 
Sender: "Jon C. Slenk" 
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1993 16:25:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Jon C. Slenk" 
Subject: Fwd: Fish, work
To: +dlist+/afs/andrew/usr/js9b/Public/camc.dl@andrew.cmu.edu
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Message-ID: <749593503.25164.0@ccon.ucc.andrew.cmu.edu>


from bill...
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To: angst+@cmu.edu
Subject: Fish, work
From: wce@hogbbs.scol.pa.us (Bill Eichman)
Comments: Validated
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Date: 	Sat, 2 Oct 1993 11:55:17 -0400
Organization: The Heart of Gold BBS, Lemont PA

Hi, All,

Interesting articles on Earthships and aqua/agri-culture, Jesse; Thanks
for typing them in. (I hope I'm remembering everything right...;-} ).

I gather the earthships approach has been getting a good amount of
attention in the southwest these days. Dennis Weaver, the actor, has
appeared in the media in a number of places extolling the virtues of the
earthship's type house that he built and calls home. It sure seems like a
good use for old tires. I'll have to get the Earthships-related books
and articles, and show them to some of the building code types here in
Pa; I suspect that the laxer codes in the wide open west make it easier
to build unconventional structures like these, but it would be a
pleasant surprise to discover that they would be legal to build here in
the northeast. The high-mass approach is one that I think is very sound
almost everywhere in this country.

If the pictures and drawing I've seen are any indication, the $40,000
houses they are describing are quite large and well furnished--
equivalent to a $150,000 house here in the northeast and a $500,000
house in many urban areas. Building a cottage type house for $5000+
should be very possible using their techniques-- though, as someone with
extensive construction experience, I have to say, don't kid yourself, it
will be a back-breaking amount of work.

First you have to get the land.

Aquaculture is such an important element for community-building; I wish
I could arrange to study it more thouroughly. I'm really hoping to run
into some sort of self-made or otherwised experienced aquaculture
expert, and to convince him or her to take on a position that allows
them to help us with community-building. The reading I've done, and the
few small experiments I've been involved with, indicate to me that it
can be an exacting craft. When it goes well, it can go very well, anfd
very easily-- but raising fish under those crowded artificial conditions
can lead to very quickly destructive problems with disease, water
chmistry, and much more.

Raising tilapia in indoor pools is very interesting-- but I also like
the idea of managing outdoor ponds for maximum fish yield. I got a
catolog a few month's ago, from an ad in Successful Farmer magazine,
devoted to this type of fish farming. It was very impressive.

If you have flat or gently sloping land available, the type of "pond one
year, field the next" approach to aqua-agriculture that Mike Romano
mentions can be one of the most productive ways of using outdoor land
for food raising known to humans. Sailwing type windmills can pump water
from pond to pond when drainage is needed, and also be used the rest of
the year to spray water into the air in the filled ponds, aerating the
water, cleansing it of toxins, and increasing the number of fish per
cubic feet which can comfortably thrive in the ponds.

Ponds like these will probably need a "hatchery house" where breeder
fish are kept in a protected environment in the winter, and healthy
fingerling fish are produced to 'seed' the ponds every spring. Better
yet, our aquaculture experts can develop strains of fish adapted to the
varying loacal regions, which could survive year round; though in many
cases a "breeder pond", much deeper than the shallow field ponds, and
protected from winter's harshness, is all that is needed.

All this assumes that people in the communities will want to raise
animals for food, which will be true in some cases, but not so in
others. Unlike chickens or ducks for eggs, or cows and goats for milk,
fish raising inherently requires the killing of the animal to get the
protein.

------------

Things continue to go well with the new developments, and the organic
vegetarian restaurant project, here in State College. There have been
delays in selling the business that Joe S, the restaurant money-man, has
been operating for the past seventeen years-- but these delays are only
to be expected, and they won't impact the restaurant except to delay the
opening date. I've spent the past week negotiating with the new buyers.

Now, in a sense, there's nothing to do but "hurry up and wait"; deal
with all the hassles and problems that always crop up when engaged in a
business project lke this, and step-by-step work towards the central
goals.

This past week I've also been engaged in shopping for the new computer--
a 486 dx2/66 box with a gig HD, video accelerator, 17 inch color and 21
inch mono monitors, bernoulli, etc, etc,; running unix, windows, and
dos. If all goes as planned, I should have it in a week or two. I'll
need to get a few more phone lines run into the house, so that joe and i
can get into the system remotely (and, while I'm at it, to add a second
line to my bbs).

Jon, how many megs does the CAMC archive take up? What are the chances
you can fit it on a floppy or two? I'd rather not ftp it, if I can ask
you to mail me floppys containing the archive, to store on my bbs.

Later, Bill
	   ---------------+--------------------+--------------
	   angst+@cmu.edu   robotics institute   everything is
	   jon slenk         carnegie mellon        disclaimed
			      pittsburgh pa

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