Ruminations, Musings and Other Stuff…

Had a pretty cool Saturday this weekend and I thought I’d share. Mel flew up North for her Dad’s retirement party (Congrats Bob, I really wish I could’ve been there.) and generally when Mel is out of town and I am not with her, that leads to me getting some beer or wine and holing up with some horror flicks and just enjoying my own company. While that happened, I also had a really awesome project that I had started Saturday morning and completed by sundown.

So what was this all about?

Well, this last week Melinda and I picked up the “Rain King”, and before you think I’m making some sincerely bizarre Counting Crows song reference, the “Rain King” I’m referring to is a rain barrel. And “What’s a rain barrel?” you ask? It’s basically exactly what it sounds like, it’s a barrel you place under your rain gutter down spout and when it rains, instead of the water just washing down into the municipal sewage system, it’s collected for later use. In our case, that use is relegated to our plants and a future veggie garden!

The barrel itself was purchased through Apex Public Works who bought a bunch of the barrels from a local company out of Raleigh called “Rain Water Solutions inc.”. Bought in bulk, the Town Of Apex sold them to residents at almost half the cost! It’s all done in an effort to reduce water consumption, which has always been an issue down here during the dog days of summer. Not too many folks have them and Mel and I have always thought it was a pretty cool idea. So when we had a little extra money, we vowed to pick one up. This last week, we finally did!

The barrels themselves are surprisingly well made, I was pretty impressed when I picked ours up. They are made of 100% recycled materials (definitely cool!), they have a spigot in the front to fill a watering can or attach a hose to, and they can hold up to 65 gallons of water! Rain Water Solutions also paid attention to a lot of little things that you don’t know are important until they are brought to your attention. Stuff like a little mesh screen over the top opening of the barrel to keep out debris and prevent mosquitoes from making your rain barrel a little breeding ground. It also has an over flow hose of considerable length that allows you to divert excess rain water once the huge barrel is completely full. This is important because it keeps the excess water flowing away from your home’s foundation and not into it, doing damage over time.

So we got it home, I quickly put it together and decided on what rain spout to put it under. We chose the spout to the left of the stairs on our deck. It’s closest to our plants and Mel puts together most of her pots in the spring on the back deck. As I mentioned before, one of the cooler aspects of the rain barrel is the spigot attached to it. It’s gravity-fed so there isn’t much water pressure, but it’s convenient and clean and it also was the impetus for the project I built this weekend! Because the spigot is provides gravity fed water pressure, it’s in your best interest to get the barrel as high up as safety allows. The reason for this is simple; the higher the barrel is, the greater the water pressure you will receive. We wanted to put it on the deck but room on the deck is already hard to come by. So that left me with only one option: I’d have to build a small structure, preferably attached to the deck, that we could place the rain barrel onto.

Our goal was to not only make the structure sturdy (at full capacity, the barrel weighs in at 500 lbs!) but also to create a structure that hid the barrel itself. Not that the barrel is a terrible eyesore, but it’s not exactly easy on the eyes either. Luckily the answer came pretty quickly. By the downspout we’ve planted some very healthy Carolina Jessamine, so if I could build the platform and frame it with lattice, that would give the Jessamine a fine structure to the climb on, creating a natural barrier using very little lumber! Sold!

So I dropped Mel off at the airport Saturday morning and stopped at Lowes on the way back home to pick up the lumber for the frame of the platform that the barrel would rest on. I had a small bit of lumber left over from when we built the privacy fence years ago, so that help offset the amount I had to pickup. Which was nice as we try to reuse stuff around the house as much as possible and it was great to finally get some use out of that lumber! Anyways, I got home, dragged out the miter saw, my power drill, the jigsaw, a box of 2.5 inch deck screws, a hammer and a little bit of a blue print I put together for guidance.

