Sometimes Simple Is Better

We got a $2 bucket from Home Depot and have been using it to catch water in the shower while it heats up.  Then, we take that water and dump it in the rain barrel outside.  This has been the primary source of water all summer for all of our non-food plants.

I was gushing about this to my friend Lorraine who informed me that her parents have done something like this for the past 50 years!  This made me think of some stories I recently heard about “age old” conservation practices.

My cousin and I were reminiscing about our grandmother one lazy afternoon, and she began to tell me about things our grandmother had her do as a child that made no sense at the time but turn out to be ingenious environmental strategies.  My cousin, who is a brilliant and thoroughly modern woman,  spent much of her childhood in our family’s village as a little girl, with our grandmother, who was a very traditional Samoan woman.    As my cousin and I laughed about the inconveniences of living in a remote coastal Samoan village versus the main town or the relative luxury of my college town upbringing, she shared some wonderfully clever things about how traditional Samoans managed their environment.  Like so many cultures, including American culture, we marvel at our modern “conveniences” and that we’ve left the “old-fashioned” days behind us.  Don’t get me wrong,  I love my ipod and blackberry and am genuinely amused that people follow me on twitter, but  there is tremendous wisdom to some of the common-sense practices of our more humble rural ancestors.

For instance, grandmother used to make all the children go outside and pick up little bits of lye soap that were embedded between the rocks that lined the washing area.  My cousin says that she hated to do this chore, but now realizes that this was an important task because it suppressed the growth of slimy algae and bacteria, and supressed worms that could potentially make you sick. 

She also told me about learning to fish and how all the children were made to catch a fish and place it on a board, about 1.5 feet long.  The children were forewarned that a hiding would result if their fish was smaller than the length of the board, so there was great consternation among the village kids as they returned from their fishing expeditions to have grandma measure their fish.    They quickly learned only to bring back the larger fish and leave the small fry in the ocean.   My cousin had me in tears with her description of her bafflement about why grandma would get out this strange board and lecture and even “box the ears” of the kids who didn’t seem to understand.  But we also marveled at the simplicity of this tool to manage fish stocks and ensure that only mature fish were taken from the seas.  Whoever made this connection centuries ago was a genius.

The sad part of this story is that these and many other so-called green practices that our grandparents employed every day have already disappeared.  The encouraging news is that if enough of us recall these simple practices, talk about them and recycle them back into common practice, then we can re-used the wisdom of those who figured this stuff out generations ago.  Grandma would be proud.

Late spring rains re-fill the rain barrel

My fancy water catchment system is being replenished.  In other words, it’s rainin’ y’all!

Rain in May isn’t typical for San Francisco, but it isn’t unheard of.  We are having a nice rain – on our 2nd day, and the barrel is slowly re-filling.

I’d already used 1/2 of my 50 gallon container to water various non-food plants. 

As a side note, the artichokes are going wild!   This isn’t from my garden because my photo uploading isn’t accessible right now, but I’ve got about 7 that are ready to eat!

A Leak Has Emptied the Water Barrel

UPDATE:  after this weekend’s rains the barrel is finally re-filled, and the lesson has been learned!

Man, I feel like a boob.  I recently attached a hose to the spigot on my full rain barrel.  Because I used a long hose that I cut to a shorter length, I had to buy a little fitting for the end.  Well, I think it was the wrong size because it had a leak, and that leak emptied the entire rain barrel!

Can you imagine my horror when I glanced inside and saw that there was maybe an inch of water in the bottom!  With a drought predicted!

So, I behaved like a smart person (which I don’t do often enough) and went to the hardware store and got the right size hose fitting and re-attached the sucker.  Lucky for me, it’s raining today.  I hope that I can make up for my losses before the rains stop entirely.

So much for conservation!

Rainy season over, maybe?

I’ve notice for the past several years that the rainy season here in California is getting shorter.  Maybe this is just a temporary drought, or maybe we’re seeing the new paradigm.  It used to be that the rains started in November and continued off and on until March.  I remember sitting in a coffee shop watching the LA marathon (beginning of March) during a hellacious downpour.  Now, it seems we have a rainy season that starts in December and ends in January with a few hiccups during February.  WTF!

Reading up on the current drought, I learned that spring 2008 was the driest in recorded history, and that the future holds more of this in store.  So, once again, I come back to the idea of being “green” as a lifestyle choice, and being “green” from necessity.

If you choose a green lifestyle, it’s somehow like you have decided to switch to wearing grey instead of black.  Minor lifestyle choice, and kind of annoying.  But making choices to use less and recycle more because there is necessity, well, it ceases to be something cool you do until it’s not cool anymore.  You can guess which category I’m in. 

