Living Small in Austin TX

Dustin' off the virtual cobwebs...and building a potting table

Blogging took a bit of a backseat to moving.  The dust still hasn't quite settled here - full boxes sit untouched, artwork stacked against walls instead of hanging on them, daily chores abandoned in favor of unpacking, moving furniture about until it feels like it's in the right place, but it is definitely starting to feel like home.

Soooo, let the DIY-themed posts commence!

Every gardener needs an outdoor work bench or potting table, but I've...sob...never actually had one.  There was this gorgeous old paneled door leaning against the shed in the garden.  Look at that patina!  It was just begging to be incorporated into our outdoor decor.

Then, when I investigated further...

Pink!  

Now I was really torn - the other side was arguably more weathered, but then again...Pink!  And I love this little spot where the door handle once was - look at the shape of it!  I'd love to get hold of some of those original plates and restore the few remaining original doors inside my house - all but three of them have been replaced.  Judging from the state of this one, I suppose they needed to be.

Here's the final product.  

Nate is experimenting with egg cartons as seedling trays - he left eggshell halves in a few of them to see if that helps make transplanting any easier.  The legs are a couple of adjustable height pine sawhorses I purchased at IKEA a couple of years ago. Underneath there is plenty of room for...uh, my gallon jar collection.  We really could stand to drink less apple juice (blame it all on summer and the boy).  I'm determined to find a way to creatively re-use those jars.  Right now, I use them to transport hibiscus mint tea to potlucks.  The twice it's rained this summer, we've put our a variety of buckets and containers and then funneled the rainwater into these closeable (mosquito proof!) jars to use in the garden.  What I really want is a glass jar and bottle cutter, so I can turn the tops into cloches and the bottoms into...terrariums?  Glass stepping stones?  DIY gifties for everyone?!?!

And now, I am off to sample some local flavor at Live Oak Barbeque!

The sky is falling!

This morning's mini-research project, fueled by a depressing lecture on energy decline and global climate change by Guy McPherson (click on that link at yer own risk; while eye-opening, it's nothing less than a total fucking downer and you may not want to swallow the red pill just yet) yesterday, is rainwater harvesting.

I like city living, but I do wonder how sustainable it is in the long term.  Right now I can walk or bike to pretty much anything I need, but let's just take a minute to go to that hypothetical place where the industrial economy shuts down. Being able to ride to the farmer's market and the post office isn't going to mean squat if no one's there. Can I grow enough food on an urban lot?  I think I could, or rather, I think one could.  There are people already doing it.  I don't have nearly enough experience and have a huge knowledge gap when it comes to things like seed saving and plant propagation.  Still, I hope to plug away and get there, no matter how long it takes.

Getting back to the ugly scenario of a complete and total breakdown in services, what happens when I turn on the faucet and it's literally dry?  If that doesn't put a major kink in my plans, I don't know what will!  

But wait, that's not the sky that's falling, that's rain!  Just taking a cursory look around the interwebs yielded a wealth of information that helped put my mind at ease.  Over at rainbarrelguide.com, there's a formula for figuring out how many gallons of water you could collect from your roof.  Or you could use this tool at save-the-rain.com, and not have to stress over any arithmetic whatsoever! (Guess which one I chose?)  I live in a 882 sq. foot house, so I don't have a whole lot of roof, and it really doesn't rain all that much here, but I was pretty happy with the numbers.  It broke down to 65 gallons of water per day.  The average daily household use in the United States is approximately 350 gallons, but I'm hoping we already fall well below that (actually I checked and it looks like we've been averaging 190 gallons a day*).   That number also doesn't take grey water systems into account.  I have confidence we could work with 65 gallons a day. Besides, if it did get to the point where I was relying solely on rainwater, I'm pretty sure I'd have bigger problems than stinky pits and manky denim.

The annoying thing is that I only rent my house, and it doesn't have any gutters, so installing collection barrels would be a bit more complicated than merely diverting the downspout.  I don't plan on living here long enough to make it worth my while.  Only so much I can do at the moment...

* Actually, we are currently paying for 190 gallons a day, but after reading the fine print on our water bill, I see that they average water consumption from November through March and then base your bill upon that.  So, 190 gallons a day is what my landlord was averaging this time last year.  They are lawn waterers and keep their fancy automobiles pretty shiny, so I'm sure we're actually using even less than that.