My first Aquaponics System - part 2

Our first spinach came in on it's 4th day in the tank!!!

Seems like it's too soon to do an update on our AP system since it's still technically within a week of starting it, but since we had to spread out when we bought various parts and we only work on it when it's cool out, it's taken us about a week to build it. This is Phoenix, AZ it still reaches triple digits some days in October. It's also really exciting right now, because our plants are sprouting up as you can see to the left here with our first tiny spinach sprouting up.

So part 2 is mostly about us finishing the building process of a simple and somewhat theoretical AP System I had in mind, which is to use the floating raft technique but with an IBC container type system. I don't know how well this system will hold up and to how many fish, but we will see. I planned to cycle the system for about a week with just plants before putting fish in it, so we do not yet have our catfish, but that's OK because it is giving me time to call around town and see who has the best price on catfish, or decide if I should buy them online and pay for shipping.

6 inch air stone disk under the large raft

So what did we do to since my last post? Bought and added water conditioner, sea weed, a working thermometer, 1 six inch and 1 5 inch flat disk shaped air rock for under the rafts, 25 feet of black air hose and a 2 outlet air pump meant for a smaller tank which will eventually be moved indoors to our 60 gallon tank, 2 gadgets to prevent water flowing backward into the air pump since it's slightly lower than water height, some fish pond water conditioner, and some sea weed to start cycling the system. Carlie found another extension cord and a lamp/appliance timer we had laying around the house.

I also bought a book called The Wonder of Aquaponics on my Nook for just over $4 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wonder-of-aquaponics-rosemarie-r-mosquera/1106244133?ean=2940013330429 Whereas the book I mentioned in my previous post was more expensive than I could afford at this time, around $20, but after I get my next check I'll probably pick that up too later. Or maybe I'll stop in at the local library and check it out... I just feel that having it on my Nook is better because then I have it whenever I need to look something up. The $4 is a good introductory book and the other one is more in depth.

We moved a table over near the tank and plugged the air pump into the new extension cord which reached over there easily. Some day I still plan to make the whole system run off solar, but for now we're running it off the power in our house. The Air pumps we have running 24/7. You can see the larger air stone in this photo. I would have liked to buy 2 this size, but the store only had one so the other is a bit smaller. They are aerating the water right under the plants, and the bubbles are moving air right up to the plants which I was advised is important for raft systems like mine.

moved the hose up out of the water to prevent backflow

We'd like to put the water pump on a timer so that it's not running constantly all day long in order to use a bit less electricity. But the hose was previously down under the water because I wasn't sure how strong the pressure would be and I didn't want it just sparying everywhere. What I didn't realize, is that when the pump is off, the water follows gravity and flows back down the house. Yes, that makes sense of course, just hadn't thought about it.

So yesterday I unplugged the pump which is pumping water from the lower tank and moved the hose so that it is no longer under the water, but is pumping the water out into the air which then lands in the tank creating a small amount of aeration, and making it so that no water will flow backwards into the lower tank when the pump is off, allowing me to (theoretically) turn that pump off periodically and save some electricity. I waited to see how well this worked out, and even with the slight drip we have coming from the middle of the top tank, the water in the top tank was only an inch or two lower which means that it's just sitting there for a time, and not circulating, but the air bubbles up there are still moving the water around, so it's not likely to go stagnant just briefly.

Air Pump is working!

We waited to see how long it would stay that way and the answer apparently was indefinitely because the drip from the middle of the top tank slowed and eventually stopped when the water level in the top went down almost 2 inches. So I set the timer to run for 30 minutes every hour and a half, plugged the timer into the extension cord and it instantly turned off. It happened to be during a time that the timer was set to be off, so I thought nothing of it, but this morning when I went out to check on things the air pump was going strong but the water pump was still off. I checked and it was during a time that the timer said the pump should be working, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was human failure, not gadget failure. And yes indeed, I had forgotten to set the timer to timer, it was still on the off position. So to test it I turned it to the on position, the pump started, and turned it to off and the pump stopped. Reset it to timer now, so hopefully it will start being  a bit more automated, and over time we'll see if it's cycling the water well enough.

