The practice of harvesting the rain is as old as mankind. In modern times we use the roofs of our homes to gather the water. In simple terms, it rains, hits the roof, run down gutters and into a tank or tanks. They can be as simple as 40- or 50-gallon rain barrels on up to multi-thousand gallon tanks and cisterns. So far this rainy season I’ve been able to capture and use in excess of 5,000 gallons of rainwater.

During the steady rain today I worked to rehab the earthen basins surrounding the lemon trees in my small orchard. Despite this weeks heavy rains, I was surprised to see as I tilled, that just a couple inches below ground it was still bone dry. The soil in my grove has been constantly amended with compost for 5 years so the soil is very rich and absorbent; still the rain alone has not done the trees much good.

Last night’s rain filled my 1,100-gallon storage tank and this morning it was still raining heavily, so I put a small pump and garden hose in the tank and directed the hose to the various trees in my orchard. I pumped steadily for 5 hours and thoroughly soaked the tree basins with good sweet rainwater. At the same time new rainwater was refilling my tank as I went, so despite using at least 1,000 gallons on my trees, tonight my tank is still full. I feel sorta like a guy who discovers a pirate cave full of gold coins. His wealth is limited only by what will fit in his pockets. My ability to harvest the rain is limited only by the size of my roof and the capacity of my collection tanks.

In the coming weeks I’ll be speaking to various city councils and water boards, trying to convince them that our civic designs to whisk water away and out to sea as fast as possible may not be the wisest idea.

In arid communities around the world villages design their communities to slow water as it passes through low lying areas so the maximum amount will soak in and replenish aquifers, or fill collection tanks. Not only does it treat water as the valuable commodity it is, but it reduces the urban pollutants that get swept out to sea as well.

In the past, my fascination with revisiting old-time practices like composting, organic gardening, and non toxic methods of dealing with pests have drawn posts from people who believe the only way forward is through new improved technologies. It baffles me to think that because an idea is tried and true it must be harebrained and silly. In the ’90s, nurseries and commercial farmers told me organic methods were nutty and would never catch on. Now they all sell and use organic fertilizers. Soon I hope these same retailers will see the value of harvesting the water that falls from the sky and acknowledge it is valuable in its scarcity.

As a side note the only retail outlet in the ’90s who embraced the organics trade was Grangetto’s Farm and Garden Supply. Today I spoke with Kevin Grangetto who told me he’ll be happy to try selling rain barrels too. Kevin, you rock!

So what do you think? Is rain harvesting part of the solution to our region’s water woes? Is this just another of my hippy, Al Gore loving, tofu eating, peace sign throwing, goofball ideas? I’d love to see what you think.

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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For example, I make so many smoothies, I’ve worn out the little rubber thing that makes the blender blades spin. For you blenderphiles, it’s called a rubber clutch coupling.

Typically, I would have tossed the blender and paid $130 bucks for a new one. That’s a lot of money! I went online and found the part — complete with easy instructions for replacing it — and ordered it. The darned thing costs $4.85 but shipping is another seven bucks, so while I was on the Web site I found the vacuum bags and wood floor cleaner we need too. It makes the shipping easier to swallow. I saved a trip to the vacuum store for the supplies. The only trouble is that I’m driving my family crazy looking for things to repair rather than replace.

A while back a friend told me she always boils down the remains of chickens, turkeys, meat bones, celery ends, onion scraps, carrot peelings, etc. to keep a ready supply of stock or broth on hand. If you cook, you know how many recipes require chicken or beef stock. I’ve done this for a couple years now and always just thought of it as a convenient way to make leftovers go further.

While cooking my part of the Thanksgiving feast this year, I realized I was out of broth and headed to the local grocery store. I was shocked to see a quart of Swanson’s chicken broth costs $3.50. After Thanksgiving guests hit the road, I threw the turkey carcasses in my pot and started the big boil. I ended up with 7 quarts of broth, which is now frozen in quart bags waiting to use. That’s roughly $25 I saved.

