Full frontal

I figured you might need photographic evidence, so here it is:

West Walker northbound at League City Parkway.  Strong northwest wind, as evidenced by the flags.  

Yyyyup.  That's a frontal boundary.  In mid-July.  In Houston.  

If I'd had the time this afternoon, I would have listened to the air traffic control chatter via LiveATC, because I bet there were some "WTF?!" comments from the pilots.  Commercial traffic has been landing to the north for several hours now.

I attempted to find out when we last had a significant cold front in July (as opposed to one of those pathetic waves that drops the temp 1 or 2 degrees).  This NOAA site suggests that it may have been as long ago as 20 years.  Here's hoping you can go outside for at least a few minutes to enjoy the rareness of it.

Rain barrels, Part 3: Epic fail

In the spring of 2011, I published a post titled "Rain barrels:  What's hype and what's helpful".  In that post, I cited the main drawbacks to using barrels.  By simple mathematics, they are highly unlikely to "save you money on your water bill", as many vendors and municipalities claim in their promotional language.  Furthermore, they are not very "green" for the simple reason that many brands leak so badly that they quickly become useless and must be tossed out with the trash.

I got my first rain barrel, a Systern model, during a City of Houston distribution campaign a few years ago (I lived in Houston before moving to League City).  It appeared to be well-made, but it quickly developed this huge stress fracture in the front of it.  The City of Houston actually replaced it for me free of charge (and did so for other folks whose barrels had also failed), but my replacement began leaking even more quickly than the first one had.

So rather than conserving water, many of these barrels instead waste peoples' money and proceed to take up space in landfills.  In so doing, they tend to serve as an overall public deterrent to water conservation in accordance with the "once bitten, twice shy" principle.  Any consumer who has gone to the expense and trouble to install a rain barrel only to have it leak like a sieve is not going to be very open to future conservation measures-in-kind.  And I don't blame them one bit.  

The City of League City recently undertook its own rain barrel campaign which saw about 200 takers, according to Galveston County Daily News (paywalled).  I am not familiar with this brand but I sure hope that those 200 buyers have better luck with their barrels than I've had with mine.  

In my original hype vs. helpful post, I also enumerated the positives to owning a rain barrel.  They can be convenient for spot-watering in certain scenarios and, as long as you can somehow keep them from leaking for a number of years, consistent use will at least allow you to recoup your expenditure on the barrel itself, even if you don't see a positive impact on your water bill.

But that's a really, really big "IF".  What I'm going to do below is show you a series of photos that tell a brand new rain barrel story with a surprise ending.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, you must think that my entire life is one endless procession of rainbows and butterflies because every home improvement project that I lay my hands to magically turns out to yield a benefit that is ten times worth the effort I put into it.  Well, I'm here to tell you that ain't true, and this story will illustrate it in spades.

I was inspired to install a new rain barrel in this central alcove of our front yard for the sake of convenience.  Because we have a four-car lateral attached garage (three spaces across and two spaces deep in the middle), our house is a full 60 feet wide.  While we had the foresight to order the builder to install garden hose faucets on each of the front corners (east and west), we didn't think to order one for the middle. Therefore, I must unroll 30 feet of hose in order to water my front-bed flowers.  And when I'm finished, I must roll 30 feet of hose back up again.  I spend more time unrolling and rolling hose than I spend watering the flowers.  It's a ridiculous waste of time and energy that could be avoided by keeping a barrel of water right here where it's needed.  

However this is our front yard I'm talking about, and so whatever I install here has to have maximum attractiveness.  I fell in love with this Sam's Club offering (left side of photo).  It has a nice textured surface, the color coordinates perfectly with our brick, and there's a planter in the top of it so that you can put plants that will grow and cascade over the side and disguise the fact that the rain barrel is even present.  

Tap to expand.  Basically this is a reference to the fact that POAs and HOAs cannot prohibit residential rainwater harvesting in Texas.  However, it is within their authority to place limits on how homeowners design their systems, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they're going to want to see installations that are as attractive as possible.  And I can't blame them for that.

Screengrabbed from this Texas Water Development Board site.  

Dry fit, before I created a stable base.  With screening plantings and whatnot, you can see that this barrel could be made to be inconspicuous.  