Here is a list of 10 things a busy person can do to cut down on water waste:

1.  Don’t let the water run when you do dishes.  I get everything wet and rinsed off, get my sponge really soapy and wet, then I put everything in one sink as I wash.  Then, when I’m totally done, I rinse all at once.

2.  Only wash full loads of laundry.  Depending on your habits, you can save up to 1000 gallons a month.

3.  Instead of using your garbage disposal, compost your kitchen waste.

4.  Water your garden or lawn in the morning.   You can also water in the evening, but I don’t recommend doing that unless the weather is really warm and you don’t have any dampness at night.

5.  Wash fruits and vegetables in a bowl or pan rather than under the running water.

6.  Spread organic mulch around the base of your trees and plants in your yard – this will cut down on water loss.

7.  If your shower fills a 1 gallon bucket in less than 20 seconds, replace it with a water-saving style.

8.   If you have a fish tank, don’t throw out their dirty water-use it in the garden!

9.  Get a rain barrel to collect  water from your roof to use on your garden.

10.  Replace your sprinkler system with drip irrigation – it’s easier than you think.

click here for a list of 90 other ways.

What about harvesting fog?

I have my rain barrel to catch our dwindling rains, a composter to recycle my kitchen waste, we recycle paper glass & plastic, we’re looking into a wind turbine, but the most abundant natural resource we have here in SF (especially up here in Diamond Heights) is FOG!  When we can get that resource harvested, it’ll be party time, or so I’ve joked!

Well, I was searching around, and indeed, there are a number of oranizations and scientists exploring fog harvesting and testing methods to ”harvest” water from fog.  There is a Canadian NGO/Non-Profit, FogQuest, that funds projects that use large nets in several dry developing nations such as Peru, Chile, South Africa and Oman.  The net method uses large vertically erected polypropelene nets to catch the fog, and as the water builds up on the net, it is directed to a collecting barrel. 

 

 

There is some preliminary research on using biomimicry techniques dervived from Andrew Parker’s observations about the stenocara beetle, although a viable application doesn’t seem to have emerged yet.

But the coolest looking thing I found was a coastal fog catching tower that is was an entry in the eVolo Skyscraper Design contest.  The conceptual tower would be built in Chile on the edge of the camachaca, one of the driest deserts in the world.  http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/04/02/coastal-fog-tower/

This conceptual design is beautiful.  It reminds me of some other conceptual towers I’ve seen for urban agriculture and some existing wind turbine designs. 

Quite frankly, I never thought that anyone was even thinking seriously about harvesting fog, but there you go!

Collecting Rainwater in Colorado, Utah or Washington? Not So Fast.

I met Eugene Volokh a few times through a friend. He’s a legal genius, and his friends at UCLA Law School nicknamed him Eugenius. I don’t agree with his politics, but I do respect his intellect. The dude is smart!

Anyway, I was looking for another rainwater collection formula and found his blog, in which he discusses some legal barriers to collecting rainwater in Colorado, Utah & Washington. It’s unbelievable, but if you live in those states and are considering collecting rainwater, you may need to get a permit first.  Follow the link to learn more.

Helpful Rainwater Collection Formula

From Wikipedia:  Calculating rainwater collection

Rainwater collection from roofs can be calculated using the following formulas:

• 1 inch of rain on a 1000 square feet roof yields 623 gallons of water; or
• 1 cubic foot equals (12 inch by 12 inch by 12 inch cube) equals 7.48 gallons; or
• 1 millimeter of rain on a 1 square meter surface yields 1 litre of water.

Rain Barrel is full, overflowing and I’m happy

The rain barrel filled up over night on day two of the winter storm. I’m sure it filled early, and we awoke to the overflow valve streaming water. I put my watering can to catch that, what the heck. It filled in about 5 minutes. My kids got a huge kick out of watching the overflow from that popping out of the spout.

Hail!

It’s been hailing off and on all afternoon.  It’s really coming down right now.  Got a quick picture when I went to get my little one from preshool.  Crazy weather!

The Water Barrel is leaking!

UPDATE:  10:30 am.  I checked again, and since 6:30 am, the barrel has filled another 1/3.  That was quite a leak, since it really hasn’t rained much this morning.

Last night was a crazy night for rain – we were awakened at around 2 am by a thunderous downpour.  So in the morning, I went out to check the barrel first thing.

It was only about 1/3 of the way full, which seemed okay, but then I noticed a trickle coming from the aperture at the bottom.  Darn!  The barrel has been leaking!  We made a lame attempt at shutting off the valve, but I just attached a hose with a shut-off valve at it’s end to stop the leaking.

Later, when I can take a break from working (blogging isn’t taking a break, is it?), I’ll go down to the hardware store and get a short hose.

I wonder how much water we lost?