I admit these discoveries are not very profound. The thing is they add up, and I’m hungry for more ideas. Already we compost all our farm waste, grow our own chickens, the bulk of our vegetables, and harvest rainwater for irrigation (2,000 gallons during the last storm) but there are dozens of other things I’m not thinking of and I want you to share them with me. There are things you do, and we can all benefit from knowing them.

I read this week that there is 30% more lipstick in a tube after you’ve reached the end. The mechanism needs it to grip and spin. The writer suggested using a “lipstick brush” to rescue the remaining amount hidden deep inside. It’s sort of like a treasure hunt. Now my daughters tell me they can return their used M·A·C (makeup) cases and have them recycled and get a gift too. From M·A·C’s Web site:

RECYCLING WITH BACK TO M·A·C
Because we share your commitment to the environment, M·A·C accepts returns of its primary packaging through the Back to M·A·C Program. By returning six [6] M·A·C primary packaging containers to a M·A·C counter or M·A·C Cosmetics Online, you receive a free M·A·C Lipstick of your choice as our thanks to you.

Bring it on…. I need a couple hundred new ways to practice my obsessive behavior and save money.

One last thing: my producer Michael likes it when I’m edgy and get you all riled up so whaddya say we start publicly humiliating litterbugs? The old Puritan method of confining them in stocks in the town square works for me.

Okay, this is really the last thing: please cut back on the sprinklers. It’s winter and plants don’t need nearly as much water. Stress your grass now and then. It won’t hurt it. And by the way, stop asking… no I don’t like that fake lawn stuff. Dumbest invention I’ve ever seen. Why not put plastic flowers in your garden while you’re at it. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/811/turf-wars-a-fight-over-fake-grass

By the way, check out this video titled “Cute Animal Christmas Song.” Enjoy!

Alright, I’m done, I mean it… thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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Dear Mayor Sanders,

I know you’re busy and what I’m about to suggest may not rise to the level of urgent business to you, but often big problems are best solved with many smaller solutions. That is why I suggest chickens (hens only) as a partial solution to a few of the problems facing our region.

In most urban communities, chickens are not allowed. I submit, sir, that it’s shortsighted of lawmakers to restrict a pet which has so much value. At a time when we must all be more resourceful, food-producing pets are valuable. My family lives in a place where chickens are legal. Our small backyard flock produces about a half-dozen eggs a day. They provide me with my breakfast a few mornings a week and plenty of eggs for other cooking needs with plenty left over to share with my coworkers and friends. Additionally, hens are wonderful pest control. If you clip their wings to keep them from hopping fences and visiting neighbors, a few backyard hens will help rid your yard and garden of insects, spiders, slugs and snails. Feeding them costs next to nothing.

My family produces about a quart of kitchen waste a day. Everything from egg shells, plate scrapings, vegetable peelings, trimmed fat, and stale bread can go to the chickens. It eliminates most of what we used to put in the garbage disposal or trash. The chickens waste is ideal for the compost bin and provides safe nitrogen-rich fertilizer for the garden. Chickens are self-perpetuating too. Each spring one or two of every small flock of hens will start acting broody, meaning they want nothing more from life than the opportunity to sit on eggs and keep them warm. Since roosters in backyards are problematic, I envision a small cottage industry of folks from rural areas selling fertile eggs to city dwellers to place under their broody hens. In a remarkably short time (20-22 days) chicks will emerge and provide either more egg layers or a inexpensive source of meat protein at a time of belt tightening.

Some of you will find this idea absurd, others will be mildly intrigued. Let me hear what you think.

 
Laundry as a life lesson

With no offense intended to my children, they are more work now that they are in their late teens and twenties than they were earlier in life. As they leave home and strike out on their own, I’ve been surprised to see the fixes they get themselves into and how often the need bailing out, figuratively of course.

