RAINWATERJUNKIE.COM

From HOTsome to AWESOME... or How I transformed my driveway into a sponge ( Part II )

2010-09-26T23:24:00Z

Finally, I'm ready to unveil the "final" product of my driveway labor! This was a high intensity, high involvement labor of love, sweat and pride. The pride was hiding for quite a while as I kinda cringed away every time a neighbor would drive by. It just looked like a crazy man's delusion. Concrete ruble, Then dirt..."O.K.," they probably thought, "he must be replacing a damaged driveway."

"Nope, is that? huh? wood chips?" They double-take as they would drive by. But I kept confident, kept digging, raking, leveling, dumping, driving, scooping, strapping, dumping, raking, cutting, placing, digging, planting...smiling.

The trees were beautiful by the way. It's so hard to find a nice Velvet Mesquite here in the Valley. If a nursery does happen to have some, they are usually crammed in behind the Chileans...neglected, broken, unknown. Desert Gardens to the rescue!!! I love those guys! Gotta plug them: {Cave creek Rd. north of the 101}

They had a row of wonderfully branched, out in the open, spaced Velvets. Showing themselves in their Native glory. Ok, sorry, back to the project.

Slowly but surely, the hard blah grey concrete was replaced with soft, fragrant, wonderfully strawberry brown and tan local and non-local tree leftovers. Their smell was thrown up at me every time I would pull into the spongy absorbent rectangle. "Ahhh, smells like North !"

Next it was time to create the planting area just West of the car spots. This would be where those inspiring Mesquites would go, creating both aesthetics, food, habitat, Nitrogen and most importantly, shade! So I looked at the space remaining and wanted a kind of Mesquite Bosque (forest) planting there. So I grabbed a few Native plants to help support the soil fauna and beauty of the area. In goes the Jojoba (a great companion of the hillside Mesquites). Also included are a Chuparosa, Baja fairyduster (I know, not really Native to AZ but native to the Sonoran), Blackfoot Daisy for groundcover and a Wolfberry (another companion in nature).
Sweet! So now I will just support them for the first year or so...then their off on their own! Ready to catch any extra precipitation in their new sunken planting bed.

In conclusion (?) I now have abounding PRIDE in what my passerby's see as they drive along to work or play. I now know that they see something beautiful, if not practical, with their passing glances. Someday, maybe someone will pass by and call me over to explain why I did it. I will smile, stroll over, and share thoughts feelings and larger ideals. I will...wait...hey, there's two people walking their dog and pointing at the driveway..............

Greywater talk in Chandler

2010-09-04T12:30:00Z

Hey everyone, I will be giving a short talk on the introduction to Greywater in Chandler on September 20th. It is part of a great Transition Town series. Transition is a movement that takes into consideration that life will have to be re-formatted as resources are either used up or start to become less available. It give communities the tools needed to live lighter on their ecosystem and the use of greywater will be an essential part of this lifestyle.

Come join us at :Chandler Sunset Public Library, 6 - 7:30 pm
4930 W ray Rd (NE corner of Ray and Rural)

Greywater flyer

Peace

Rainwater Video

2010-09-02T22:36:00Z

I love this little film. I really think it captures the heart of the issue with community and "upside-down" thinking!

Enjoy:

From HOTsome to AWESOME... or How I transformed my driveway into a sponge ( Part I )

2010-08-19T20:39:00Z

"Man, this is ridiculous!" This phrase comes sputtering out of my mouth as I touch the steering wheel of my truck on Saturday morning. It feels as if the material connected to the wheel has had a hair dryer about a quarter inch away from it , on high, for an hour. Oh...and by the way... it's only 9:15am. So I sit in my metal transportation, gasoline exploding, oil diminishing, air flying out of the little vents, just waiting for words like "bearable" or "just cool enough" to set my day into motion.

We moved into this house about ...hmmm... two and a half years ago now? We love it, lot's of great potential and we've done a lot of great things to reciprocate smiles from its' interior and out-terior. One problem that we face with this beautiful dwelling though, is that we bought it with NO GARAGE. Additionally, we have also inherited a 3-car driveway. Man, thats actually somewhere around 16 tons of concrete! Holy crap! O.K. so if I wanted to host a nighttime "hot" spot where people could come and lay down on a warm slab at midnight in August...cool. If I wanted to test just how hot I could get the tires on my truck to get through out the day...awesome. If I needed to get some extra income by having Bikram (hot) Yoga being done a dusk in a 100 degree 9PM atmosphere...you got it.

OK, sorry, you get the idea. Our driveway is hot, and stays hot throughout the night (sorry...people in Alaska...this is a terrible thing here in the desert). So what to do? Bust apart our nice "Big Room" where we store our camping, climbing, biking, hiking gear? Naw. Deal with it by starting our cars 5 minutes early in the morning? Nope, did that in the winter in Flagstaff. Build a carport to cover the driveway? Great idea but a little too intrusive for me, and too close to the curb anyway. I think I'll just kick that damn tenant out that is causing all of our problems (see Concrete).

