On the news the other night there was a story about a drought ridden area in Texas where the wells had gone dry. Except for one family, everyone was having to truck water in just to exist. The one exception was a family that had installed a rainwater collection system. Even with little to no rainfall they were able to supply their estimated 1,500 gallon a month need.

From our days of sailing we were pretty aware of the ease and practicality of collecting rain for our needs. On some islands where the only water comes from desalination systems water can be nearly as expensive as diesel fuel.

When we moved to Luna Azul we installed a rain collection system and were amazed, in an area that only gets 17 inches of annual rainfall, how much of our needs could be met from the rain.

In case you have never calculated how much water you are letting get away, here is the simple formula. I will use our 30 ft by 30 ft barn as an example. Converting ft to inches= 360″x360″=129,600 sq inches. So if it rains for one hour at 1″/hr you have 129, 600 cu inches divided by 231 cu in / gallon = 561 gallons of water. In one hour!!!

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The picture above is not a gray water system gone wild. In the arid parts of Texas you sometimes hear people say, ” It rained 17 inches in these parts last year and I was here the day it rained.” The picture was taken on “The Day.” Our gray water system at Luna Azul did a very nice job of keeping a portion of the garden moist. We designed it to support three rows of vegetables like tomatoes, lettuce and peppers. It is recommended that gray water not be used for plants, like turnips, carrots or potatoes that produce the food in direct contact with the water. The water from the kitchen sink(no garbage disposal), lavatory, shower and washing machine went into the gray water system.

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It’s time to get serious about 4th of July plans. For me at least, when I think back to waiting in long lines of traffic to get a prime blanket spot at the Mega Fireworks displays in Dallas and Ft Worth and then dealing with the heat,  I can’t help but contrast those to simple neighborhood celebrations of years past.

Our little neighborhood is called Hometown and last year was our first 4th. Everyone decorated the kids and the dogs and themselves and walked – not drove – from their homes to the parade gathering area by the lake. We laughed and congratulated each other on decorating genius and sense of humor.
Once most everyone had shown up, a very casual parade to the park began. Nothing too fancy, no fireworks, no crowd control, no jostling, no conspicuous beer bash, just families and neighbors celebrating freedom. Just enough of all of that sentiment to bring the goose bumps and ear-to-ear grins.
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Hi, I’m  Jim, a new contributor to Our Everyday Earth.

This picture of me is included to show an unfortunately unforgettable example just how practical the strategies described in future posts to this column will be.  Real Problem ~ Solution stuff. “P ~ S”

In this case, the problem  was my fear of Sharks.  My job as chief hunter (Karen was chief gatherer) on our Sailing expedition forced me into the water almost daily.   My real instinct was to follow the plan endorsed by one of our cruising companions who claimed he had a deal with sharks, “If the sharks would agree to stay out of the Pubs he would promise to stay out of the water.”

Having seen many tearful interviews in which the victims, or their next of kin,  stated that the shark must have mistaken them, in their black wet suit, for a Harbor Seal or Walrus, I resolved to make sure that I did not – by proportion or color – resemble any standard selection on  “The Bull Shark Catch-of-the Day Menu.”

“P ~ S”.   “Problem ~ Solution”  Still alive and not so much as a close call.

In our sailing days we fitted out both of our boats with wind power and solar power and the deep cycle batteries to store all that we generated.  In future posts we will discuss those systems and power conservation strategies .  We even had a wind powered self-steering system to drive for us on long passages.

After our sailing days we moved to a totally undeveloped 10 acres situated 2 hours west of San Antonio Texas.  There we designed a super energy efficient  home, using passive solar principles and SIP Panels, that included a solar hot water outside shower, grey water system, tankless propane water heater, rain water capture system and a composting toilet.  We did all of the work ourselves.

Like on our boats, through research,  careful design and installation,  our homestead was very successful.  The climate in that area is desert-like. It gets over 100 degrees for days at a time and then down into the teens.  And yet, we never had an electrical bill over $100. and never felt like we were camping out.

Future posts will cover these green adventures and more.

See you then,

Jim