Let me walk you through creation of the base and downspout diversion.  Most people don't realize how heavy rain barrels are (including manufacturers who under-engineer them for the stress loads they must bear).  When full of water, this barrel will weigh almost 500 pounds!!  (65 gallons x 7.5 lbs/gallon).  That requires a stable base or it could become a safety hazard (what if it tipped over and fell on a child?).

I started by removing one of our foundation shrubs.  

Then I scraped off the mulch to expose the sand layer emplaced by the builder.  I used a tamper to compact it.  

Soil compaction is good exercise for the core and arms.  

Addition of limestone gravel to help with under-drainage.  Also compacted.  

On top of the limestone, a layer of decomposed granite and then cinder blocks on top of that, making sure to keep everything absolutely level.  

12" x 12" caps on top of the cinder blocks.  

This basically creates a robust 2' x 2' pad.  And the open sides of the cinder blocks can serve as toad houses.  

Except in my case, I blocked off the toad-house holes so that the surrounding soil and mulch would not spill into them.  

Now for the barrel preparation.  This one needed an overflow hole to be drilled.  Very important because excess water needs to be conveyed away from your slab.  

A rain barrel is, indeed, a good idea - but only if it is properly designed, constructed, and installed.  

Overflow port successfully drilled.  

Some simple fittings from the hardware store for the overflow tube.    

You can pick up these white plastic flex pieces for about a buck and a half at hardware store.  Here you can see the top planter in the barrel.  

We simply re-routed the existing downspout. If I were keeping this assemblage, I would paint the white plastic piece to match the downspout so that it looks cohesive and inconspicuous. 

And then the blue overflow hose is tucked into the existing flex tube that the downspout had originally been placed in.

It's not too ugly, is it??  You can tell that, when re-mulched and when trimmed out with screening vegetation, it would not be an eyesore.  

Now for the fatal flaw in this otherwise-exemplary home improvement story.

In order to test the final configuration, we (sigh) unrolled 30 feet of garden hose and ran the water into the rain gutter to simulate rainwater run-off.  

And guess what happened next??  

No rainbows and butterflies today!!!

It was only upon testing in situ that we discovered that this barrel is badly defective.  The side seams were not welded properly.  An uncountable number of pin-hole leaks down the sides immediately made themselves apparent.  

OMG, somebody shoot me - it never occurred to me that this barrel might leak badly right from the moment that it rolled off the assembly line.  It never occurred to me to test the barrel for water-tightness even before I took the store labels off.  I'm used to rain barrels failing 3 to 12 months into their operation.  This doesn't even rise to the level of infant mortality - this damned thing was stillborn.

Wikipedia's explanation of the bathtub curve, which describes the nature of engineering failures. Apparently many would beg to differ with me on my essential distinction between "infant mortality" and "stillborn".  

Sigh.  My bad, obviously.  And obviously, I do not recommend that you purchase this particular rain barrel.

Out of stock?  Really?  And how many other hapless would-be-greenie consumers in our local area have experienced what I've shown above??

Screengrabbed  on June 8, 2014 from this site. 

So I am now the proud owner of three (count 'em) non-working rain barrels.  I've begun to turn my attention to ways in which I might somehow retrofit or otherwise adapt one or more of them in order to recoup some measure of functionality (liners? structural supports? internal coatings?  some combination of the above?).  If I figure out what these things are good for other than disposal in a landfill, I'll publish a follow-up post.

Meanwhile, best wishes to the 200 of you who recently purchased rain barrels from the City of League City.  May you have better luck with your barrels than I have had with all of mine.

The north Clear Lake wetlands

Last August when I was researching for this post which describes the HEB (originally postulated as a Central Market) to be built in north Clear Lake, I noticed something mighty peculiar.

August 2013 screengrab from Googlemaps, which I retained because I knew I'd need it one day:  Someone had drawn a very large line in the not-so-sandy sand:  Six wetland areas defined on Googlemaps.  Named.  Designated.  And with obvious intelligence, foresight, and purpose - someone knew what they were doing here.  

Googlemaps is participatory - anyone can upload any tagging information that they want, and unless it is inappropriate or challenged by others, it seems to persist.  But that fact alone doesn't necessarily make it easy to track the backstory or the instigators in a case like this, so I just left this issue alone figuring that the makers would make themselves apparent sooner or later.

I figured it might be someone connected to the existing developments, because additional wetland set-asides are evident within the older neighborhoods just south of the undeveloped area shown above.