Rainbow Chardling (just one tiny leaf)

Finally, I tore up some seaweed and put it in the top tank to dissolve. Yes, we have no fish yet, it's not meant to be fish food, it is meant to start cycling the fish tank so beneficial bacteria will grow and allow the plants to clean the ammonia and such the fish put off out of the water so that when the water pump I spent time tinkering with will pump the ammonia tainted water from the fish tank up into the plant bed and then the water will get cleaned by the plants and gravity will eventually take the water back out the drain holes and over into the fish tank further aerating the water for the fish below. If I do end up keeping feeder fish up in the top tank, I can feed them sea weed up there and whatever bits they don't eat will dissolve and become extra nourishment for the plants. Speaking of plants, Carlie noticed that we had another new plant yesterday, Check it out, our first rainbow chard is sprouting! This morning I went back out there and the sea weed was starting to dissolve so I broke it up a bit more with my fingers, and I discovered that we already had a second Rainbow Chard Sprout just 1 day later.

Realized the water in the lower tank was about 76 degrees at 9:30 AM today. I'm going to keep an eye on the temperatures at different times of day and night compared to the outside temperature, and decide if I'm going to need to build a small green house and/or add a heating element this winter. Hopefully not since catfish are said to be hardy through a more varying temperature, but if all else fails I could always bring the bulk of the fish indoors for the winter since winter in Phoenix is so short. This reminds me, I think I'll get a book for logging temperature, and various things that change with the system so I can look back over time and see what happens. It's like a home science kit, and I'm having fun tinkering with it.

At this point I plan for some blue channel catfish to live in the lower tank because they tend to do fine with temperature changes to the water, and eventually we plan to add some Tilapia down there too once our brief winter is over and the temperatures are stable at a warm enough temp for Tilapia to be healthy. I'm also going to put some prawns in there to help keep the tank clean. I've considered raising feeder fish for the Catfish up in the top tank, but haven't put this into motion yet obviously. I am going to buy some goldfish today or tomorrow and get them set up there to try it out and continue cycling the system, then when the catfish are big enough some of the goldfish who live through the initial trials could be put in the lower tank as feeder fish.

Once it's all built and regulated I suspect I'll spend a lot less time on it. If the book I'm reading is right the only things I'll need to do at that point is spend a couple minutes a day feeding fish, possibly dealing with bugs now and then, and occasionally checking the water's PH. Some people I know who do Aquaponics farming on a small backyard scale, do not check PH, they go by the way the water looks and the fish act. I'm still debating between methods. If I find a cheap water testing kit maybe I'll go that route, but the ones I've seen are pretty expensive, and I'm trying to keep the cost down. Speaking of costs, I think that getting an above ground pool off craigslist is probably the best bet for an easy, off the shelf, low cost system and allows more space for raising fish AND growing plants. I just didn't have a space in my backyard that was big enough which we were willing to give up to a whole pool for Aquaponics. But I see them on craigslist periodically and all people want is someone willing to move the thing out of their yard. Free pool plus the cost of gas is a GOOD price to start an aquaponics system. Maybe some day I'll go that route if we decide we want to expand. For now, we're happy tinkering with our IBC unit.

Found out there will be a big Halloween shindig at the GardenPool.org and talked to Carlie about it. We'll be signing up for that. The cost is 5 cans of food each which will go to those who need it more than us, and in exchange we'll get to learn about Black Soldier Fly colonies (for fish that feed off the top) and raising duckweed plus have the opportunity to pick up a black soldier fly colony starter kit and some starter duckweed which I'm hoping will grow on the top of the lower tank providing some cover/shade/hiding spots for the catfish, as well as food for the tilapia. Also from what I've heard the Tilapia will teach the catfish to move up to the top and eat so they may end up eating the duckweed as well since they're a fish that eats both creatures and plants.

Next steps for us:
Get some goldfish to test the system and eventually to be feeder fish for the catfish
Get red wiggler worms (to eat excess produce, use their poop in our traditional gardening, and feed some to the catfsih now and then)
Set up a worm tower to replace or supplement our current composter
Set up indoor Aquaponics system and start fishless cycling
Visit the local feed store and see if they have fish food that would be appropriate for the catfish
Get catfish fry
Get tilapia fry
Get Duckweed started

Aquaponics

Growing our own food in Arizona is totally doable, but a challenge. The best way many people in Laveen have found is to flood irrigate. Which they say actually uses less water than the drip systems, but which still uses quite a bit of water. I looked around and discovered a lot of people having really great results with aquaponics. So far I've mostly been studying about aquaponics from a distance, but this weekend we made a concerted effort to get some things set up and growing. Of course this means everything I say here should be taken as me thinking my system through. Take it with a grain of salt please, and I will keep taking photos and posting them as we continue setting things up and see how they work out.