Recently, I offered one of those parent-like solutions to our only remaining child at home. I told our 15-year-old that if she was unhappy with where I put her folded clothes in her room that she probably should do her own laundry. Wait a minute, that’s brilliant. Laundry as a life lesson, of course, how simple! She will learn that if she places a red bandana in with her whites that she’ll suddenly have new pink items in her wardrobe. By trial and error she’ll find that a pen left in a pocket will probably destroy a whole load of laundry. Soon she’ll find that the melting temperature of lipstick is less than the warm cycle on the washing machine. These lessons are bound to serve her well as she is faced with ever more complicated choices facing our kids today. If you check the pockets of your clothes before you do the laundry, you’ll save time and headaches. Will this help when she is pressured to do the things we know will lead to trouble? Maybe or maybe not, but it is surely one more way to experience how being thorough will help avoid hassles later. If she reads the laundry instructions, her favorite new shirt may still fit after it’s been washed. I know this is elementary thinking here, but if she learns just a few laundry day rules, that can be applied to life after mom and dad, then we will have done her a favor, but most of all Susie and I will have less laundry to keep up with.

Macaroons

And finally the joy of a good chocolate cookie. For the inevitable cookie exchange at work this year I plan to win the hearts of people like me who believe good chocolate and coconut were created to be together.

Try my macaroon recipe and you will be one happy camper.

5 egg whites
½ teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla
½ cup of powdered sugar or 1 cup of granular sugar
3 cups shredded coconut
2 2/3 cups of chocolate chips. I like Ghirardelli the best.

Preheat the over to 325 degrees. In a mixer, blend salt and egg whites and mix until it becomes slightly stiff. Slowly melt 2 cups of chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave. Fold, in vanilla and sugar and whip until the egg whites are thick and shinier. Add the melted chocolate, and coconut, into the mixture, and lastly add the remaining 2/3 of a cup of chocolate chips. Place dollops of the mixture on a parchment-covered cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes.

The result is a rich chewy cookie which will make you the most popular baker on your block.

This would be a good time and place to add your favorite cookie recipe, or better mine. Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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My favorite example is the ad for cotton which reads: “Cotton: responsible, natural, renewable.” Natural and renewable without a doubt, but responsible?…well, if they aren’t breaking laws I guess so, but the ad asks what could be better than a fiber mother nature made?

WHAT? Cotton is sadly susceptible to many insect pests, so even though it accounts for only 2 % of the world’s agricultural acreage, 11% of the world’s pesticides are used to make into the shirts on our backs. 1/3 of a pound of chemicals are used to make a single tee shirt, and ground water in cotton growing regions is badly polluted as a result. In our own back yard, the New River, the Alamo River and the Salton Sea are recipients of incredible amounts of organophosphates from farms in the Imperial Valley and in Mexico. Cotton is heavily grown in the Valley. Want to learn more? Polluted Rivers Study

Anyway the point is simple, we need a place where we can rate the commercials we see based on a company’s real record on environmental stewardship versus its advertising message. Oh wait! There is just such a place. It’s pretty cool, although I think a few company execs have been on the site rating their own ads. Check it out and add your own favorite commercials. It’s called the Greenwashing Index… get it? Sort of like brainwashing. Here’s a link greenwashingindex.com

So what do you think? Am I too cynical or are advertisers coming off as way more green than they are? What should we do about it? Do you buy from a company which appears green over another selling the same product or service?

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I justify it with the simple understanding that humans are omnivores. We’ve always consumed flesh and are built for it. Even our teeth are designed for a diet which includes meat.  Still there are many issues which trouble me, including the environmental sustainability of cattle ranching, sheep ranching, pig farms and commercial fishing. The way we raise our meat uses far too much water, fossil fuel, and grain which could be better used to feed humans directly. Our livestock are major contributors of green house gasses too. Their hooves tear up native land, and huge amounts of herbicides are used on pasture land to eliminate plants which compete with preferred grazing vegetation.

