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:

Sweet corn, sunflowers, collards (first and second rows), kale, swiss chard are all up. Planted second row of sweet corn in west bed.

It was about 90 degrees F today — very summery for May. Tomorrow’s supposed to be similar.

Posted in Conservation, Gardening, Water | Leave a Comment »

Planting

16 May 2010

Planted a row of sweet corn, a row of grain corn, 6 hills of pole beans, another short row of collards, onion seeds and onion plants in one of the raised beds — it will be interesting to compare the performance of the two and see if starting the plants indoors was worth the trouble.

The kale that lived through the winter is blooming.

Planted 12 tomato plants — 2 red cherry, 4 yellow brandywine, and 6 of the Early Blight-Resistant from Johnny’s. Planted four ground cherry plants

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I Do Love My Country

9 May 2010

In case, based on recent posts, anyone is wondering.

But we’re on the wrong path. For us to be the kind of people we can and should be:

  • We have to get away from the senseless consumerism that drives the lives of so many of us.
  • We have to start making things here again.
  • We have to remember that money really does have value and the world is not going to keep loaning it to us forever for no reason just so we can buy more jet skis.
  • We have to remember why we exist as a nation in the first place, which is to give each of us the freedom to live our lives in liberty and to pursue happiness. And excessive taxation to satisfy the greed of others takes away freedom just the same as a police state does.
  • We can be poor as long as we have standards and ideals and rise above the level of dumb beasts. No doubt there have always been both kinds of poor people in this country, but one gets the impression that few of us, no matter how much money we happen to have, live our lives based on ideals any more.

I think the financial sector of the economy has taken over the country and is treating us as if we don’t care about anything more than we care about money. If we have become that people, then we need to un-become that people if we are not to become slaves as well. If we are not yet that people, we have to act as if ideals matter more than money.

Posted in Corporate Control, Money, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Last Frost (maybe)

9 May 2010

Last night we had a light frost. I covered the strawberries (which are in bloom), and the beet, kidney bean, and carrot seedlings. I haven’t been out there yet this morning to check on them, but they should be okay — it was only about 30F this morning. [Update — the kidney beans got a little frosted, but most should be okay, and everything else was fine.]

We’ve had a very warm, early spring, and it’s definitely time to plant a lot of other seeds, but it’s also been showery enough (and I’ve been busy enough) that it’s been hard to get out into the garden.

The tomato, ground cherry, pepper, and onion seedlings are all looking good. We’ll get those outside in another week or two. I’ve been moving them outside for half a day at a time when it’s sunny to get them used to full sun.

Planted in main garden today:

  • Purslane in 2nd raised bed to complement existing self-seeding wild purslane
  • Sunflowers just to the north of the raised beds, on north edge of main garden
  • Swiss Chard Fordhook Giant (Johnny’s sell by 6/10)
  • Collards Champion (Johnny’s sell by 7/09)
  • Kale Hybrid Starbor F1 (Johnny’s sell by 8/09)

The world financial system looks like it’s on the verge of another crash, but it’s also impossible to predict. Powerful people and institutions are doing everything in their power to prevent it, and although it doesn’t appear that they’ll succeed, they may delay it for another few years.

Who knows what people should do to protect themselves from a world financial meltdown? I think reducing debt to the maximum extent possible is a good idea, and we’re doing well on that front; I suppose it makes some kind of sense (strictly on an intuitive level, I’m not smart or financially savvy enough to explain it otherwise) that if the world’s problem is too much debt compared to productive capacity, individuals should do what they can to reduce household debt.

Beyond that, we’re going with the usual TEOTWAWKI preps — striving for independence in food, water, and energy. I believe everyone will see a severe reduction in quality of life, and whatever we can do to increase independence will mitigate that reduction.

We’re considering a new, more-efficient propane furnace to replace our 14-year-old model and to take advantage of the tax credit that expires at the end of this year. Our current furnace works well, but higher efficiency is always good and if we’ll be replacing it in 5 years anyway….

Posted in Climate Change, Financial Meltdown, Gardening | Leave a Comment »

10,000 Foot View

30 April 2010

Think of the oil spill in the Gulf from a 10,000 foot view. Think of the pathetic humans shouting and scuttling about, trying to control what they’ve released. Think of the life damaged and dieing, all for human greed and hubris, all so we may live our rich little lives of luxurious banality.

One can’t help but feel that we’re getting desperate now, caught between our need for the energy to sustain our lifestyle and the harm that getting and using that energy causes the world. “Oh shit, but we can’t stop….”

Posted in Conservation, Peak Oil | Leave a Comment »

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