded 312 Aquaponics, a for-profit company creating aquaponics systems.
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Micro-Aquaponic Sculpture
When I was in high school I read about research at the University of Hawaii in small scale self contained ecosystems. The idea fascinated me so I started doing research on how I could build one. In Des Moines, Iowa, where I lived, there is a small rain forest contained in a geodesic dome called the Des Moines Botanical Center. A scientist at the center helped me with a design for a miniature version of the center with the addition of a cave environment below the terrestrial and lake environments. My design, which I built with help from my dad, was a Plexiglas dome mounted atop a box with a cylinder in the middle that served as a lake environment.
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Ahead of the Class
To have your class, workshop or presentation listed, e-mail information 10 days prior to publication to kehau@mauinews.com. You may also submit it to The Maui News Virtual Newsroom at [MORE]

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OUR PLANET EARTH
Dont give up on Japans kids
By STEPHEN HESSE
Last March, the president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust, visited Japan to find out for herself what has become of Japans once-vibrant contribution to American academia. The numbers of Japanese students enrolling in Harvard have declined steadily over the past decade, and in September 2009 that renowned universitys first-year intake included just one student from Japan.
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Discussion Forum - Aquaponic Gardening
A community site with forums, blogs, photos, videos and more for both new and experienced aquaponic gardeners. Lets learn together!
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Evan M. Schwartz

Thanks for adding me to the group. We are in the process of finishing our four tiered raft system. Thanks Grow it right for the help. Anyone have experience with a mixed bed that use a combo of deep water culture and media? Id like to introduce worms and snails to my system. Any info?

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NOW, ONCE AGAIN WE GO LOOKING "OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE"
Make Your Own Lavender Laundry Detergent--for Pennies
laundry detergent
Lavender-scented laundry detergent is a breeze to make. Photo by Povy Kendal Atchison
According to our grandmothers’ wisdom (and verified on thenewhomemaker.com), Monday is Wash Day. After Sunday’s day of rest, homemakers traditionally took on one of the week’s most difficult tasks: the laundry.


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Soothing Homemade Lip Balm

From our friends at Natural Home magazine: Leave your lips feeling luscious and quenched — naturally! — with this simple recipe for homemade lip balm.

Lips, au natural!
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Garlic Recipes: Garlic Dip, Soup, Ice Cream and More

Celebrate this healthful, scrumptious herb with these recipes for everything from simple garlic dips to more elaborate garlic soup to out-of-this-world garlic ice cream!
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Could Plastic Really Be the Greenest Bag Option?

An unpublished British study reports plastic bags are a greener option than paper or cloth.

Tell me more.
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OK Guys Thats a wrap...
Happy splashing N planting
Take Care
O Z Z I E

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Strawberry hydroponics update ☺ ⪻ greenhouse update ⪼ ⪢ how we grow carrots ⪡ ☑☑☑☑

As summer is about to kick into full gear we are experiencing a continuing heat that just seems to be lingering on, keeping things cool in the greenhouse is a struggle all on its own. I found it was much easier with the old hydroponics system in the greenhouse due to the thermal energy stored in the water
( roughly 100 gallons in all the pipes and container).

Our pvc strawberry troff system is humming along just fine, will be upgrading to HDPE soon. One thing I was not expecting was the amount of thievery from local birds or raccoons, still not sure which one yet but Im leaning more towards birds, Never really had an issue with birds until I raised my berries off the ground, now I guess there openly spotted to our local dinos and there having a field day.
Ah well,, We produce enough, and they need to eat to, so whats fair is fair.

Weve been growing our Carrots in bins/buckets for a few years now and honestly, its unbelievably convenient. They can be wheeled around and placed wherever you like, there the perfect size for carrots,  just add a few drainage holes and check for what plastic it was made out of and your good to go. We expect to use these buckets for a lifetime, which is the whole purpose of plastics in my opinion.

This is an example of what can be done to save space while still having a nice looking growing system ( minus the plants scattered on the ground, lol ) This setup is strong and will last a for countless generations, is simple to care for, and can be run on hydroponics / aquaponics / or bioponics like systems. To even kick this idea up a notch we might add wild strawberries around the Carrot buckets, you can never have enough food, and if we all did this, IMHO we could end hunger, easily.

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Circles

Im not going to lie...I dropped out of art class because I cannot freehand anything close to a circle. In fact, I cant even freehand an oval or egg. I know Im not alone in this and I know a lot of people cant steady their hands to draw circles, but I really wish that sometimes I could draw something beautiful.

But I seem to do life in circles too...well not really. I have reached a dead end right now and I seem to be spinning in a massive emotional circle and churning up a ton of hate, jealousy, anger, and all of that cool jazz.

When I look sad, Im usually beyond depressed. I absolutely hate it when people ask me whats wrong. I dont like to tell people because it stews up some very painful memories and thoughts that I suppress on the daily basis. Often times, these stew up with whatever is bothering me at the time. Stew is delicious but this stuff will explode in your face. Let me "talk" to you about some stuff and you might end up with a black eye...not intentionally...of course.

In short, I just want to advance somewhere in life. I get to watch all of my friends do exactly what I want to do, and Im supposed to be all jolly about it. Great! Im happy for them but it just reminds me of the fact that Im doing NOTHING.

It only pisses me off more that Im supposed to be all OK with this.

Everyone says that theyre all rushing and its not a big deal. Yes it is a big deal. Some have kids, some married, and just about everyone else is graduating college soon. Sweet. My boyfriend doesnt want kids, Im only getting married to go back to school, and...when that happens I get to go back to a campus where I know nobody. Sweet...its like freshman year all over again.

Everyone keeps saying "be patient." Thanks guys but waiting is why I dont have a place to live and have been bouncing from home to home for about 3 years now. Its the same reason why I cant finish school right now (in fact...they raised prices. If only they would have signed for me to go during high school...but noooo I should have focused on high school where I hardly learned anything.) I dont want to wait, I want to do. Lets get this show on the road.

Besides, most people telling me this are either still waiting for life to fall in place (and are 50+ years old) or get what they want. Maybe running through the hills singing "Sound of Music" isnt such a great idea for me...but at least Id have something I want in life.


Some people see only price tags

The rest of us see dreams and goals we reach for

...Im not one to only see a price tag

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