Screengrabbed from Googlemaps.  

June 6 2014 screengrab from Googlemaps:  Hmmmm, isn't that curious??  Compare with the first screengrab shown above, the one I retained from August 2013.  Someone appears to have gone into Google and deleted the labels for the Northfork Wetlands, Clear Lake City Wetlands, and Middlebrook Wetlands.  

And so it has come to pass that the group with particular focus in this area has manifested.   Galveston County Daily News (paywalled) reports that the local special interest group Galveston Baykeeper has sued Trendmaker Homes in federal court to challenge wetlands designations in the area, with the apparent goal of restricting development (or perhaps compelling mitigation... I haven't read the full GCDN article yet because my subscription discontinued due to an online glitch).

You'll notice that they use the phrase "significant nexus" in that last line.  Ordinarily that might mean pretty much everything from a regulatory standpoint, but we are not currently living in strictly ordinary times as the following Wikipedia grab suggests.

Screengrabbed from the Galveston Baykeeper website.  

A discussion of the particulars is way, waaay beyond the scope of this blog (some would argue that it's so complicated that it's beyond the scope of any blog).  Suffice it to say that both the regulatory and the biological issues are not clear and not necessarily as settled as some might claim or hope.

Screengrabbed from Wikipedia.  

It turns out that FOX Houston had covered the beginnings of this story back in January of this year, but I don't read every single news outlet every day, and so it's easy to miss stuff like that.  As I have complained bitterly before, the League City - Friendswood - Clear Lake area with its combined population of about a quarter of a million people doesn't have its own newspaper.  At this point, we don't even have a viable blogosphere.  Mostly what we've got is a hodge-podge of about a half dozen unrelated regional commercial news outlets, none of which are particularly invested in Clear Lake (or if they are, they're not well-funded), and which may or may not cover any given issue in a systematic or predictable manner.  For crying out loud, murders happen in Clear Lake and don't even get reported because of the abysmal news coverage that characterizes our area.  

I'm digressing obviously, but the current bottom line on this court case is that it will be interesting to watch what happens here.  I myself wouldn't count any given outcome as a done deal just yet.

In this September 2013 post, I joked about owning a piece of "the original" Space Center Blvd. extension above CLC Blvd.  A $2 million grade-related construction mistake forced the developers to rip out a large section of the original paving because it was built at too low an elevation.  Many of us who lived in north Clear Lake at the time took full recreational advantage of the fact that the right of way lay abandoned for months and months, making it wonderful for biking, hiking, sports, etc.  I remember quite clearly the construction area being peppered with wetland delineation signs on either side of the faulty right-of-way.  Those signs suggested that at least some of the wetlands in that area are, in fact, jurisdictional, but I don't have any information on the extent of it.

DISCLAIMER:  As usual, this blog presents personal observations and editorializing only.  I have no personal or professional connections to either of the parties named in the litigation referenced above.  Neither am I a wetlands expert - and I wouldn't want to be, because that area of regulatory administration is too complicated, too mercurial, and too intensely politicized for my taste.  I just know from casual reading that it is unsettled and constantly evolving. 

Creature from the suburban lagoon, Part 2

Following up on my original post where I didn't yet have the varmint identified, it turns out to be a nutria, more accurately referred to as a coypu.

The white hairs around the schnoz are a dead giveaway.  He lives in the drain pipe under Cypress Pointe at West Walker Street.

Given that I found him, I feel entitled to name him.  I think I'll call him Constantinople.  Constantinople the coypu.  

So we can relax that there will be none of our trees cut down as there would be with a beaver, although there might be some burrowing to contend with, because these guys love to dig all kinds of stuff up.

But surely you didn't think I'd conclude this post without subjecting you to a bunch of other photos of lagoon-related creatures.  Yesterday might very well have been the nicest day of the entire year - well worth a 2-mile ramble around our area.  Here's a short tour of some of the other critters I encountered on the way.

A couple of quackers.  I suspect from the edged blue wing markings and their shyness that they are American black ducks.  

Mourning doves, only because they are so photogenic.  

Firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella).  I bet you always wondered about the name of this distinctive wildflower.  

Scissor-tailed flycatcher, also known as the Texas bird of paradise.  The retention ponds were this particular individual's paradise of insects.  

Checkered white butterfly.  Looks beautiful in this photo but its caterpillars would eat my broccoli.  

