It’s been an exceptionally wet spring around these parts, no question. Puts me in mind of when I first moved here, after too many years in Arizona, and I purely loved waking to the sound of steady rain, music to my desert-parched ears.

However, as we all know, past precipitation is no indication of future rainstorms. My feeling from living through the last decade or so of distressing reservoir-level reports is the smart money’s on a dry summer. And a statistic I’ve seen tossed around says that up to 40% of a household’s water use during a dry summer is for outdoor watering.

A rain barrel is a simple means for storing some of the water that falls on your rooftop that would otherwise end up in the sewer system, and using it for something functional – generally outdoor watering. And with minimal effort, it’s something you can easily put in place at your home.

Complete systems are available from about $100, with higher pricetags for those designed to look like something other than, well, a big plastic barrel. The most affordable complete system I found, at around $80, can be purchased through Northern Tool, which has a store in Salem; call them at 986-0264 and they can have one shipped from the warehouse in about a week. Kits are also available through a number of vendors.

However, if you own, or can borrow, a drill and a jigsaw (or even a manual drywall saw), making your own is a fairly simple undertaking, once you locate a suitable vessel.

Hans Heerens of Cassell Lane was at the home improvement store picking up a few things to build raised garden beds earlier this year when his eye fell on a 44-gallon barrel. The idea of a rain barrel had been lurking in his mind since seeing one at a neighbors’ house, and he decided on the spot that the barrel was the start of a great DIY project. “Honestly, it took next to no time at all” to make it downspout-ready and outfit it with a spigot and overflow valve.

Hans took on the project free-form, but for those who like a plan in hand, online guides abound; a brief supplication at the great god google led me to two that appeared particularly helpful. Both include a complete parts list, which may help you sidestep the near-inevitable return trips to the hardware store that beset the simplest DIY project:

http://www.longwood.edu/CLEANVA/rainbarrels.htm

and this one, from YouTube:

Keeping in mind that water will not flow uphill is key to rain-barrel placement. Like many yards in the area, the Heerens’ is on a grade. Hans worked this to his advantage, placing the barrel upslope from the new garden beds. Realizing that he wouldn’t have sufficient pressure to, say, run a sprinkler, Hans created a garden irrigation system by drilling holes along a length of old hose he had, which he then snaked through the beds. A turn of the spigot on the barrel, and voila – high-level, low-tech irrigation. “Not that we’ve had a single dry week since I installed it,” he points out wryly.

Another advantage of capturing some of the rain coming off your roof is that it will help slow down run-off into streams and storm drains, thereby reducing erosion, sedimentation, and pollution. Environmentalists worry most about the initial surge of storm water after a downpour because it causes the most erosion of the previously dry soil, and carries the most sediment and pollutants into the waterways.

Will 50 or so gallons of water stored in a rain barrel solve much in the way of environmental problems? Well, heck no. But it’s one small step, and one that feels good. And like all small steps, if a lot of folks start stepping, we can really get somewhere.

Amy still loves the rain, and has further information about the search for suitable barrels for the DIYer. Husband Sean has a manual drywall saw to loan, though personally he recommends borrowing a jigsaw instead. Contact greenside@southroanokecircle.com.

As it turns out, in this as in many other environmental questions, absolutes are hard to come by. There are a dizzying number of factors that any analysis worth its margarita salt would need to figure in. In broad overview, start with the raw crop – what it is and how it’s grown (barley over corn; organic over conventional), not to mention the crop’s proximity to its point of brewing. Move from there on to the efficiency of the brewery – how it’s powered, and other points. Then look at packaging – cans, bottles (clear or colored), or kegs – and then move on to those pesky transport questions: how, and how far (train over long-haul truck over ocean crossing), and let’s not forget the matter of refrigeration either.

Leapin’ leprechauns, it’s enough to drive one to drink. Some home-brewed dandelion wine, perhaps.

Unwilling to look for a grant to conduct my very own complete life cycle analysis of a full complement of domestically brewed beers, I turned instead to the Internet to bring you the following easily sippable advice:

1. Eschew packaging: drink draft. Barring that, choose recyclable packaging. In Roanoke, that’s cans or (sigh) clear glass, at least for the near future.
2. Drink local, or regional, or at least from the east coast.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t note that there are a handful of brewers out there making real efforts to lighten their environmental load on the planet with things such as solar- and wind-powered plants and impressive waste-recycling records. Truly, they deserve the support of your raised glass as well. Among them are Sierra Nevada (of the famous Pale Ale) in California, and New Belgium (maker of the Fat Tire beers) in Colorado, and Brooklyn Brewery in, well, Brooklyn.

Yes, California and Colorado are well across the Mississippi, in contradiction to #2, above – but as I mentioned early on, absolutes are hard to come by in this business.