Our ancestors, at the urging of the US government, killed off the bison herds and plowed up millions of acres of native sod which fed the huge native herds. We replaced the bison with cattle and sheep which needed fences and supplemental feed. In hindsight that was not very smart. With that in mind I found a movement underway in Australia very interesting.
Just as Native Americans and early settlers ate bison meat, earlier generations of Australians survived on kangaroo meat as a primary source of protein. There is a campaign underway to greatly reduce cattle and sheep ranches in Australia and go back to eating kangaroos. There is sound reasoning behind the plan. Cattle and sheep ranching have directly led to the extinction of 20 or more native Australian mammal species. Kangaroos are able to thrive on native plants, they have soft feet which don’t damage the land, their grazing actually improves the land, and because their system uses acetate to digest food they don’t produce methane (a greenhouse gas). If cattle and sheep numbers were reduced to 10% of their current numbers, kangaroos would increase quickly to completely replace the beef and mutton in about 10 years.

One other plus is that kangaroo meat is lower in fat.

Now there are certainly negatives too. Not everyone likes kangaroo meat, and it is a symbol of all things Australian. It could sorta be like us eating Bald Eagles.

I know this may sound goofy to some of you, but it’s the kind of changes which may get more serious consideration as we look to change practices which are not sustainable for the long run.

How about you? What do you think of the scheme and do you have your own ideas which may work here in the US to help us address the long term degradation to the environment modern living has caused?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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Here we are in Santa Ana season again and our hills and valleys are drier than ever. Brush fires are growing out of proportion to the wind pushing them along. Our first Santa Ana of the season is winding down without the devastating fires of 2003 and 2007 but the potential for firestorms is greater than ever. We’ve spent tens of millions of dollars for firefighters to respond more quickly and effectively but still we’re failing to address the real causes of the fires; climate change.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers have been studying wildfires and have learned there are four times as many wildfires as there were prior to the 1980s and the acreage burned is 6 times as great. The problem is that spring starts earlier and winter starts later.

In San Diego that translates to the rains ending earlier in the traditional rainy season and starting later in the fall and winter. The local vegetation has longer to dry out and remain dry when the winds of autumn arrive. For us it has meant thousands of our neighbors have lost homes and hundreds of people have lost loved ones.

The bigger fire threat is actually elsewhere in normally cool and damp mountain forests.

“I see this as one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States,” said research team member Thomas Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at The University of Arizona in Tucson. “We’re showing warming and earlier springs tying in with large forest fire frequencies. Lots of people think climate change and the ecological responses are 50 to 100 years away. But it’s not 50 to 100 years away–it’s happening now in forest ecosystems through fire.”

Despite the fact that the environment is behaving exactly as climate scientists have predicted it would, the campaign of disinformation by some radio talk shows and the fossil fuel industry continues to create doubt and in-action.

On the campaign trail the talk is of reducing our dependence on oil from “people who don’t like us very much”. That talk must turn to the importance of reducing our use of all oil, not just the foreign stuff. If we continue to drag our feet in developing alternatives, then folks in coastal towns will find their towns increasingly uninhabitable, and people like us will continue to be chased from our homes as wildfires lick at our eaves. Plant and animal species will be killed off and our economy will be wrecked by band aide approaches to fend off the disasters we’ve been warned would come.

So how much more evidence is needed before we stop debating climate change and join the world in addressing the things we need to do to reverse what’s happening?

Do you have a better explanation for the fires, the hurricanes and the melting ice? If so please share it and help me understand the flaws in my thinking.

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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At our home, every thing from soggy cereal, to coffee grounds and egg shells; all our kitchen waste goes to the chickens, not the garbage disposal. Of course I understand that most people live in neighborhoods with cc&rs or city ordinances that make chickens a serious offense. Still that same kitchen waste can go into a compost bin or earthworm bin nearly anywhere.