Red-shouldered hawk at the top of one of the high towers.  Any time you see one of these near Centerpointe's retention ponds, look around for its mate.  

His mate was easy to spot, standing on the southwest fence of Oaks of Clear Creek subdivision, hoping to pounce on and devour someone's kitty or chihuahua.  Sorry for the blurryness of the photo.  

I would think it's a loggerhead shrike, but I don't know why its belly is as yellow as that of a brown shrike.  They are ruthless hunters, and one of their favorite local meals is the not-so-humble Carolina anole.  

Woodpecker, perhaps a red-bellied (their bellies really aren't that red).  The abundant trees in the dog park property and the adjacent cattle tract support a number of woodpeckers.  

Pulled along by my dog, I missed getting pics of an equal number of additional species.  It's really quite remarkable the diversity of wildlife surrounding just those retention ponds and extending down the Interurban easement.  I've always loved that about Houston - it's a riot of life everywhere you look, in defiance of developmental burdens.

A word of warning, however.  With recent increased publicity regarding the dog park property, more folks seem to be showing up to check it out (I've seen walkers and the other day there were two young people riding a dirt bike around it).  It's a beautiful property but it has not yet been tamed.  As such, it contains hazards including poison ivy (above).  Additionally, the Centerpointe retention ponds are perfect habitat for the water moccasin, which is one of the nastiest poisonous snakes on the planet.  Enjoy our area, but keep your eyes open.  

Today is shaping up to be as beautiful as yesterday was.  You'll want to get out and take a few long walks, because the heat of summer and the mosquitoes will be upon us soon enough.  Who knows - you might even spot a shy coypu in the process.  

The missing monarchs

The local decline in monarch butterflies this year has been remarkable.  In a bad way, that is.  In contrast to the past few years, now there are almost none.

I've been growing milkweed and serving as a backyard nursery for wild migrating monarchs for the past several years.  This was one of 2013's newborns, a male.  You can see his busted cocoon under the fence rail he's clinging to.  Hard to believe that whole creature was stuffed inside that tiny capsule just moments before.  

For the past two years, I watched hordes of caterpillars devour everything I could throw at them in the way of their milkweed dietary staple. This is also a photo from April 2013.  

Late April 2014, and this particular milkweed plant hasn't even been touched by a caterpillar (the adult females recognize milkweed and lay their eggs directly on the plants).  I have three large pots of the stuff.  One was well chewed, the other barely, and this one not at all.  Last year, all three were eaten down to the stems.    

I've found only two cocoons so far this year, and one of them is attached haphazardly to the side of a planter and looked to be in substandard condition.  The one above looks healthy - I've noticed that cocoons attached beneath cedar fence rails result in a high rate of successful butterflies.

In contrast, by this time last year, I had at least a dozen cocoons (plus probably many more hidden away that I didn't manage to find).  

According to the folks who monitor the health of the monarch population, their current numbers have fallen to the lowest level ever measured.  A number of causes are postulated, mostly involving habitat loss.

There's no habitat loss in my back yard.  They don't call it milkWEED for nothing - it spreads and grows as a weed, with no cultivation required.  Last year I dug up a bunch of volunteer milkweeds that had seeded themselves randomly in my yard and distributed them among my neighbors, hoping that folks would plant a pot and provide additional food to the fluttery migrants.   

Milkweed is only half the battle, though.  Monarchs also need other types of plants to supply nectar, and flowering plants have been in short, late supply in North America due to the whole polar vortex thing that happened this winter.

Anyway, it's a conspiracy of weather and habitat circumstances that is apparently intensifying their decline, but ordinary suburbanites have the option of making a low-effort contribution to help offset those losses.

I used the term "backyard nursery" above, but in the accepted lingo of monarch enthusiasts, the term is "monarch waystation".  But you don't have to get as fancy as officially registering your site - you could just plant milkweed and flowering plants in your yard.  If you plant it, they will come.  For as long as they are not extinct, at least.

Sign photo courtesy of the Monarch Watch website. 

On that note, I'll leave you with a re-posted video of an emergence from that same fence in 2013.  It's ten minutes long but most of the action takes place in the first 2:20.  The other 8 minutes show how the critter expands its wings very rapidly after emerging.  It's an amazing process.

URL for mobile devices:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXjRzdZc9zI

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