New camera, more aquaponics photos

• Wannabe Farmstead

We finally bought a NAS, it’s living next to the router (which makes logical sense as it has to plug into the router). I’m currently copying all the music and photos onto it and will probably delete them off my computer as part of my cleanup process (moving a bunch of Stuff off the 250Gb ssd to the 2Tb sata).

Moving the iPhoto database was nice and easy (drag, hold down alt when opening iPhoto, selecting where the library had been moved to, delete the original file), and it kind of needed to go elsewhere as it’s 53Gb and going to blow out as I’m shooting RAW.

Moving the iTunes library was a bit more of a hassle. Dragged to new location, changed library reference is preferences, dumped original in bin, restarted to make sure all was good, it seemed to be, so I emptied the trash can. I think I missed the consolidation step (another reason to not do this when tired) so it had a huge cry about not having a libary to use. I “opened” the folder I’d moved and now all is well with the world.

The D5000 died on us, JJ was quite determined he was going to stick with film and never getting another digital camera as the thing had only been 2 years old when it stopped working, apparently afflicted by a known and common problem with the D5000s. The film camera bodies he has (F3 and F4) are still going strong and they’re relics from the 1980s.

I i nformed him that I needed a digital camera as I wanted to be able to blog photos shortly after taking them, not a month or so after we’d finished the roll of film and gotten around to getting it developed, and that I was going to buy one of those little point and shoot numbers that would fit in my cargo pockets.

He apparently couldn’t cope with the thought, so he bought me a Nikon D70.

It’s a new-to-us thing and came with a Sigma lens (though I’m going to swap it out for my favourite which is an 18-55 that came with the D5000 and JJ doesn’t think much of it) and a rather beat up old bag. I’m now on a quest for a bag that will haul the camera, my laptop, wallet, phone and some miscellany, and I’ve also finally been able to take more photos of the aquaponics setup.

Those two pictured growbeds are going nuts. All of them were going nuts but the other two got chicken ravaged when the plants got big enough to be noticed by the chickens from the ground, so they jumped up and helped themselves. We ate the rooster that was instigating the attacks on the plants and put up the bamboo thingies and haven’t had any problems since.

We finally got fish in the tanks. There are 49 rainbow trout (was 50 but one jumped out when we weren’t around when the covers got inadvertantly left up overnight), slightly more in one tank than the other.

Seeing as I’m on the food garden, this is JJ’s new rooster:

We called him Kiwi (thinking the All Blacks) as his wattles and comb were originally black as well, they’ve only just started trying to go red.

My slightly crazy Japanese bantam cross hen Daenerys managed to hatch out another clutch just before what passes for winter in Perth starts. Think our broody season is well and truly over now.

They’re walking between two of the squaponics tanks (with the growbeds on stands over them), they were headed toward me and changed direction when I moved a little too rapidly in my attempt to take a decent photo.

The veges from the system are pretty tasty. JJ and the kids finished prepping dirt gardens last weekend, including taking a trip out to The Mythical Farm of Legend to get more sheep manure. The raised bed out the front and the small side garden have both been planted, the one out the back (close to the aquaponics system) is probably going to get done this or next weekend.

Still waiting on honey from the bees, they didn’t make an excess again. Hopefully this summer. The colony looks like it’s doing very well.

It’s all happening, and we’re just settling into it being normal. Now all I have to do is sort out the rest of the house… :)

This work by ryivhnn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License