Aquaponics is when you utilize the water fish are living in to water plants, and the plants clean the water which you then put back into the fish pond, tank, etc. There are many variations on this theme, but that's the basics. There are some very good sites and articles online, and some decent books to read on the subject. Once I'd read all I felt I could take in, I needed to get more hands on and look at real life systems that were working to grow food people were actually eating. I've been fortunate enough to find some good meet-ups in the area which allowed me to see a variety of systems and decide which route we'd like to try here.

There's another aspect to Aquaponics that I'd like to include, which is fish food. You can grow duckweed and you can even raise red wigglers both of which can be fed to nile tilapia, one of the popular fish to raise in Phoenix since it is normally so hot around here. If done right, it can be a pretty complete system, so that theoretically you wouldn't really need to even buy fish food.

Of course I'm starting my tanks in the cooler time of year simply because that's when Carlie and Patch had vacation time together, so we decided to have a stay-cation and work on our sustainability efforts at home. Today we bought a 55 gallon food grade plastic barrel cut in 1/2 for grow beds, and a large IBC water tote with the top cut off so the bottom becomes a large fish tank and the top becomes the grow bed area.

Now I am left with a bit of a conundrum, and trying to decide will I heat the water, or start off with one type of fish that is good in the cold and larger, then move on to tilapia after it warms up again. Now, it's still in the 100's during most days here, don't get me wrong. Fall in Laveen, Arizona is not that chilly. But the water needs to be around 70 degrees for the tilapia to be happy, and in a couple months it will be hard to keep it that temperature without heating the water.

I've thought of a few ways to deal with this. I have thought of pumping the water from the tank up to the plants, then collecting the water the flows out of the tank in a black pipe which curves around in the sun warming the water and eventually puts it back into the tank. Basically a solar water heater specially built for the tank. That would allow me to keep tilapia in warmer water, but I might still need to heat the water for part of the year. It seems to me, it would be easier to just start with a fish that does better in cooler water, and then when it starts getting too hot for that fish, eat the cold water fish, and switch off to tilapia. After all, we're talking about raising food here. Not just the plants, but some of the meat, in this case fish. I'm thinking perhaps trout, or something which we might be able to also keep inside year round. More investigation is necessary.

In the beginning we don't have to start with fish in the tank, so we can actually put the plants in first, and get the water flowing properly and work on sorting out that part of the system first, then add the fish later. We'd like to have our system up and running before Patch and Carlie go back to work.

We've decided to have 2 Aquaponics tanks. One in the living room since we already had a fish tank in there, and one in the backyard in a semi shady area. When the hot part of the year hits, we may need to bring some shade cover in for the back yard tank like these guys did, but we may not. We'll see how it goes.

Inside we're using a 60 gallon fish tank to hold the fish and water, and a 55 gallon food grade plastic barrel which has been cut in half to hold hydroponic medium, plants, and possibly some red wigglers. Outside we're using an IBC tote with the top sliced off. The bottom is the fish tank, and the top is where the plants go. We could put hydroponic medium (rocks or clay balls) up there, but that's pretty expensive so we decided to fill the top with water and float a piece of foam with holes in it on top, and then put the plants in small cups poking through the foam. We'll see how that goes! More pics coming soon.

Tiny Living, Big Home

I have been a tiny home admirer for some time. Some would even call me an enthusiast. I dream of living on my own property in a tiny house, with a creek or river or some body of water nearby, trees, and an aquaponics system/vertical farm. Obviously my loved ones are there and somehow we have the ability to live off grid and have it be sustainable. I call it our Sustainable Sanctuary and we talk about it as our home where we will vacation and retire, but I'd love it at any time, like NOW. Sometimes we jokingly call it "The place we'll go when zombies attack" but it's always somewhere in the future or fantasy land. This year has been slightly different, in that it moved into reality zone for Patch and Carlie, and we realized we are all on the same page, they just had not realized how doable it actually is.

