New England B.S. Thread

Morning all! Monday again...
Kayaked the Kennebec from Sidney to Hallowell yesterday to see the Sturgeon running. Sunburned my shins pretty good despite liberal sunblock application.

My lawn is mostly garden and clover; I could give two sh*ts about growing something I just have to mow all the time. I do have a rainwater collection system, but for the veggie beds.

 

WHERE!?!?!?

 

I was going to give up on the lawn with moving to the country and being on a well.

But I made it til June and decided I can't take it. If work and the world is going to be a shit show, at least my lawn can look nice

 

I'm working to convert mine to clover, so I have to do less work. Drought-tolerant without turning brown, less mowing, and bee food? from me.

 

I'm only doing my front lawn. I should do that for my back yard

 

That’s sweet. I might set up something similar but we get no rain anyway so whatever.

clover you say....

flowering recently looking good. Neighbors probably not a fan of it but whatever.

 

That's like the tank water in Australia...When I was there if you were in the more remote areas they have HUGE tanks, like 1000gallons...or 4000L that catch the rain during the rainy season. You use it for everything but drinking. It ends up with a lot of tannins in it from the leaves..so your fixtures all have brown drip marks...They actually had special tanks that divert the first 100L of water from the roof and then fill the tanks...
https://www.rainagaintanks.com.au/

Mansfield Redemption Center... 75 Forbes BLVD mansfield ma. I've driven past it 1000x and NEVER noticed it...

 

Green is green! I am a big fan of the Darwinian survival of the fittest lawn...I never water and it's green even in really dry conditions.

 

We say "green is good" with my coworkers. If it's green, it's good

I have no irrigation. I might water my lawn a little bit later this year if we get into as dry as it was last year. I would do an irrigation system if it's cheap to put in a well or maybe I could do a rain collection like @m603holden did at least for the front yard. Back yard I just filled in a dozen or so holes my dog was digging yesterday, we don't really care about the back yard as long as it's tamed. Front yard we want to at least keep presentable.

 

If your can says "MA" on the top you can get $0.05 for it in any Massachusetts redemption center. The issue I have is there are some specialty beers they sell at wegmans that the automated machines won't take because "Product not sold here" because as the bottle bill is written retailers MUST accept returns of any beverage container they sold...but the don't have to accept beverage varieties they don't sell. A redemption center will take ALL cans/bottles with the MA $0.05 labels...

Sounds like we need to get our cans to Michigan for the $0.10...If only there were a way to get the free transportation there...we just missed the extra mail truck for mothers day! DAMN...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGJZcHgqX1g

BTW Someone once got caught trying this...and it's technically illegal...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/24/michigan-bottle-deposit-recycling-seinfeld

 

It's not too bad. Maybe $500 between the tank and pump, and another $50 in pvc.

 

I have a well and I water my entire yard about an hour a week, this is at our work, where appearances matter and its about 3 acres. There isn't enough rain to collect, or at least not in an attractive looking way for me to do rain collection. I was quoted about 20k for an irrigation system and that doesn't include the well or pump house and electric to it....

So I'm out the door at 5 am and start moving sprinklers....

This. My clover is great, it also is attracting a lot of butterflies. And its pretty when the red and white start flowering...

More people need to get with clover! I think it is making somewhat of a comeback, been seeing more and more people mention it.

 

Luckily I'm not smart enough to come up with this on my own. I have two buddies who have done this and have shown me the way.

I'm the spring they collect about 700gal of water and maintain it through the summer months.

Founds some decent local stuff too.


https://nh.craigslist.org/grd/d/derry-275-gallon-totes/7138475386.html

 

How many gallons does it take to water the area you are doing?

 

20k?? Wow. Then again, rough estimate for my house was 3-5k, 1/3 acre would end up with 3 zones ultimately, only one to start with though up front (back yard future, maybe a third with mist for the planter beds so I can run those independently too). The cost is all digging, though. Materials are cheap, and the sprinkler system install itself is pretty cheap too. But digging a 1ft or so deep trench for the entire yard sucks. Machines help.

Hmm. Don't know how much water I'd be able to get each year. Probably enough to keep a mediocre lawn maintained up front for the year in theory. But with snow melt too, might be able to get more. I'll look into it, one of those future maybes if we stick around this house instead of moving to the big ol' state of Texas.

 

Yeah I am sure there is decent money being saved if someone came and just showed you where they should go and you rented a machine and trenched it yourself.


We are doing that with our trail building now. I am in the early stages with a company out of VT called Sinuosity that builds hiking and mountain biking trails. I am going to have them design a few miles of hiking trails on our property and mark them, and then I will go in and actually do the labor. I am actually getting pretty excited, we have 4 wheeler trails/woods roads but they get steep and aren't fun to hike. Having a couple of different trails with switch backs and that access more of the property is going to be great.

 

You can get about 300 gal a month off of rain. Factor in actually rain and it's enough to maintain an OK lawn.

 

I have no shortage of water in mine. Even during really dry periods, the water is only a few feet lower than ground level. It's probably 3x3 ft and goes down about 30 ft. Neighbor said she thinks it's spring fed.

 

Its really not bad on a well. My parents' house is well water and my dad doesnt have issues with watering it

 

Mine is similar; 5 tiles deep but I've never seen the water lower than 3-4 feet below ground level, and during the rainy season in the spring it can actually be higher than the ground. And at 52 gallons per foot I've always had like 7-800 gallons of reserve in the well. I just like using the rain barrels because it means I don't have to run the well pump to water the garden, and it's a nice insurance policy just in case.