I instantly got to work, turning this:

Into this:

All told, the project took about 6 hours start to finish. The end product looks great, albeit a bit rustic because the old pickets I used were naturally warped, but I think it adds character to the finished product! Hopefully that’s not foolhardy male intuition and Mel ends up loving it!
I had hoped to get it all finished before Mel got back the next afternoon, that and it was supposed to rain cats and dogs that evening into the next morning. I’m happy to report that everything worked out pretty much perfect! I finished it and at the stroke of midnight, it’s started to down-pour. I checked outside quickly with a flash light and was treated to the wonderful sound of water splooshing into the barrel. I got up next morning and it was still raining! The barrel was completely full and the structure held beautifully!

Definitely worth the time and the project was pretty fulfilling on a bunch of levels! Highly recommended for a cool DIY weekend project that wont chew up your weekend and spit it out.

Not sure if that’s even a word or not but, either way I thought it was time for an apology.  I know my readership is all of 10… and that’s if I’m lucky, but I’d hate to see some of them stumble upon my coffee post two posts down and be put off by me or anything I have to say.  I did mean what I said, and I do feel that fair trade and organic purchases are only good for our world and our health, but I also believe that my life is my life and it shouldn’t be imposed on anyone… period.

So to my readers I offer a humble apology.  I think my life is pretty awesome at the moment, but it’s distinctly mine and we all have our own stories to tell.  I hope your’s is as grand as mine is shaping up to be!  I was brought up around some pretty amazing people that have taught me so many things that I value to this very second, but one of the chief things that were paramount in this crazy classroom we call life, is that we all write our own stories and no one should ever tell you what ink to use, what pen to pick up, or what paper stock to grab.  We all draw from a distinctly different ink well, and while I think mines pretty nifty, it definitely and emphatically is not yours.  So if you take anything from my postings or tales it’s that I hope you live your own life and realize that it is your’s and if it makes you happy, truly happy, than fuck anyone, and I do mean anyone, who tells you to do otherwise.

Lot’s of people have ideas, but if you can’t make them your’s, or relate to them, then it is simply not worth spending the time to truly entertain them.

The world was polite enough to not comment on my posting below so I’ll take my beliefs, my values and the things that I love and keep them right where they belong; in my head and in my heart.

I’ll trust you’ll do the same.
All the best!

Tad

Mel and I caught the opening night of Tarantino and Rodriguez’s new offering of cinematic mayhem.  How does it stack up? The link is off to the left under movie reviews!

I dare you to click it!

Oh coffee, how I adore thee…

Ahem… enough of that.

So yeah, I drink coffee, and many would say I am somewhat addicted. I don’t know about that, but I must admit, I do worry about the days that go by without a cup. The headaches and irritability that ensue without it, unfortunately make caffeine a pretty essential part of my everyday life. I truly wish it weren’t, but it is, so while I drink cup after cup everyday, why not make the best of it? I try to, really I do, but the real issue here is that I am not alone.

Everyone drinks coffee.

It’s a multi billion dollar industry, serving up cup after cup to people who line up every morning at Starbucks to get their fix. For years I’d take whatever was put in front of me, and while I’ll drink bad coffee, I always prefer the good stuff. And so the downward spiral starts, you pay an arm and a leg for the good stuff that isn’t always prepared well, by some college kid who doesn’t know much about himself much less what it takes to make good coffee (trust me, I know, I’ve been there…) and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s actually in your cup. Molten water strained through crushed, roasted coffee beans right? Well, yes and no.

And the “no” in this one, is kind of a whopper.

So much that we do as consumers now a’days has a “face value” and by that, I mean we all look at the labels, and if it appeals to us, we buy it. Sometimes we just buy what what we deem as “good” without thought or any perceived consequence. And why the hell not? It’s easy dammit! Any of us can look any of us in the eye and honestly say that life is crazy enough without worrying about something as simple as cup of joe. We all think we work hard and that we deserve, at the very minimum, a small indulgence once and a while.

While that’s true, it’s a tad bit naïve.

