How to Afford Your Hobbies

Like I needed one more, right? My friends were amazed when I announced I was becoming a beekeeper.

What, too bored with the garden? Not enough pets?

At a recent Beekeeper's Field Day, I learned how to make liquid soap using honey, oils, and lye. I decided I wanted to try this at home. Yes, a spin-off hobby already!

So needed to purchase a crock pot dedicated to soap making. While in the city yesterday, I was able to find a large one with two heat settings--exactly what I needed--at my favorite resale shop for just $4.

For decades I have been shopping at thrift stores. For one, I despise shopping malls, and most thrift stores support good causes--humane societies, battered women's shelters, schools for at-risk kids, AIDS hospices, etc.

I also have expensive tastes but relatively little to spend.

Even if I did, I would still shop this way because I like the treasure-hunt adventure of it. I can be frugal and stylish at the same time.

So yesterday, I scored on a summer wardrobe. Skirt, pants, two silk blouses, long-sleeved linen shirt, long and short dresses.

$12. Total. (About the same amount I just spent on an additional bee hive tool).

That's right. Pick yourself up off the floor. Twelve dollars! Throw in a $3 shirt (splurge!) for Farmer Rick (not pictured; he loved it so much he wore it to work today), and the aforementioned crock pot, I still had enough change left over from a $20 for a celebratory soda for the road home.

Now I don't feel so bad about what I do spend on beehives, garden seeds, books, and art supplies!

Back to the Basics

Since the wet wipes method of body hygiene really wasn't cutting it, I detoured Farmer Rick off of coop building this week to construct an outdoor shower. I've seen them in magazines like House Beautiful set in lush gardens and thought it would be nice to have one. But then, that's different than actually needing one!

You can see the dirt where our lawn has bit the dust. The view to the fence is the same from the open side of the shower. Fortunately it's wooded, and we also own the land on the other side of the fence. The shower base is made from a wooden pallet set into a gravel box. A foundation block was placed in each corner to hold the structure.

Except for the plumbing hardware, the shower was almost entirely built with recycled materials. It's enclosed on three sides by heavy canvas curtains that came with the house. They were so heavy they were pulling the circular shower rod down that I replaced them with lighter ones and stored them for 9 years. See...I just knew they'd come in handy someday! (In the background, that's the gazebo that came with the house that we turned into a greenhouse last year).

Here's a curtain rod detail...

a corner detail...

and the plumbing hardware detail.

Here's what it looks like on the inside. I see some dirt has already been tracked inside, but guess what? I don't care, ha ha!

And finally, the neighbor's garden hose that's keeping us watered. I'd like to get a little shelf inside for the shampoo and soap, and will look for some neat driftwood down in the creek for towel hooks. Maybe we can talk landscaping--after a rainy year or a new well, whichever comes first.

When the Well Runs Dry

So many of you have kindly sent condolences over our situation here--thanks. I will never take running water for granted ever again!

This is the Frio River--or what's left of it--and I'm standing on both banks. Farmer Rick and I were mystified last weekend when a commercial river shuttle dropped off two tubers that looked to be in their 70's at our crossing. I hope someone told them it would be a long, hot, rocky walk back to their car toting those inner tubes!

Compare this with last summer's shot of the same river. When a river gets shallow and warm, fish die, algae grows, bacteria breeds.

Here's a rare glimpse into our dry well, which is basically empty save for a couple of gallons in the bottom. Many of you out in blogland may not even know where your water comes from--you just pay the city each month and it miraculously comes out of your tap when you turn it on.

Some of you may have your own well that's just a teeny pipe that encases a hole bore through hundreds of feet of earth like an iron straw sucking at the water table. If your pump went out you could get one of those old-fashioned hand pumps to draw the water up.

We have a shallow well that was hand dug through limestone by a pioneer pick axe in the 1860's, later encased with concrete. Where that ends there is a dark emptiness--a narrow horizontal cavern--where the water usually flows just like the nearby river it undoubtedly feeds. You see, an aquifer is like a large rock sponge. Some of the holes are as small as your pinkie, and some of them are underground lakes you could swim in.

The hole below the cavern is where the water is usually stored when the spring is flowing. The pioneers would have hauled it up with buckets and ropes over a wood beam, wishing well style. Assuming your bucket held a gallon, that's 8 pounds to haul up and carry to wherever you needed it. At some point the submersible pump was invented and that's what you see going down on the left side. It has to be submersed to run. We've turned ours off.

Think about all the ways we Americans use water: flushing toilets, cleaning house, bathing, cooking, household drinking, washing dishes, doing laundry, washing cars, keeping lawns, gardens, animals alive, recreation if you own a pool. How much would you use if you had to pull every bucket up yourself? What would you do if suddenly you had none?

We are bathing with wet wipes. Since I work from home, I wash my hair only when I know I'm going to be seen, about once a week. We drink and cook from bottled water. Fortunately we have a lot of dishes and clothes. I may soon have to drive to another town to use a laundromat and resort to paper plates. That little puddle is managing to keep our animals watered--so far. We can only hope for rain.

I've begun to realize Life, as we've known it, is pretty luxurious compared to what the pioneers must have experienced. I think about all the people today in third world countries who live on about 3 gallons of water--or less--per person per day and that water might even be as skanky as what's in our river right now.

So, the next time you turn on your faucet be conservative with your use, and remember to be thankful!

Brown IS a color

Years ago, I worked as a botanist for a public botanical garden specializing in native plants. This meant we celebrated the flora that had grown in our area for thousands of years prior to European settlement. It also meant we did not have the tedious task of laying out petunias in varying colors each month to resemble quilts or the American flag.

In the fall and winter, brown was often the predominant color. Occasionally visitors--expecting something else--would ask for a refund of their entrance fee because nothing was blooming and the landscape was "colorless." Although they were accommodated they were also educated that brown IS a color.

Admittedly, I use a lot of color in my art, but I choose to ground myself with furnishings in the muted colors of the Earth. Brown has the added benefits of blending in the ever-present dust and pet hair, and supplying a neutral background on which to make my art shine.

In architecture, I love spaces where the delineation of "inside" and "outside" are blurred. Using brown in my living room and eliminating curtains has helped to achieve this. The trees are just as important an element of my spaces as are the furnishings.