One of my goals in life is to learn a new skill each year to help keep me from getting into a rut and keep my mind young. Learning a new skill is more than information gathering, it is gathering information and organizing it and learning how to “do” something significant with the organized information.

My new skill this year is aquaponics. Raising fish and using the water the fish are in to raise plants in, plants that you can eat. I built a greenhouse, put a 300 gallon tank in it that I mostly buried to raise the Tilapia in, and built racks that hold 55 plastic barrels cut in half length wise to raise the plants in. Today I got everything plumbed. Water is pumped from the fish tank to the grow beds which are filled with 3/4 inch gravel, when the half barrels are full of water a syphon starts that drains the water back into the fish tank, and the cycle continues. The water is filtered in the gravel and the plants grow in the gravel fertilized by the fish poop.

I felt quite proud of myself when the whole system worked like a charm today when I finished. Next step is some fish and then I will plant my garden.  Man was created by God to conquor and learn and grow, but often we just hibernate or tread water. We have to choose to do something new, to learn something new, to try something that is a challenge. The older we get the more important it is. It is a choice, a goal.