Moving Water, Having Fun

Here's what happens when we were testing with the hose to add water to the garden basin. Looks like it just rained, but not on day this taken, April 4. This was last week, and recent cold weather and rain have added to the lower rain garden basin, to be shown next.

My "raingarden" is not actually the same as what may be pictured in recent articles about this concept. What I have is more of a drainage system with a swale at the upper side, pictured here, and another swale at the lower level, with drainage channels running in between.

Basically all this is more like the playing with sand and water at the beach that I did as a kid. We'd work on rerouting the stream channel that ran into Puget Sound near our house, using beach rocks, logs, and the sand. Now its dirtier, and there's an actual purpose to it other than just having fun. But when I'm out there and the rain is pouring down and I'm poking at the little blockages in the drainage patterns, removing sticks and leaves with the bamboo garden stake I just grabbed, not bothering to change shoes after getting home from some meeting or other, well, what else but fun?

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Spring in January 2010

Been so warm outside these days, really feels like spring. Grass is starting to grow, daffodils are up a few inches or more in places, primroses blooming and for sale at all the groceries, weeds growing, and we hear they are worried about getting enough snow for the Olympics next month up the road in Vancouver, B.C. And no, this warm winter in the Puget Sound Convergence Zone has nothing to do with Global Warming, or as we should call it, Global Climate Change. What I don't understand at all is why so many people who have learned to read and write and supposedly understand what they read have decided not to use their abilities to discern what scientists keep telling us. The glaciers are melting, that's a fact. But don't take my word for it, or the National Geographic's word for it. Go read for yourself. Ok, so now we just call it Global Change. Not just climate, or maybe not even climate, and certainly nothing to do with the weather. Changes in the global envir...

See you at the Native Plant Sales, starts Tomorrow!

Well, we made it into the Everett Herald, thanks to the editors there! Plant sale benefits shelter for homeless families in Everett Picture of plants getting ready, by the new greenhouse at Glacier Peak High School. Students in biotech classes did the work! We are getting lots of help and interest in our project, and looking forward to a great sale on what is looking like a SPRING DAY after months of freezing, rain, rain, and more rain. The plants at volunteer's yards have all been fine over the winter, the native plants know how to shut down so to speak in the cold. Leaves turn red, wait for a while, then turn green again as it warms up. Here's what my Native Planter looks like now, recovering from winter. And yes, I did add some non-native pansies from the supermarket.

Net Zero Water, Seattle Elementary Demo Project

Here's a demo project that gets close to reusing all its water, or net zero water. "The classroom toilet composts and treats waste on site rather than flushing it into city sewer pipes. Water washed down sinks doesn't flow into storm drains but recirculates to a 14-foot-high wall filled with plants, which will eventually soak it all up. For now, excess flows through the wall. Plenty of "green" buildings strive to generate as much energy as they use, but Bertschi School's new science building is one of dozens nationwide taking it a step further. They're attempting to unplug from the municipal water and sewer system to collect, recycle and reuse water and wastewater on site, a concept often referred to as net zero water. The U.S. Army has a goal for several installations to reach zero water, energy and waste use, and last week it designated Fort Riley in Kansas, Camp Rilea in Oregon and Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, among others, to be...

The Convergence Zone

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