We still talk about it as vacation/retirement plans, but it's a real plan that we are working towards, rather than a nebulous hope. When I started this blog, I set about focusing on the present and how I could live more simply in the hear and now. In my current situation it's not possible to up and move onto a little cabin in the woods. Tho we do love going to Christopher Creek and such whenever possible, we don't live there. We live in a big house in Laveen, AZ right across the street from farms and ranches we enviously drool over but don't have the funds for, nor really have the knowledge to run anyway.

This morning I woke up with a bright idea. Why not ask Carlie if she'd like to switch rooms? I have been wanting to simplify my life. And I have begun doing so to some extent. The next major step for me is organizing my closet and paring down. Carlie has been living and working out of a 10 x 13 room in the house, and feels a bit cramped in there between her office and her bed. 10 x 13 is larger than some people's tiny houses, but it's not set up in the same wonderful way and part of that cramped feeling is in my opinion really due to set up, but that's another story for another blog post. Carlie feeling cramped in her room already is one reason Patch and Carlie are doubtful we could happily live in a tiny home situation, even if they had their own little hobbit holes. And if we tried moving right now to something like that, yes it would be very difficult. It makes more sense to get used to living more simply first.

Rather than being frustrated with our current living situation being unsustainable and my family not being ready to change our situation, I decided to focus on how I personally can live more simply in our current home. I asked for a solar oven for my birthday whether it was home made or purchased *crossing my fingers hopefully* and today I asked to switch rooms and pare down. Now the real fun begins. Cleaning house, and switching rooms!

 I can hear some of the gears in brain boxes screeching to a halt. "WAIT WAIT WAIT... the fun is cleaning house and switching rooms?" Well, yes and no. Let me explain. When I was a young child we lived in a small bungalow within biking distance of the beach. (Probably where my love of living near water comes from) When my sister was born, my parents moved us to the foothills of LA where we lived in much larger house on larger plot of land, gardened, shared fruits and vegetables with wonderful neighbors, and had a rather idealic childhood. The memory I have of this house, and it is probably a false one, is that my room was HUGE! It seemed cavernous, especially as it was a jack and jill room with my sister and that curtain that sometimes seperated the rooms was usually open. One would think bigger is better, because that is what our culture teaches us, but that is where I started having recurring nightmares. Around the 5th grade we moved to Irvine, CA where my parents bought a condo with a small easy to care for yard (mom was tired of gardening) and a sewing room which they turned into my room. They figured my sister needed to spread out, and I really didn't. And they were right.

In college I lived in the dorms, shared rooms in apartments, couch surfed for a while after the big 94 earthquake in Northridge, and then lived in a closet. Not metaphorically, but actually had my bed and dresser in the closet. My roommate used one wall as her closet and the rest was my room. It was a decent sized walk in closet and about the size of the room I had in Irvine. I actually loved it, because it was like a little bear den. My cave if you will. I have always enjoyed huddling up in the corner of the couch, cocooning myself under my blankets, curling up in the nook of a tree branch, or wrapping myself in a hammock. People often compared me to a cat.

Tumbleweed & Interior

Perhaps this is why tiny homes appeal to me. This may make me sound a bit OCD, but I also like the way everything has it's place and there is no room for disorder. In Irvine I had loved the Ikea furniture my Dad and I build which fit perfectly into the corner of the room giving me a bed which also was a bookshelf and had a desk attached. When I lived in the dorms we fit 2 people into a small cube of a room with 2 beds, 2 floor to ceiling closets, 2 small dressers, and 2 desks plus a tiny fridge and a hot plate. It was like Legos. I like the creativity required for living in small spaces. On the opposite end of the scale, my current room is so huge that it has left me feeling a bit lost. I've left it in disarray and it's stressful. I step on things, trip on things, and lose things in there. It's huge and I feel like I have to add more stuff to fill the huge space. So why not downsize my room? Carlie was feeling cramped, I was feeling lost in space, sounds like the perfect idea right?