All that said, one of the largest impacts of what you drink has to do with something much closer to home: how far away is your point of sale, and how do you get yourself there?

So this St. Paddy’s, walk, bike, or take public transport to your favorite drinking establishment. And ask if they have Roanoke-based Railhouse Beer on tap.

Amy has lived in South Roanoke since 2002. She and her husband, Sean Patrick McGinnis, have two bonnie wee lassies.

This new kid on the e-waste recycling block isn’t just fetchingly convenient; he’s got panache too.  Re-use trumps recycle every time, and donated computers that meet minimum standards will be refurbished by trained workers and then resold in Goodwill retail stores, where revenues support the non-profit agency’s job training and career services.  If refurbishing isn’t an option, workers will demanufacture the equipment, sort the component parts, and prepare them for proper recycling.

And if all that weren’t cool enough, remember that Goodwill provides work opportunities for individuals with disabilities and other special needs.

The fine print on Goodwill’s program:  Accepted at no charge:  any brand of computer system, working or non-working; accessories (keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, and other peripherals that attach to the computer), cell phones, PDAs, working TVs, packaged software, electronic games, etc.  Special handling fees (cash only, please) do apply to computer monitors, when not donated as a complete system ($5), and non-working TVs ($10).  For specific questions, contact Goodwill locally.

While donors assume sole responsibility for removing all personal data from their computer hard drives before donating, Goodwill will wipe hard drives for a $10 fee, or you can visit www.dban.org to obtain software to accomplish this readily on your own.

And if you’re maybe wondering why tossing defunct electronics in your big blue curbside bin isn’t a good option, remember that toxic materials such as lead, mercury, chlorine and bromine are commonly used in producing computers and other electronics, and if these devices are dumped into solid waste systems, the toxins can seep from landfills into groundwater.  Not a good thing.

And just in time for year-end tax planning:  don’t forget, donations are deductible. Check with your tax advisor for more information about eligibility and how to value your electronics donations.

Starting around the time this issue of the Circle hits your doorstep, we’ll be entering the official retail Holiday Season, when holiday decorations and Christmas carols will greet you as you step into the department stores.

Even if you don’t head to the mall, the too-early holiday season will find you. October is when the mail-order business really starts cranking it up. If you have a postal address, you’ve experienced the deluge of what the cartoon “Shoe” once pegged as “The Yule ‘logues.”

Many of us enjoy getting catalogs from the sellers we regularly do commerce with. No problem there. But even if you’re diligent as you shop, checking or unchecking boxes at every site and doing your level best to opt out of everyone’s zealous interest in you, it’s virtually impossible to avoid ending up on more mailing lists than seems possible.

It’s a fact: yes, they all share their information, and many of the seemingly independent merchants are related by ownership. One innocuous purchase from a single seller or store can land you instantly on a half-dozen other lists, and from there it’s all geometric, as your data is swapped and sold with utter disregard for your preferences in the matter.

Catalogues are an environmental challenge on several fronts. First, they consume vast amounts of paper to produce, not to mention the less-visible resources required to deliver them to your door. That’s a no-brainer. But secondly, they have an undeniable ability to tempt us into buying things that we hadn’t planned to. Things we hadn’t planned to buy are often, well, things we might not really need.

And there we begin the cycle of Stuff. Everything we buy is manufactured. Manufacture of goods consumes resources and emits waste. (I highly recommend visiting the storyofstuff.com website. You can click to view the video, which isn’t preachy or annoying but simply informative.)

So. All those catalogues you DON’T want – how to get rid of them? Enter the Internet, at your service. catalogchoice.org is an innovative site, completely free, where you create an account, enter information on all your household addressees, and from there simply tick off catalogs you no longer wish to receive. It’s a simple and relatively quick process, and you can log in at any time to update your list. Over the course of a few short months you’ll soon see the flood dry to a trickle.

greendimes.com offers a free “basic” service, with plenty of information, tips, and printable forms for getting off lists – or for a $20 fee, they’ll do it for you: you provide your name and mailing address, tell them which catalogs you no longer wish to receive, and they’ll take care of the rest. 41pounds.org is a similar site, though they address junk mail beyond catalogues too, and donate more than a third of the fee they charge to an environmental or community organization that you choose.

Another useful site is obviously.com/junkmail/, which has information about stemming the tide of not only catalogues but all forms of undesired marketing.

If you do not have access to or comfort with the Internet, write to Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, PO Box 643, Carmel, NY 15012-0643. Include your complete name, address, zip code and a request to “activate the preference service.” This works to stop mail from all member organizations that you have not specifically ordered products from.

Amy has lived in South Roanoke since 2002 and uses the time she no longer spends flipping through catalogues to ride her bike, play with her two daughters, and tend her veggie garden.