Survivors!

Well, it happened: the traditional Colorado Front Range late May snow storm. And right on schedule, too! A week after we finished planting!

Every year this snow storm hits us, like clockwork. And every year we have to cover the garden beds in tarps and hope for the best. But this year was more nerve-wracking than usual. Because we didn’t just have the garden beds full of veggies to protect from the snow.

As I’ve hinted, last summer we started working with a landscape designer to plant native Colorado flora in our front and back yards. And I’m still waiting to reveal the results until it’s all done so I appreciate your continued patience (all three of you–mom, dad, and Andrea). Anyway, a week before the snow, we spent a day in the hot hot heat planting roughly 100 little baby starter plants on the front slope that is our front yard.

The idea with these plants is that their root systems would help prevent the slope from eroding into the sidewalk, which is what it’s been doing for half a century. But of course, baby plants need time to establish their roots before they’ll be hardy enough to survive a freak snow storm. So after a day spent digging holes and establishing baby plants and sweating out moisture faster than I could drink water… I was pretty devastated to hear about the snow. All that hard work, and our baby plants would probably die!

So out came the tarps. And the buckets. And the spare planters, pots… really anything that could fit over a small plant and keep it from getting frostbitten.

And then the snow hit. And every few hours we’d go outside and shake the damp white stuff off of our pear tree, chokecherry tree, and maples. They were bowed over so far they touched the ground after a night of snowfall! Lots of our neighbors lost branches, so I’m glad we were diligent.

After the weekend of snow, most of our established plants are looking just fine. But there was definitely some casualties on the front slope. Primarily the aster, which is pretty delicate to begin with, and the sundrops. That said, I think we managed to save about two thirds of the baby plants, so hopefully they’ll start thriving soon and all that work won’t have gone to waste.

Pictures of the native plant landscaping SOON. I promise!

Rain Barrel Outlaws!

We have a new rain barrel!

Importantly, this one is in the front yard, by the porch. This will make it easier to water the plants up there. Plus, we were officially running low on space for rain barrels in the back yard. We only have so many gutters and downspouts!

Like our other rain barrels, this bad boy is a recycled industrial 50-gallon plastic drum. Unlike our first rain barrel, which began life as a Mountain Dew syrup container, I don’t know what this one used to hold. But now its official purpose is siphoning off water from the state’s water barons, and that’s all that matters!

“Water barons?” you ask. “What the hell does that mean?” I’m so glad you asked!

Colorado water law is extremely complex and fractious. It began with the Colorado Water Wars in the early twentieth century. People literally fought and killed each other for the limited water resources in the state. The result was a complex system in which landowners did not own the water that rained on their land, nor any water that ran off into lakes and streams on their property. Instead, that water belonged to whoever owned the “water rights” to that area. And those water barons collected a pretty penny on their water rights for a long-ass time!

With climate change creeping up on our high desert ecosystem and an overall effort to be more rational and earth-friendly, the state is in a long process of revising the water laws in Colorado. As a result, rain barrels on private property just became legal within the last decade. That’s right: a few short years ago, my rain barrels were ILLEGAL. And the law isn’t yet settled! There are some lobbying the state government to ban rain barrels again.

But let’s be clear: rain barrels are a cheap, efficient, and environmentally friendly way of watering your plants. They’re good for property owners and good for our beloved Mother Nature. It’s not like I’m siphoning off the state’s water and selling it to Nebraska or Arizona (which the owners of the state’s water rights are). I’m just holding it temporarily until I can pour it back into the ground nearby. No harm, no foul, and much crunchy hippie smugness.

How do I know all of this? I edited a book on the Colorado water wars back when I worked at a university press. Check out As Precious As Blood by Professor Steven C. Schulte if my little history lesson tickled your fancy.

But I digress!

If you’d like to make your own rain barrel, I recommend you order the converter kit from the Rain Barrel Depot. Rain barrels are currently so popular that they’re out of their officially packaged kits. So they sent me a Ziplock baggie full of spare parts that, when combined, created a complete converter kit. Since I’d previously purchased other rain barrel converter kits from them, I knew what to do.

Note: Given this isn’t my first (rain barrel) rodeo, I first tried to assemble my own converter kit at Home Depot. Didn’t work. The plumbing section doesn’t have the right kind of bulkheads or overflow valve. Same goes for Lowe’s. So if you need a rain barrel, definitely go to the experts at Rain Barrel Depot.

As for the barrel itself, I bought my first one from an industrial recycling center a few towns away. The others I got for free off of Facebook Marketplace. So shop around until you find something that looks like this:

Lastly, you’ll want to make sure your rain barrel is on level footing. For all of my barrels, I dug out a level patch of ground and used recycled bricks and my trusty level to make a small platform.

All told, this project cost me a total of $40 for the converter kit, plus a little bit of time with my drill. It’ll save me thousands in water bills over its lifespan. And you can’t put a price tag on enviro-smugness. Well worth it.