Thankfully when I shared my idea with her, she agreed. I am so grateful to have Patch and Carlie in my life, and I just want us all to be happy, healthy, and thriving in whatever lives we have. So it made me really happy to know that I can thank her for all she's done in my life by giving her the space she wants, while simultaneously allowing myself to simplify my life and downsize. She had previously not been open to the idea, but said that now that she understands that having more space does not make me happier, and that switching rooms is mutually beneficial, she is happy about it. I suspect living in a smaller space will be much more peaceful even if it's surrounded by a large home. I am very excited at this new prospect and look forward to redecorating as cheaply, beautifully, and sustainably as possible. I have some ideas in mind already about reclaiming wood... I may try sleeping in a hammock and see if it's as comfortable as I remember in which case we would be moving the bed into the guest room and giving the futon to a friend in need.

 Now the question is, do I take the 100 item challenge and pare down to just 100 things in the room, or do I just pare down randomly and see where it goes? We will see. Tomorrow Carlie and I will begin deciding what to move first, which items can wait to be moved next weekend, and what will not be moved at all (will she use my furniture and I use hers?) I am looking forward to the adventure!

Tiny House Build on Tiny Podcast

I have been a tiny house enthusiast for some time. We considered building one in our backyard as a mother in law's cottage, but decided it was not the best plan for our particular situation. Plus it would basically add space to our already larger than necessary house which would add to the electricity and water bill. Really, what we would love to do is build one that is mobile, and be able to take vacations in it for now, and possibly retire off grid in it some day. Or as we like to playfully say, if the zombies ever strike, we'll have a mobile tiny home to live in.

Due to my interest in tiny homes, I have found some great websites but for today I'm going to focus in on one specifically, and that is Tiny r(E)volution. The man behind Tiny r(E)volution, Andrew Odom, has been pretty good about setting up an easy to use internet presence. He runs a blog/website, a community to chat about tiny houses on Facebook under the same name, and a 30 minute podcast which is like a perfect snack of goodness. I also really love their website which shows the process and budget the Odoms are using to build their own tiny home. You can find them at:
http://www.tinyrevolution.us
http://www.twitter.com/andrewodom
http://www.facebook.com/tinyrev

Today's Tiny r(E)v podcast can be found at  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-tiny-revolution/2012/06/28/tiny-revolution-and-the-tiny-house-world-episode-4  where he talked with the Schwarz brothers about their tiny house building project. They will be building a tiny off grid house and then taking it to Burning Man for the thousands of people there to look at and fall in love with. Their goal it seems, is not only to live off grid, but also to show other people how easy it is to build your own tiny home. You can check out their Kickstarter for the project at  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1291194015/schwarz-tiny-house-and-our-journey-to-burning-man and remember you can contribute anything from $1 on up. I went for the $7 pledge for now and in thanks they will send me a bumper sticker which I will put on my recumbent trike since I don't drive. I promise to post a photo of that when the sticker arrives.

One of the reasons I was excited to hear about this, is that I have been considering starting a kickstarter project for a tiny home and garden. Actually, I have been bouncing this idea around with a local non profit for some time as an idea for their backyard. That may still happen at some point in the future, but then yesterday I ran across an ad on Craigslist of all places for a tiny plot of land right up the street from me in Laveen, AZ. It is 25 x 60 feet, and would be perfect to build a vertical aquaponics system for growing food to help cut down on the cosst of living, or perhaps set up as a community garden with a caretaker's cottage/tiny home on it. I will be taking a look at the property tomorrow to see if it would work for such a project. It sounds to me like it would be perfect for a Bare Simplicity test site on which I could work with neighbors and a local school to learn about aquaponics and vertical gardening, and living off grid. I will let you know if one of these tiny house projects gets off the ground and keep you updated here.

In the mean time, I wish the Schwarz brothers all the best on their project and thank you Andrew for introducing me to it! What I really love is their reasoning behind the project, which is the love of getting back to simplicity. I am looking forward to seeing how their Kickstarter project comes out! Because as they say at Tiny r(E)v, one can not only survive, but truly thrive in a tiny house.  And if you haven't checked them out yet, enjoy the podcast archives!  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-tiny-revolution

Cleaning House - A Change of Mindset

Every weekend Carlie seems to pick a project or two to do around the house. Sometimes I requests things of her, sometimes she comes up with them on her own. Recently, at my request, she moved something out of my room because it was not being used, and just took up space. But there were things that were propped against, on and under that thing which were suddenly exposed. The kittens decided it was a wonderful play ground, and mess escaped it's little nook and took over 3/4 of my bedroom. Every time I walked around my bedroom I thought, I should ask Carlie to help me organize that stuff. Some of it could be put away, other stuff was trash or could be donated. This past weekend, she took it on without being asked. I appreciate that about her. Sometimes she knows just what I'm needing help with before I even think to talk to her about it. Picking things up from the floor is difficult for me because it triggers my vertigo and I sometimes end up on the floor with whatever I was trying to pick up, but I would LIKE to be able to pick things up by myself, so i kept putting off asking for the help. I'm grateful my room is clean.

