Sunday - 25 APR 2010 Rain Barrel Update

We got exactly 0.37" of rain last night. And it did fill up the 55 gallon rain barrel! NOTE: There are 231 cubic inches of rain in a gallon.

When I measured the size of the roof section that drains into the barrel I got 15x27 feet or 405 square feet. If you do the math you get 144x405 square inches of area. If 1.00 inches of rain fell over that many square inches that would amount to 252 gallons. Since last night only 0.37" inches of rain fell that amounts to 0.37 of that amount which is 93 gallons. well that is not 55 gallons so some of the rain escaped the gutters. That can happen because that section of the roof is partially covered by trees and they can adsorb quite a bit of rain as it falls on them, plus my calculations of the number of square feet in the roof could be off.

In general the solution to the equation ((x*144)/231)*.37=55 which comes out to be 238 square feet. So I'm either missing 67 square feet of roof, or the trees absorbed 28 gallons of water or ... THE RAIN BARREL RAN OVER!

Since the little connection at the bottom of the barrel is leaking and the rain barrel was not completely full this morning then a leak could account for this. When just now I did a test it took 1 minute to get 1/3 of a cup which is 20 cups an hour or 1.25 gal/hour and since I first looked at the barrel it was 3 hours ago and it does look like it could be down about 5 gallons and if when it quit raining it had been leaking and running over then that may be where the the 28 gallons of water went. So I'm off to the hardware store again today and I'll purchase another washer for the spigot setup and tighten it down nicely and we will see if we can stop the leak and the next time it rains I'll do more measurements and see how accurate my calculations of the size of the roof are.

Evelyn has a brand new 4x5 garden just across the drive way from the rain barrel. Recently she purchase a soaker hose and has wound it around the garden as well as having it wind through her flower bed next to to the 4x5 garden.

So the 4x5 garden is 20 square feet and the area the rest of the hose wanders through is about the same size or in total probably around 45 square feet.

So she can connect the regular hose pipe to the soaker hose and then to the rain barrel and draw down the barrel about 1/10 or (11 gallons) and that will translate to having her flower bed and garden rained on with 0.37" of rain.

Here is a slide show of some pictures.

24 April 2010 Rain Barrel

Rain Barrel - 24 APR 20010

Ginny And Joe, when visiting us week before last found the barrel at a brewing store. It is just a used beer barrel and they sell them for $20.00.

When you go to the garden store they charge $100.00 for the same barrel. Joe and Ginny did figure out a system for getting the rain out but it started leaking and so when I visited Burke Brothers Hardware today and asked the fellow he told me the steps that he just finished doing to the same type of barrel.

I drilled out the hole to 1". That is just right for the brass spigot to screw into. The on the other side you slide a big rubber washer that has caulking on one side over the bit that sticks through into the inside of the barrel. Then you screw on a sleeve on the spigot and it tightens down on the rubber washer making it water tight.

Sadly, you have to sacrifice the top of the barrel since there is no way to reach inside the barrel through the little openings that are in the top. This activity involved unloading the outbuilding until I could get down to the container that had the jig-saw in it. And almost immediately Rob and I broke the saw blade. So it was back to Burk Brothers Hardware to pick up some extra saw blades for the jig-saw.

We tried just removing one half the top but Robert still could not reach the bottom of the barrel so we removed the rest of the top.

Next we upended three concrete blocks and placed the barrel next to the house and sawed off the downspout and fixed onto it one of those stretch accordion hoses and routed it to the barrel. We covered the barrel with some nylon screen fixed into place with bungee cords to keep out the debris and the mosquitoes. Here is a picture of the result.

From Random Graphic Images

Beautiful Spring Day And Bike Ride

Today Evelyn headed out for a sheep farm somewhere around here and I decided to try my old 'North Raleigh Loop Ride'. I've not done this ride for a couple of years and I felt it. but it does fit in with my new exercise plan so I was up to it. Here are the stats:

Distance .... 49.47 km

Time ........ 02:50 hh:mm

Average ..... 17.40 kph

That average was not 20kph which is what I do on flat land but I think 17kph was pretty good. Here is a link to the route.

A Visit With Gwin And Sunrise In N Raleigh

Last Sunday I stopped by Mount Olive on the way back to Raleigh from Morehead City and took these pictures of Gwin's Azaleas. She was on her way to the library and we only got in a brief visit. Some weeks ago on Easter Sunday we had a longer visit.

Then this morning on the way back from the gym the sunrise was so beautiful I stopped and took two pictures. The color was not quite right by the time I took the pictures, and I do not think you could ever capture that color precisely. The fellow who paints pictures of the beautiful light blue dawn sky did capture that color schema and it does match what I saw this morning.

Here are the pictures:

Beautiful Day For A Bike Ride

Evelyn was working in the quilt shop today and the day was so pretty I took off by myself. The ride was about the same as the one we did together on Easter Weekend. Except this time I rode counterclockwise and did the Blair Farm Road/Crab Point part. Here are the stats:

Distance ....... 26.03 km

Average Speed .. 20.10 kph

Elapsed Time ... 01:17 hh:mm

I started down Bay Street and took the sidewalk around the ball field and continued on Bay Street till it ended at the graveyard. I took the raised walkway around the graveyard and along Calico Creek to the 20th Street pedestrian bridge. Then on out 20th Street to Blair Farm Road. Then on to Crab Point and then back to Country Club Road. Country Club Road to the High School then back toward town on the greenway to the Hospital. At the hospital I took 35th street over to the Welcome Center and boat launch location and got on Evans Street. Headed down Evans crossing the AB Bridge streets and continuing on Evans to 21st Street and then zig over to Shepard all the way to where it rejoins Evans then down to 4th Street. Take 4th street across the peninsular to Fisher Street and back home.

Capitalism 2.0

How Monetary Incentives Are Counter Productive When Certain Ways Of Thinking Are Required

The Congress of the United States is considering sweeping financial reforms that should keep the our economy and the global economy in general from melting down, again.

To inform this effort a short piece on PBS the other night was presented that shows that monetary incentives are counterproductive when certain ways of thinking are required. Here is the link:

http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/04/pbs-looks-at-motivation-and-candles

Last night on the radio program "This American Life" I listened to a piece that, to me, proved the premise when considering the melt down the economy endured in 2007-2008, and that we are still recovering from. Here is the link to that show:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job

These two shows should be REQUIRED viewing and listening for all members of the United States Congress as they consider the financial reforms.

And everyone in the financial industry (stocks, bonds, commodities, etc...) should also learn the lessons presented in this idea.

Paying attention to this is really a win-win thing.

Instituting reform for the types of behaviors will not only keep the planet's financial system from melting down again but also result in (sane) profits for business as compared to (insane profits).

My Dear Cousin Morris

Here is a link to a story about an art exhibit at Meridith featuring a picture drawn by Cousin Morris's wife Liz:

Her is a link to The Story and here is a link to The Picture

Enjoy!

2010 Easter Weekend

What a beautiful weekend. We are down in Morehead City NC. And Saturday started off with a super bike ride. Here is the GMaps Pedometer version of the ride. Here are the specifics:

Distance ....... 22.63 km

Average Speed .. 18.1 kph

Duration ....... 1:14 h:mm

Then back at the house my son Rob said, "How about a paddle Dad!". So off we went in the kayaks! Here also is a GMaps Pedometer version of the paddle. The paddle was about 3.5km (or 2 miles).

Here are some pictures of the paddle:

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