Tardyviking Hatfield

The place was a business which sold old barn stuff.  Like an antique store.  They were not raising rabbits, they had typical koi pond vegetation growing in the pond.  I was assuming that one could find a water plant that would be a good source of food source for rabbits.  My idea was mostly based on keeping the temp down and it seemed like food for the critters would be a good secondary function of the setup.  Just brainstorming here . .  .how about feeding the rabbits with pond plants, feeding the worms with rabbit manure and feeding the fish in the pond with the worms.  Make multiple uses from the system.  Again, I really don't know much abut what I am talking about, just brainstorming. 

Brice, your grandfather sounds like a man Iwoould like to know.  So few people on our road here.  Might be able to sell some eggs.  When the pullets start laying this year I might give it a try.

We have had a heat wave here in Northern cal for the past week.  Yesterday I visited an establishment with the following setup.  Pond with fish and waterfall and plants growing in it.  This pond was inside a shaded structure which was made out of an old rusty tractor on the south side and a canopy made from one of those Army camo netting drop things.  I don't exactly know what they are called but it is  not a tarp, not a net, sort of in between.  It was at least ten degrees cooler in there. The cammo drop Thing was huge.  if you could find one, and build a pond with a thermal mass (Rocks) to the south you could get the temp down in there and grow food for the rabbits in the pond . Electrical need is pretty small for a pond pump.

We have an insane amount of miners lettuce cropping up this year.  I'll post pics soon.  I will make good on my offer to send seeds. . . Just maybe need some suggestions on how to harvest them.

Being two is not so bad either.  When you've got the ride and some chickens to chase, life is good. 

It's good to be five years old.

I am in Northern California near Sacramento.  I'll probably do some real small scale testing tiles first so as not to "contaminate" too much clay.  I'll make tiles of the same size/dimension and each tile will have a different measure of coffee in it.  I'll see how well they dry ..  .how they stand up to firing, what kind of strength and porosity that they have.  If anything looks promising, then I'll try to build some structures to hold water.  If you have ever worked with clay before then you can understand how it can be a messy process.  I'd imagine that once the wheel and water got exposed to coffee grinds  then it'd be difficult to clean up the mess.  I'll test on a small scale first. . . .because my studio is always immaculately clean-lol.  Sounds fun though.  Firing will be with an electric kiln.  Someday I plan on building a wood fired kiln . . .and then it's going to be a choice for the wood around here between heating the house, building Hugel beds and feeding the kiln.  I already know that feeding the kiln will win out every time.   Put on a jacket if you are cold kids!!!  Hugel beds are cool but . . .firing the kiln is way cooler than that. 

btw . . .I just realized that I have some terra cotta in the studio.  I'll do some test fires with varying degrees of coffee grounds ( I have plenty of those too )  I'll post pics.  It should be fun.  I only fire my kiln about once every few months though, so it might take some time before I can build enough stuff to fill the thing again. 

The trick with organic material is to heat the kiln very very slowly, which is easy with an electric kiln, but difficult if you are firing with wood, or whatever.