When I noticed it and thanked her, it also reminded me of some other things we'd been needing to discuss. We talked about how we really need to change our mindset about finances. Living more from the perspective Patch lives from, less from the one we tend to have, which is money in, money out. Instead, we plan to live on more of a budget. (and move towards living on a tighter budget) We also talked a bit about consumerism and changing our mindset to more of a what can we do/make ourselves, and do we really NEED that? We will see how it goes. Step by step!

By the way, I finally took the Pinterest plunge. Here's my Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/baresimplicity/

Simplifying My Life

Some people have asked me why the blog "Bare Simplicity" and my introductory post to this blog may answer your questions, http://baresimplicity.blogspot.com/2012/06/introduction-simpler-life.html but in case it does not, let me try to sum it up briefly. I feel that I have bought into a lifestyle over the years which has not always brought me the joy and peace that I want in my life.

Don't get me wrong, I am generally happy. I have a loving family, pets we enjoy, and a neighborhood that is working to build community, unlike many these days which are just groupings of people who don't even wave as they pass on the street. But I find that many parts of the American Dream we have clung to do not fit me and my family as well as we expected. Our eyes were too big for our tummy.

I'm not complaining oh woe is me, I have too much. I have simply realized that some things are not a necessary part of having a happy life. And sometimes trying to keep those things means we spend money on things we don't need just to fill our too big "McMansion" as some have come to call the suburban cookie cutter homes we've been sold. Sometimes we find ourselves lacking the funds to pay our bills. We are living outside our means, which is truly not sustainable.

Rather than dreaming of some day when are no longer running like rats in a maze to reach some dream other people say we should have, we have decided to start paring down NOW. To simplify our lives. I highly recommend the above link, it was what inspired me to realize that although in some ways we had already started doing so, there is so much more that we can do right now in this moment to simplify our lives, and so I started this blog to keep track of the steps we are taking along the way.

Recently I came across a link which also sums it up pretty well for those who don't want to read through The Simpler Way Report: http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/The-Simpler-Way-Report-12a.pdf The shorter read would be 21 Easy Hacks to Simplify Your Life:  http://zenhabits.net/21-easy-hacks-to-simplify-your-life/

Big House, Big Solar

The landlord has decided to splurge for solar from http://www.solarcity.com/. I'm all for it, but a bit concerned by how long it's been taking to work through the process. There has been form after form, and then just as it was "all set" and they had come over to confirm the set up we'd planned online, the state changed the process and we feel like we're starting all over again. They sent us this peppy "Go Solar" bumper sticker as if to keep our interest despite Arizona government doing it's best to discourage us.

One thing I've noticed is that it takes a TON of solar panels to run our home. In fact, even with a huge space on the roof, there is no way our landlord could fill it with enough panels to offset things. Well, she's certainly going to try, they'll be putting up a huge amount of panels. This is another time I wish we'd opted for buying the perfect property with trees, weather to grow our own food, a creek and a tiny home or two on the property instead of renting a gigantic home in a suburban setting. Yes, I dream of living a hobbit's life.

But part of my current attempt to simplify my life is about living in the moment. And dreaming of what may be is not doing that. The reality of the situation is that in this moment, we are living in the suburbs, in south west phoenix on the edge of Laveen, AZ surrounded by farms and ranches. It's beautiful here, and I have some wonderful neighbors. And the landlord supports our goal to live in a way that is less taxing on the world we live in, so that's a good start. Once these solar panels are installed, our electric bill will go down a bit, and we can put that little bit into savings towards our own little someday home. Plus, it's less taxing on the environment. So I guess we should chear, "Go, Solar!"

Edit: Added a graphic about solar funding in the US 6/11 that Nancy LaPlaca posted to her FB.