That compost can be used to grow your family’s food or at least some of it. There is a real chance that farmers will have trouble getting loans to plant winter and spring crops. I have not read anyone who suggests food shortages are coming, but why not insulate your family from food expense and shortages by growing more of your own.

At this time of year we are busy planting our cool season garden which includes some of the most nutrient-rich vegetables. The easiest method is to buy young plants at your local nursery and plant them in the sunniest spot in your yard. The most important rule I can offer is that the better the soil, the better the outcome, so please add lots and lots of compost and mix it in well. Remove any weeds which will compete with your veggies for nutrients and keep them cleared out during the growing season. There are now very good all-purpose organic fertilizers. Use them generously to feed the soil which will feed your plants. Do not be generous with chemical fertilizers since they cause harmful runoff.

Here are a few veggies for the cool season: broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, beets, potatoes, artichokes, asparagus, brussel sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, garlic, kale, onions, peas, spinach, chard, turnips and a few I’m sure I’m missing.

This is a good opportunity to share the gardening techniques that work well for you. Let’s work together to teach one another the best way to grow part of the food we need so we can all stretch our family budgets during these difficult times.

What’s your favorite composting secrets? Which veggies grow best here in San Diego? If you have hints please share them.

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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The Bush administration has worked feverishly to erode the protections given to public lands. At the same time American citizens are losing the money we need to survive in retirement, our wildlife has been losing the habitat and protection it needs to survive in a world increasingly degraded by human activity. The environmental disaster is perpetuated by President Bush who has been quoted as having great admiration for President Teddy Roosevelt, who established the Republican Party as the party committed to conservation. Teddy Roosevelt greatly expanded the National Parks system and started the National Wildlife Refuge System. President Bush is fighting for oil drilling in the heart of the most spectacular National Wildlife Refuge and fighting for additional off-road traffic in National Parks. In our own backyard the administration is working quickly to shrink the amount of land set aside for the critically endangered Peninsular Big Horned Sheep. The Bush administration has been selling off public land quicker than cheap plastic toys sell at a flea market. During this administration you got what you wanted if you had a business card from an oil company but if you happened to be a scientist, chances were good your research would be discounted, purged or misquoted to accomplish handouts to big business. On climate change the administration can only be described as having obstructed the work which must be accomplished. The specific examples of environmental felonies are so numerous they boggle ones mind. They are too plentiful to list here, so I’ve added two links at the end of this post. They will take you to the respected Wilderness Society site and to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Please explore the sites to see how the banking industry is only part of the vast damage done during the Bush years. Our environment has suffered and it must stop.

What do you think? Do oil, recreation, timber, mining and highways trump nature? Do you wish Bush had gone further to privatize nature?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

http://www.wilderness.org/Library/Documents/BushRecord.cfm

http://www.nrdc.org/BushRecord/

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My question is why do so many Americans support what the facts suggest is a silly continuation of our addiction to oil? Sure the sharp increase in gas prices at the pump is a factor, but so is the hugely expensive campaign of misinformation paid for by big oil, the same big oil with new record profits each quarter. You’ve seen the ads on your TV I’m sure. They are fronted by a pleasant, slightly recognizable actress seducing us with big oil’s oh-so-logical-sounding reasons for allowing them to drill for oil in California’s tourism gold mine: our ocean.

In recent months you’ve surely heard that there is no reason to fear offshore drilling because today’s technology is environmentally friendly. Here’s what Rep. Lois Capps has to say about oil drilling off Santa Barbara and the district she represents in Congress: “In the years since, oil accidents and drilling-based pollution here have been plentiful. Exxon-Mobil recently agreed to pay almost $3 million for releasing dangerous PCBs into the Santa Barbara Channel from Platform Hondo. Greka Oil has been polluting our local creeks with toxic runoff and countless oil spills, looking like it got its environmental policies straight from the movie ‘There Will Be Blood.’ There was also the Torch pipeline explosion in 1997 and the decades-long pollution that required rebuilding the entire town of Avila Beach. And that’s not even including the impacts on our air and water quality we deal with every day.”