I’ll get to the point. As I said before, the coffee industry has turned ridiculous in the last decade. Coffee is one of the world’s most important primary commodities simply due to it being one of the world’s most popular beverages. In total, 6.7 million tonnes of coffee were produced annually in 1998–2000, and the forecast is a rise to 7 million tonnes annually by 2010.

And before you thoughts reach “holy shit” status. Coffee ingestion alone, on average adds up to about a third of tap water consumption in most of North America and Europe. The United States consumes around six billion gallons of coffee a year. In 2002 in the U.S., average coffee consumption was 22.1 gallons per person.

Pretty insane stuff huh? Everyone references the power of numbers right? Well cups of coffee are no different. What if those gallons actually stood for something? Believe it or not, they do.

Coffee also has several types of classifications used to determine environmental and labor standards. And for those of you who wondered what my point is, I’ve finally arrived to it. To you, several cups of coffee a day means nothing. You drink it, it wakes you up and you get on with your day.

But to what if you were on the other end?

What if you worked, sun up to sun down, harvesting beans, back breaking work to be sure, under a blazing sun 7 days a week. It’d suck right? Now imagine that you NEVER received any recognition or proper compensation for it? That your hard work was only lining corporate pockets in some tall building far, far away. This isn’t some crazy scenario dreamt up by your’s truly. It’s a sad reality that has been occurring for decades, no, centuries really. When you buy chain based coffee from the likes of any coffee shop with drive up window, you support an industry that has been screwing honest people from the living they’ve deserved for years on end.

Consider this, stat taken from Coop America: Each year, coffee companies make billions of dollars. Starbucks alone earned nearly $6 billion in net revenue during the first three quarters of 2006, and yet for every cup of coffee Starbucks sells, farmers in coffee-growing countries like Ethiopia earn only about three cents.

And yet it somehow gets worse - Now, Starbucks has begun to pursue trademark rights for its Ethiopian coffees – Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Harrar – despite those names describing geographic regions of Ethiopia that have been producing coffee for hundreds of years.

This is the tip of the iceberg folks, but before you throw your hands up and say “Listen hippie, there’s nothing I can do to fix this situation”, you’re wrong. One major part of the solution is probably right in front of you everyday at the same shop you buy your coffee, in the same super market you buy your groceries, and all you have to do is make a conscious decision. When buying coffee, if there is a brand that is considered “Fair Trade”, choose it over what you normally choose.

That’s all! Just make a different flavor choice, it’s that simple.

So what’s “Fair Trade”? Fair Trade is a system of trade based on direct relationships and partnerships between buyers in the global north and producing communities in developing countries.

Fair Trade helps ensure that farmers and artisans throughout the developing world receive a fair price for their products, that communities are healthy, and the environment is preserved. You play an important role in promoting Fair Trade. By shifting your spending to support Fair Trade, and by demanding that businesses make Fair Trade products available, you can reshape the global economy to one that works for people and the planet.

Sounds great doesn’t it? It is.

And it is just the plain right thing to do. When you buy coffee or anything that is “Fair Trade” you’re not only most likely getting a better product, you’re also making the world a better place.

I know all of this is preachy, I hate dragging the soap box out, but trust me, I don’t want you change your day to day or change the way you live your life. I’m just telling you there’s a better way to spend your money on products that actually do good things that span WAY beyond yourself.

Hell, I’m not perfect, far from it in fact. God knows when I need a caffeine injection, I get it where ever I can. But whenever I’m given a choice, and I/we almost always are, I always try to do the right thing and buying Fair Trade products is a small, yet effective way to change the world, without changing your’s. So let you dollar speak volumes, and maybe sleep a little better at night.

Once the caffeine buzz dies off of course…

** The italicized bolded paragraphs above are stats taken from Coop America, Oxfam, and couple other sources I have sitting on the shelf. If you’d like specifics, leave a comment below or you can email me directly **