I wake around 0700. Coffee, writing, and solitude are the preferred elements of the first hour of my mornings no matter what corner of the world I’m in.
Home sweet home…
The rest of the morning goes to projects. I spent my first few weeks here fixing up old huts and caravans — replacing rotted pier foundations, patching leaky roofs and window seals, that sort of thing. Now I'm focused on getting the aquaponics system up and running.
It’s been a long time coming. Seven years ago Jack designed and built the thing at a previous location. It was disassembled and moved to the current spot here six years ago. Carlos dug a fine pit for the tanks a few years ago, and now my main project is to get it all put back together.
Aquaponics is the practice of combing aquaculture, raising fish for food, with hydroponics, growing plants in water. Waste flow from the fish tank becomes nutrient rich water for the plants, which clean the water so it can be recirculated back to the fish. The main inputs are sunlight (food for the plants), fish food (which can be grown or harvested on site), and a small amount of electricity to run the water pumps. The outputs are fish protein and vegetables.
This system is a reciprocating, or ebb-and-flow, aquaponics system, with a 1,000L fish tank and three grow beds. Ebb and flow systems use a mechanical device to 'flush' the grow beds once the water level rises to near the surface. This cyclical emptying and refilling of the grow beds keeps the roots and the water oxygenated, obviating the need for electromechanical aeration.
I'm prioritizing getting the system together enough so we can start running water through the system as quickly as possible. It takes some time to inoculate the growth medium with the proper bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite, and then nitrite to nitrate. I actually won't be here by the time fish can be introduced to the system.
By noon I knock off and go let the ducks out, then do my workout in the stand of pines behind my caravan while they forage for grubs in the garden. I'll do my first sit spot of the day here as well.
Then its time to light the fire (if it's not raining) and have lunch with everyone. We take turns cooking lunches and dinners. With only four of us, and Ludwig 'selling' his cooking duties most weeks, I cook dinner and lunch two or three times a week. My notebook is full of design sketches for the aquaponics system and recipes.
Every meal begins by expressing gratitude while holding a heartstone, a simple ritual that invites us to use our finest words. As we eat we share our 'stories of the day', typically observations from our sit spots but if we found something interesting while going about our work we'll discuss that as well.
This rock is very, very old.
Of particular interest to us is bird language and behavior. We'll carefully explain what we saw, and then give a guess as to what was going on, and ask questions (where do you think it was going? were there flowers? what state was the tide? were the other birds in baseline or ? what did you smell? which direction was the wind coming from?).
After the meal is our check-in. We do another round of gratitude, then a round where we express our physical and/or psychological state (energetic? mellow? stiff? relaxed? tense? what's been on our minds, anything we're dwelling on?) and our needs (to go take a walk in nature, to send that letter, to have a nice long sit spot, to pump the brakes on engagement in some area of our lives, to buck up and get that thing done, to get some solitude), and then we check the weather and discuss projects, new arrivals, and any other business of the Rock. This all takes ten or fifteen minutes with four people.
In the afternoon I typically do another couple hours on projects, then anything else I'm of a mind to do. A longer sit spot. Explore the Rock (I'm still finding new things here). Take a dip in the ocean. Go for a walk or a run. Write. Read in the library. Nap. Chat with friends.
Dinner is at 1900, kicked off with another round of gratitude (detecting a pattern yet?). We're eager to hear each others stories and nature observations. Sometimes our entire dinner conversation will be based around an observation of the behavior of one gannet out in the harbor, or working up theories about what the sparrow-hawks are up to and how that impacts the vibe of every creature on the Rock, or what caused the hollow squiggles in the shell Gareth found on the beach.
After dinner I might have a call with family, friends, or my mastermind group. Otherwise I light the woodstove in my caravan and read or zettelkasen some notes before turning in for the night. My caravan had a solar panel and battery, but a few days ago I stole the battery to connect to the electric fence that keeps the ducks safe. They need it more than I do, and I don’t miss it.