Is this what we want for San Diego? Not me! We cannot drill our way to oil security. We use 25% of the world’s oil; we have 3% of the world’s supply. The math works against this being a smart policy. When the latest Bush administration took office we imported 53% of the oil we use. President Bush promised oil independence and for 6 of his 7 1/2 years in office had a Republican congress to help him achieve it, and yet today we import 59% of what we use.

If we hope to have energy independence we need to get started on the next technology. Climate change, global warming whatever you wish to call it is real, and our burning carbon-based fuels is a major contributor. Yes, I know, volcanoes and brush fires contribute as well. We cannot drill our way to energy independence. Every spare penny should be used to develop the next energy source. It has to be clean and treat natural resources as if they are finite. Republicans in Congress called their 2005 energy bill “landmark”. When they needed to reduce its size they cut support which was intended for energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy, but continued billions of dollars in subsidies for big oil companies.

This seems like an appropriate time to quote Tommy Smothers on Sunday’s Emmy broadcast, “the truth is what they get us to believe.”

Here’s what I believe: so long as we allow big oil to dictate our national policies and direction we will stay addicted to oil until every drop is pulled from the ground no matter what it does to our environment, security, and economy.

What do you think? Will drilling off the coast make gas cheaper? Will we import less oil anytime soon? Did Congress do the right thing by letting the drilling moratorium lapse?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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This week I listened to the grand dame of water issues, Maude Barlow as she lectured at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Barlow is the probably the leading authority on the world water crisis. Among the troubling notes highlighted in her talk was a trend to pump clean water into poor neighborhoods and then place a prepaid water meter at the spigot. If you want a drink, you have to pay first. In some cases filthy rivers run next to the clean water pipe. People without the money to drink the clean water instead must dip into the funky free water. Cholera is on the rise. Prepaid water meters are being used in poor areas in South Africa, Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Brazil, Nigeria, and Curacao.

Poor people may not be able to afford clean water, but increasingly no amount of money will provide the needed water for nature’s needs. Human desires routinely trump plants and animals need for clean water. To protect our beautiful landscaping many of us are using water needed by nature elsewhere. The courts are stepping in and cutting water to cities like San Diego. The war of words has begun on that front. Water deliveries are being cut to Southern California to leave more water in the Sacramento Delta to help the endangered Delta Smelt to survive. Initially farmers are most affected and the most angry “Endangered species take precedence over everything,” Tracy-area walnut farmer Jim McLeod said. “Your food supply, your water supply is secondary to the Endangered Species Act… It’s not logical.” I say it is completely logical. Why should Californians have all the water we believe we have the right to when another organism dies because of our greed?

Bill Toone a wildlife biologist and executive director of the EcoLife Foundation which is active in providing clean water for children in Uganda and Kenya says “Conservation is the only short term tool that does not cost anything to implement and immediately saves money and resources.” Sadly San Diegans are not conserving enough. Mayor Jerry Sanders asked for a 10% reduction, but local water users have responded by cutting back 5%. Judging from my inbox many of you do not intend to cut back either. There is so much anger and mistrust on this issue. Many people doubt the shortage is real, others of you think it’s another left wing power grab orchestrated by people who want to gain power by creating bogus shortages. That anger adds credence to the notion that water wars will erupt here in the southwest. When water becomes even more precious people may start a shooting war to keep their share. Bill Toone thinks it could happen “Sadly when there is not enough of an essential resource then we resort to fighting over it for our own survival… this is one war that will start local, in hot spots all over the world and escalate from there. The initial losers: most likely those who cannot pay for water and ultimately spread to our economy and our way of life.”

What do you think? How come more people are not cutting back? How will all this play out? How do you picture San Diego’s future in a world with less or much more expensive water? Will you pick up a gun if the faucet runs dry?

Thanks for tuning in, logging on and speaking up.

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