There’s a great movie ……. In which a teenage boy who is a musician and wants to be a conductor gets in trouble and is assigned community service. He ends up in a prison where he is supposed to put together a prison band, or symphony. He begins by bringing in instruments and assigning people to them, trying to teach them to play instruments or to play in ways that are outside their skill, culture, or environment. Eventually he figures out that they are incredibly talented, but he is asking them to play the wrong song in the wrong way. Once he begins to listen to the men, hears their unique genius, and then puts the pieces together they become a unique and amazing symphony.

In so many ways this story reminds me of our aquaponics journey. We began when living in Montana. We read all about growing fish and plants, bought some plans, and thought we could just put it together and it would work. We were naïve and failed to consider some of our unique challenges. Temperature extremes - In the winter how do you keep things warm, In the summer how do you keep them from getting too hot? Is it cost effective to grow year round in cold climates? How do you deal with high winds coming off the continental divide? What about insufficient light in the winter months? We knew it was not going to be an easy journey, and that we were facing a pretty steep learning curve, and we believed in the potential of aquaponics, and in the importance of discovering a new way to live. But our journey has been longer, different, and more challenging than we expected.

What is important is not to have all the answers – no one does. Sometimes it feels like every time we have an answer or figure something out, we discover a new issue, problem, or challenge. We have answered a lot of questions. We have developed working systems and effective growing protocols. But farming is not a science. It is more of a dance. It is cultivating living organisms and living systems. It is closely akin to parenting, where every child and every day presents new and changing challenges, and no two children are the same. It has little to do with manufacturing, where the goal is to create unchanging, ongoing, repetitive systems.

So make your lists and ask your questions. But think of yourself as a musician, the system as the instrument you play, the crops are the orchestra, and what you produce is the symphony. Learn to listen to your crops, your environment, and if something is not working, don’t be afraid to “tune” your system, or to change things around.

This is the aquaponics “instrument” we play. We really like it, and invite you to check it out.