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Archive for the ‘Water’ Category

Where are we? Part One

9 September 2010

It’s been a heck of a summer. Obviously, I’ve posted very little, and I feel the need to catch up a bit.

First of all, the weather. It was a warm, wet summer. We used the air conditioner more than we ever have, and our electrical bill shows it. It rained at least every 3 days almost all summer — naturally, since I had 250 gallons of water in the always-topped-off rain barrels. Maybe I’ll get to use the water from them next year. At least I’ve got them made.

I think when I empty them out for the winter in a few weeks I’ll put one in the basement to catch the condensate from the furnace. That will give us 55 gallons of emergency water that could be run through the filter and made potable, winter or summer. In the winter it gets condensate from the furnace, in the summer it gets condensate from the air conditioner. I’d like to set up another one also that captured water from the roof whenever it was flowing in the winter. That shouldn’t be that hard. Think flexible hose that can take freezing. But what about when the barrel was full and over flowing? Let the sump pump handle it? There has to be a non-electric solution to that….

We hit upon a great way to use the stored wheat berries we have (after grinding into whole wheat flour): pancakes. The boys love them. I bought a big cast iron griddle that covers two burners on the stove, and I really like making them, although M doesn’t like them (pancakes, that is, not these specific pancakes).

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Grape Leaves, Rain, and Bears

5 June 2010

So I’ve started reading Stalking the Wild Asparagus, which I’ve known about almost since its publication in 1962, but have never read. I resisted reading it because I didn’t know what it was and it quickly became a cliche. But better late than never.

Anyway, I read about eating grape leaves in STWA and decided to give it a try, especially since the season was right and I knew of a wild grape vine on our property putting out a lot of new leaves after I hacked it back. I stuffed them with a mix of beef, rice, sunflower seeds, onion, parsley, dill, and olive oil (recipe from Joy of Cooking), and they came out very good. G ate them but D did not. Grape leaves, dill, parsley from our yard, beef from across the street.

Meanwhile, we’re on the verge of having too much rain. It’s raining hard again right now. You watch, now that I have 250 gallons of rainwater stored, it will rain every 5 days all summer and the garden won’t need any of it.

We also apparently have some bears living in southern Wisconsin now, and a few at least visiting our town.

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And More….

2 June 2010

Yesterday I planted maybe 5 pepper plants and three eggplant plants. The peppers are jalapeno and hungarian yellow. M bought them at Miller’s, and we still have a lot left — not sure where those are going to go, or even if I want to plant them. There’s only so many hot peppers you can use.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here watching a thunderstorm roll in. I love t-storms, always have. Looking at the radar, it sure looks like we’re going to get it, but it’s not that dark outside. Wait, now I see that gray wall about a mile away that means it’s about to pour.

Which will fill up my rain barrels, assuming my distribution manifold works correctly (I need to come up with a better design that isn’t dependent on the slope of the thing). That’s about 250 gallons.

In the summer. What about in the winter? The need for water doesn’t go away in the winter.

Well, one thing I did a couple of days ago is put a 5-gallon bucket under the condensate pump outlet from the furnace/air conditioner. But that’s a drop in the bucket…so to speak. And doesn’t happen without electricity.

That’s something I need to think about. The basement would be the obvious place for water storage, but how to get water from rain/snow to that storage in the winter?

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More Rain Barrels

29 May 2010

I got the fourth rain barrel set up today, and moved one I had set up last week (it was above a retaining wall and leaning a bit). Here are photos, including the distribution manifold:

I really like goofing around with stupid stuff like this.

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Rain Barrels

23 May 2010

I made four rain barrels this weekend. I bought 4 second-hand 55-gallon white plastic drums, washed them out (they had car wash soap in them originally), cut off the tops, and installed a sill cock in each. Flipping over the cut-off tops made a good top for them. When they’re flipped over, they have a concave surface. I drilled four 1 3/8″ holes in the tops to let the water in and just directed the downspouts onto the inverted top. Put one or two big rocks on top to hold down the lid (and the barrel until they get some water in them).

I have three of them in place. I had to either figure out how to handle overflow, or move them away from the house so overflow wouldn’t matter. One of the objects is still to get water away from the house.

I still like the idea of having an open one — makes it easier to clean out my coffee ground collection buckets — so I made an overflow from one of them into the 32-gallon trash can I’ve been using to catch rainwater.

Here are pictures of two of them: