Completing the circle

[TwoCrows]

Thank you TwoCrows! Live Long and Propser!

Edited to add that I am stealing your ED quote, not for my signature but for a friend who is currently wondering about my sudden retirement and redirect after the passing of my mom.

She was a great person who spent her life helping rescues of all kinds, she worked on and chaired the Montgomery County Animal Shelter in AR and turned it from kill to no-kill. She rescued her last love Chrissy (a pomeranian, who was chained with 1 inch tow chain to a fence) in a raging downpour at age 75, bolt cutter and an old lady, WATCH OUT! LOL

Right before she passed, she told me to walk gently on this earth and care for it wisely. I absolutely have to honor that wish.

Peace.

You are fabulous!!

Yes we are all stewards of the Earth. What we do to it, we do to ourselves. We are SO interconnected with everything.

Enjoy your journey in life!

 

[lazy gardener]

Welcome Patrick. Check out our gardening threads. Glad to have you among us!

 

[sourland]

Patrick, joining here you are half way 'home' already. Welcome to BYC.

 

[Birdinhand]

Thank you. Chickens are on my list of must haves (barnvelders and welsummers) so never fear we will cross paths again...Ducks are just coming first, I have a pond to fill...lol

I've got a lot of projects going (aquaponics, and pond-ponics) but they are all staged so that it has a better chance of succeeding (problems, failures, hiccups are expected but will be overcome..lol).

I have been studying micro-farming for the last two years and now it is time to move forward.

thanks again for the cheery welcome at this late hour!

this is awesome, we had a go an a fish room, bread fancy guppies for a while. we catch our rainwater in a 4,000 gallon catchment system with the overflow going to a rain garden, we bio-remediate the runoff from our street to the rain garden, bypassing the catchment and have diverted what used to be a small stream of storm run off from the storm drains to the rain garden where it gets absorbed back into the ground and cleaned. we have solar and are working on a zero net energy home with electric cars... and chickens of course. we have 6 egg layers and grow out about 70 meat birds a year for a family of 4. welcome to BYC, you are in good company here!

 

[Birdinhand]

I was a Manufacturing Engineer and later Director of IT for most of my career, so I have a penchant for systems and the whole idea of synergy in nature on a micro level has always been fascinating to me, so happy to be back in the one system that is programmed by someone greater than me.

Good Morning!

I'm an acupuncturist/East Asian Medicine Practitioner. whole systems design is one of my passions. I grew up with a bit of a back to earther dad who was into bio-domes, ecovillages and bio-dynamic agriculture. I built a bio-dome like planted aquarium and attached snake vivarium that is heated by the waste heat from the LED lights and heavily insulated to retain heat overnight. the plants are fed mostly from the waste from the fish. our waste stream is probably the most **closed** loop system, we feed about 1,000 lbs of grain a year to our meat birds, they produce a lot more than that in compost, which goes into our insulated jaroform composter and 3-4 weeks later, black rich soil comes out, which gets mixed into our garden. scraps from our garden/food prep go into the composter as well. all the tree trimmings and such end up in the bio-swayel where they help make it boggy, we hope to have a soggy bog some day for wet land plants that are especially good at breaking down the toxic runoff from the street. If I wasn't living in the city, we'd probably be experimenting with composting toilets. we have tuns of fruit trees to, some espalier and hoping to see some substantial harvests as they mature.

our dryer is ductless heat pump, it produces a small amount of moist warm air which is sucked up by our heat pump hot water heater, it's kind of magical.

 

[MrsMistyReal]

Welcome aboard to BYC family gr8 people tons of information loads of fun, enjoy

 

[Patrick McKee]

Patrick, joining here you are half way 'home' already. Welcome to BYC.

Thank you sourland, I already feel it.

 

[Patrick McKee]

I'm an acupuncturist/East Asian Medicine Practitioner. whole systems design is one of my passions. I grew up with a bit of a back to earther dad who was into bio-domes, ecovillages and bio-dynamic agriculture. I built a bio-dome like planted aquarium and attached snake vivarium that is heated by the waste heat from the LED lights and heavily insulated to retain heat overnight. the plants are fed mostly from the waste from the fish. our waste stream is probably the most **closed** loop system, we feed about 1,000 lbs of grain a year to our meat birds, they produce a lot more than that in compost, which goes into our insulated jaroform composter and 3-4 weeks later, black rich soil comes out, which gets mixed into our garden. scraps from our garden/food prep go into the composter as well. all the tree trimmings and such end up in the bio-swayel where they help make it boggy, we hope to have a soggy bog some day for wet land plants that are especially good at breaking down the toxic runoff from the street. If I wasn't living in the city, we'd probably be experimenting with composting toilets. we have tuns of fruit trees to, some espalier and hoping to see some substantial harvests as they mature.

our dryer is ductless heat pump, it produces a small amount of moist warm air which is sucked up by our heat pump hot water heater, it's kind of magical.

That sounds incredible! You have inspired me as that is what I want to try and accomplish, a closed system, with minimal outside input.

Thank you for the ideas.

 

[Freisian]

You are living my dream, enjoy it it sounds wonderful, I am also slowly (in a very small way) slipping back to my rural roots after 30 years and love it. Welcome from England to a fabulous BYC community of interesting and knowledgeable folk.

 

[Teila]

G’Day from down under Patrtick Welcome You Are, Enjoy You Must!

I am not a geek! I work as Triage on a Help Desk, married to a Developer and have one son, also a Developer.

I also hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun.

If you would like to share Pictures and Stories of your flock, you have come to the right place. BYC’ers never tire of these and do not back away slowly or commence eye rolling when the photo album or home videos come out