True Life and Fiction

My aquaponics adventure continues with the addition of fish to the system. The system is still cycling but, given my difficulty in finding a pure source of ammonia (outside of peeing in the fish tank) I've decided to switch to the cycling method using fish. I purchased forty little feeder goldfish - Comets, I think they're called - and brought them home to my awaiting 200 gallon tank. When I arrived home and checked the temperature of the water, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the recent temperature drop and approaching storms had dropped the tank to 68 degrees F. That was just outside the three degree limit of transplanting my little feeders coming from a tank that was about 72 degrees F. Using my hillbilly ingenuity, inherited through ages of cheapskates and country bumpkins in my family, I fashioned a makeshift heater from materials I had on hand. What does every Southerner have on hand? A turkey fryer, of course! Okay, so I'm not completely Southern yet...

Early strawberries I'm not Irish, but in the spirit of St. Patrick's day, I'm trying to turn my thumb green. A few months ago I posted about building a greenhouse for the Grandchildren so we could try our hand at growing winter vegetables. We had mixed results. We had a great little crop of onions but I didn't create a trellis for the peas in time and they produced only viney bushes. The greenhouse got so hot (even through winter) that the lettuce grew like wildfire. We harvested two heads before the rest of the plants bolted. Fish tank above ground Now, as promised, we're trying something new for this year. I've spent the winter gathering materials and knowledge to build an aquaponic garden. Of course, like everything else I attempt, I had to go cheap, so it's been a learning experience. Aquaponics is a hybrid of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (growing plants in water without soil) and can be quite enjoyable for geeks like me bec...

My son is serving in the military. He's deploying now for the first time to Afghanistan ... and I'm concerned. I guess now, for the first time in my life, the shoe is on the other foot. Being retired military myself, I've experienced my share of deployments. But back then, it was different, it was me deploying, not my only son. Of course, what I never gave thought to before was, I was someone else's only son. I never understood the heartache my family experienced when I left. For me, it was an adventure -- I was going someplace new without concern for my own mortality. It is amazing to me that one does not consider such things until it is a loved-one moving into harm's way. Maybe it was the military training. I was only concerned with completing the mission at the time. I knew that my family would be taken care of, should something happen to me. But what I was unaware of, was the emotional toll my leaving put upon them. Now, as I think about my son prepari...

W hile most of you (who are not writers) may not empathize with my plight, those who know me well enough will know that I write commercial fiction under a pen name. ... And yes, some of the material written under that pen name is for adults only, or at least those looking for paranormal romantic suspense with no holds barred or general erotica with the slightest hint of a plot. Anyway, I recently wrote a sequel to a paranormal romantic suspense (crime) novel that was rather risque. The sequel was not risque. In fact the story begins and ends with the main character assumed to still be a virgin. The sequel was pure paranormal romantic suspense that could be read by someone of any age, and it was a dismal flop. Well, maybe not a dismal flop, but a flop nonetheless. It would have been a dismal flop but it managed to sell one copy through one channel (Amazon) so far this month of January. After talking to some of my writer friends about this, I was convinced that, in no uncertain ter...

I had this unnatural urge to write this post as an update to the continuing gun control saga, but realized it would accomplish nothing. So, I've decided to write about something nearly everyone can relate to; something everyone suffers from, or suffers a lack of. We are now half-way through the first month of the new year. How many of you are still running toward your resolutions? I ran for a few minutes on January first, but then I got a cramp and I've been walking toe-to-heel ever since. It's not that I don't want to follow through on my self-induced commitments, I've just lost the push, the strength of conviction, the motivation. Motivation The word has its origins from the Latin word 'Mover' which means 'To move.' Think of it as proverbial carrot on a stick one might use to get a beast of burden to move forward. But, for people, or rather, individuals, there must be some other component. I studied motivation from a management perspectiv...