~SIDE TRIP~

There are a few other reasons why removing the concrete driveway from your house might benefit pout beautiful Sonoran desert city:

1. Stormwater management - Normal concrete driveways will take any source of water that ends up gracing their presence and shuffle it down to the asphalt tributaries known as streets. OK fine...so what? Well, these driveways are not "so fresh and so clean" to quote a great inebriated dancing song. They have on them wonderful technologies (seriously) like oil, brake pad dust, freon, animal feces and other chemical and physical trashes to choose from. These substances are now gone from your life...right? Well lets think about where their eventuality lands. They travel into the streets, make a left on cave creek rd. a right on Bell, so on and so forth, until they are either accumulated in a wash or possibly a river basin. These substances get accumulated and intensified into the ground water, and wait! thats where we pump out water for treatment for our city. crappy.

2. Heat Island - So by now, a lot of people in the Southwest have heard of this thing called a heat island. 'Nice' you might be thinking, ' a tropical island in the southwest where I can lay uinder an umbrella and take in beauty and relaxation?' Ummm...No. This island is, as my man Bob Marley called, a "Concrete Jungle". So much expansion (some people actually call it Progress) has occurred in our desert community, that we are actually feeling effects in both temperature AND weather patterns! Yep, those Monsoon storms have really changed in the past 10 years! So the effect of concrete in the desert has been to absorb the heat of the day, and then hold onto it throughout the night...yuck Well, my little neighborhood is covered by this great old technology. Concrete everywhere...and where its not concrete, it is it's little sneaky cousin gravel. Seriously? where do you actually see large plots of gravel in a healthy desert? Anyway, my property has been heating up, heating up heating...arggghh! this steering wheel is ridiculous. I want to RETURN the soil, FREE the soil, EMANCIPATE the soil! (rebel call anyone? no?)

3. Beauty to the People - Here's a quick profile of most (including mine) yards that claim responsible "xeriscape". I have light grey gravel, followed by more light colored gravel followed by a large light grey driveway. Yep, I have a Saguaro, a Barrel, and a few spotty native shrubs... but then just gravel and a slightly stained drive. Hmmm... I heard once that contrast is good for the eye. I agree. So instead of a drab grey throughout, lets get a little different. If we all had grass in the front (yuck) then the grey would maybe be a good mix. - I remember living in Jersey- So I'm gonna beautify. Wood chips...nice! What a great color contrast. What a nice change from *Saguaro...gravel... Prickly pear...gravel...bird of paradise...gravel...driveway...next.* I can now actually create a different popping look, one that 'might' mimic a little more of the soil I see in healthy areas, mesquite bosque's and riparian banks.

!! FREE THE SOIL !!

So here is my little journey. A tiny speck in time of my Desert existence where I as the player am trying to take an active role in regeneration. Regeneration of Soil... Regeneration of a neighborhood lot... Regeneration of conscious and Regeneration of Soul.

Labor with your Neighbor

2010-08-03T14:25:00Z

The front of his white and blue T-shirt had the Watershed Management Group (WMG) logo on it and in a font that looked like it had been stamped diagonally across read the words "CO-OP". When he turned around to grab a pick axe, other wise known as an Arizona Shovel, the back of the shirt said "I Do My Labor with My Neighbor!".

-This catchy little phrase does more than just rhyme. It tells of an opportunity for community, a way to reach an otherwise high costing goal. A chance to not only change your own personal landscape, but eventually heal a neighborhood and enjoy a little bit more of a responsible feeling as you look out at your land.

-The WMG has created, and successfully run, this CO-OP program down in Tucson and I have been lucky enough to not only participate in some of the workshops, but I have also been able to meet some amazing and interesting people who share like views on how we should be friendly to the desert.

-The set up is pretty simple... you join the co-op and keep an ear out for workshop opportunities. Since word has spread, it is not strange to have 2 workshops per weekend at times! So after you volunteer for a certain number of hours, usually about 4 workshops worth, you earn that volunteer labor for your own property. These workshops are based around rainwater earthworks, greywater installs and rainwater cisterns.

-So the past two weekends, I have been side-by-side with some of the most intelligent and innovative watershed instructors, soaking up everything I can, pulling in techniques, learning the intricate details like ordering materials, how to explain just what you want from an excavator, how to keep volunteers motivated and on task. All the while, I am imagining the possibilities that are down here in the Valley of the Sun.

-Last weekend, I headed down to the Tucson Valley. I was to meet up with one of the instructors to go see the workshop site that we would be working on the next day. But first, I HAD to stop by an old friend...or was it an enemy? I remember the joy and pain that this place brought to me last summer as we dug berms and basins to infiltrate runoff for some shade trees at a farmers market spot. I wanted to see how by work was coming along, and it looked pretty good! The mesquites were thriving, and the mulched basin looked like they were staying put. Oh yeah, by the way, last summer I completed the WMG water harvesting certification course. That's where this project came from.

I digress...

-So I met up with Lincoln, went over the site, planned the day of earthworks, and headed to the nursery to pick up the plants. The next morning I stumbled to fill my metal coffee mug in the half light; quite a bit tired and a little bit sore, we headed over to the property. One by one, the participants popped out of their cars ready to Learn & Earn (I should trademark that one!). A little cross legged pow-wow, some stretches and we broke off to conquer this hill. Sweat was dropped, fingers were gloved and tired, and after about 3.5 hours, we had transformed a womans erosive hillslope sideyard into a water catching, native plant supporting, rock bermed aesthetic joy. People made new acquaintances as they transformed a little part of their community.

-This weekend was the same but different. I headed, once again, down south through the salt flats and the Gila "river" basin. Past the -middle of nowhere- concrete expanse of shopping outlets, and through the orchards of Marana...finally to my destination. My journey this time was to a massive undertaking. This property was to pretty much become a 100% containment yard! There was a backhoe already working the soil, creating ditches and hills in just the right places. Alas, this was not where I was going to spend the next day. Instead, I had a more technical undertaking to participate in. The Culvert Install!

-This is usually quite a unique undertaking as far as the participants are concerned. You basically have a group of people who get a crash course in: Plumbing, Metal work, gutters, pressures, saw cutting, concrete and more! What you also get (and I've seen this occur in every one of these tank installs) is an unbelievable mix of talents and work ethics. I experienced many happenings this weekend that cemented my feelings that this program is bound up in so many different goods.

*I saw a young man struggle with a skill saw for the first time, only to eventually win!

*I saw an older woman give some of the hardest wheelbarrowing of any participants.

*I watched and smiled as a retired 'handyman'? kind of paced around and gave his expertise to so many of the situations.

*I saw a new WMG hire show confidence and passion for the job and ideals at hand.

*And I got to personally answer a string of about 25 questions from a woman who was so eager to understand how the system worked on the inside that I thought she was going to jump into the tank with me!

-While the clock neared the end of the workshop...who am I kidding, it was actually an hour past end time, the clouds could no longer hold back their hydro-soaked insides and it began to RAIN!! Like I said, the workshop was officially over, but there was still almost every single volunteer still there. This was a passion and a need to see this through. A belief that this was important and an opportunity to grow a property AND grow the knowledge inside. So we hit another gear, put the final pieces into place, and actually started catching that SkyGold into one of the pur-tiest metal tanks in the neighborhood.

-My brain, my clothes and my passion left soaked that early evening as I drove off...back to the Valley of the Sun.

-Hopefully in the very near future, I too can wear a white shirt with a blue logo that PROUDLY states:

"I Do My Labor, With My Neighbor!"

Look to the future for opportunities in Phoenix to transform our landscapes and be much more of a Friend of the Desert!!

An old project re-visited

2010-07-27T22:31:00Z

I thought I would revisit a project that we previously did here at the house. This sparked my interest again as, the other day, it was raining and I rushed outside to play in it and check my systems. I heard the water rushing into the pipe and remembered just how much water gets thrownthat way....sweet.

   Here is the original blog post from an AZHS (Arizona Homegrown Solutions) member. It was a great day and a great project to help solve a problem and create a more responsible solution!

                              http://www.azhomegrownsolutions.org/profiles/blogs/french-drain-fun

   Here's a quick shot of the native Velvet Mesquite tree that takes advantage of the french drains RainAqua:
**by the way, Hey Arizona... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop putting in Chilean mesquites! They are ruining our natives

ENJOY!

VIDEO: Water Harvesting certification site tour

2010-07-27T05:01:00Z

I was perusing through the internet on my--Woo-Hoo-- brand new fast as toad spit computer, and anyway, came across this video of the Watershed Management Groups' 2010 certification site tour video. It basically has me wandering around my property showing all of the water harvesting feature that I had at the time.
Enjoy

-----------------> http://vimeo.com/10737091

In the Beginning...

2010-07-27T04:37:00Z

Good morning, Good afternoon...and just in case, Good evening.

Well, here I am, about to begin the beginning. About to place words, pictures, thoughts, complaints, discoveries, ideals, opportunities and frustrations out there for whomever would like to play with them. This space, a TINY speck on the surface of a gigantic palette will possibly give hope, ideas and direction to those of you looking to do one of many things: Prepare for an uncertain future - Tread lightly on the desert (or whichever ecosystem that currently holds your feet to the ground) - or Tap into an amazingly forgotten resource::::::RAIN!

So in the beginning, there was a boy with a thought. "Why do we have to punish the Planet?" "Why do we need to push ourselves so far into the front of the line that we end up breaking the harmony?" "What if we sat back for a second and analyzed our MAJOR impacts? The ones that carry not into mere days , months or even years...but those that follow our children and grandchildren into the future?"
O.K. so maybe those weren't the exact thoughts of that boy, but the seeds were there.

Throughout this journey, I will try to share the adventures of these seeds as they germinate, sprout and either become nourished with experience, or shrivel into yellow edged crispy dust thoughts through indifference.

Join me?

Chapter ONE....