PermaDesign

Category: Water Harvesting

Friends, Clients, Colleagues Bend Me an Ear: THANKS!

Nate Downey and Melissa McDonald In preparing to thank every New Mexico-based person, organization, and business that had a hand in the creation of my new book “Harvest the Rain,” I discovered that there are over 120 of these entities ranging from cover-art photographers Charles Mann and Jennifer Esperanza to envelope-pushing people-leaders Miguel Santistevan and Roberto Mondragon. To keep this blog post to a reasonable length, here I’ve decided to limit my thanks to a list of the locals who I did not mention in my previous post and who were also able to make it to Wednesday’s book-launch party.

Book-Launch Party Brings Rain, Fun, Song, & Sales!

by Nate Downey

Nate Downey Book Signing Thanks to all who came to my book-launch party the other night! Everyone who was there knows what a blast it was, and even I (who did most of the inviting) was surprised at the size of the multitude. Even though some of my favorite people in the Santa Fe area couldn’t show up, most of them did. We’re guessing we had between 200 and 250 people packed into our backyard, but a doctor in attendance told Melissa today that it was more like 300 including all of the kids. Whatever. What’s important is this:

09/09/2010 | Books | Events | Water Harvesting | (0) Comments

Nate’s Book, “Harvest the Rain,” Is Now Available as Iraq War Starts Wrapping Up!

by Nate Downey

The great news is that I finally got the shopping cart to work at www.harvesttherain.com, so you can now buy my book on our totally secure website! I’ll even sign it, inscribe it, date it, bless it, and send it off with a light misting of rainwater if you want me to. (HINT: For the latter, all you have to do is type “Please mist me.” in the little inscription box, and I’ll know the code.)

Catch Our 16 Minutes of Fame on HGTV Today!

by Nate Downey

When I was my kids’ age (5 and 7), every child had goals. Highest among them was being on TV. One time my sister and I got on “Wonderama,” a show where kids were picked out of a large audience to be contestants in a quasi game-show. I wasn’t chosen, but I sure relished the one glimpse of my madly waving arms in an ecstatically joyful sea of madly waving arms.

Bush Provides Great Investment for Friends & Family

by Nate Downey

Golden currant berries are not golden. They’re a deep, dark purple-blue bordering on black. I suppose we call them “golden” because of the bright yellow flower that if boasts in the the spring, but maybe it’s the golden-red hue that some of the bushes get when they head toward bed in autumn. This year, when I bite into the ones in our backyard that are nice and plump thanks to all of the rain that we have caught in our cistern system, they taste like something exquisitely powerful, like gold. A little on the sour side of the spectrum, golden currants are not the favorite of mega-store food buyers, but they can be a surprising favorite in in any year’s crop of fruit. Ripening well after the strawberries and just ahead of the pears and apples, this rare gem is one of the most drought tolerant of all fruit-bearing bushes. Truly, currants are an element of our backyard that we cherish much like Wall Street portfolio managers cherish gold. It’s not the snazziest of investments, but it’s an old stand by that can come in handy when times are tough and resources are not flowing as much as they once did.

08/07/2010 | Edibles | Water Harvesting | (0) Comments

Recycled Glass Bottles Could Replace Perlite & Pumice

by Nate Downey

A Santa Fe-based company is days away from opening up a very cool factory. Located at the Albuquerque city dump and recycling center, Growstone, LLC, is turning used glass bottles into a substitute for perlite, used in hydroponic growing applications and as a hygroscopic (water retaining) soil amendment. My guess is that their product will also soon be seen as an excellent alternative to pumice—at least when replacing the essential ingredient in one of may favorite passive water harvesting techniques, the pumice wick.

07/11/2010 | Books | Ecology | Water Harvesting | (0) Comments

Harvest the Rain: An Inconvenient (but Fun!) Tour

by Nate Downey

At the outset of the Industrial Revolution, the protagonist of Voltaire’s Candide travels extensively in an attempt to discover “the best of all possible worlds.” In the end, Candide realizes that he and his party would have been better off if they’d never gone on tour in the first place. “What’s necessary,” the tired traveler declares in the last sentence of the novella, “is that we cultivate our garden.” Thanks to the slow-food movement made popular by Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingslover, and many others, 250 years later people are finally starting to get this message. From backyard gardens to downtown farmers’ markets, people are realizing the rewards of becoming truly productive human beings.

Radioheads: Please Check Out These Two Eco-Shows

by Nate Downey

Had a blast taping two radio shows this week. On Thursday, Kate Manchester interviewed me for her Edible Radio program. She’s the publisher of Edibles Santa Fe, a magazine for Santa Fe’s local-food movement. Please keep an eye out for my article in the Fall edition. (It’s about cold composting.) Kate’s a great interviewer and an awesome magazine publisher. I’m not sure when the show will air, but I’ll let you know as soon as it’s linkable. Please check out Kate’s work here: www.edibleradio.com and www.ediblesantafe.com.

Desert Turns Green on Client’s Side of the Fence

by Nate Downey

One of the interesting characteristics of high-desert storm-events revolves around how localized their epicenters can be. After Hurricane Alex hit land earlier this month, we (www.sfpermaculture.com) received three queries from folks who all lived within a radius of 2,000 feet of each other. Evidently, the northwest corner of the Eldorado subdivision got especially hammered during the wee hours of July 1, 2010.

Staff Writer at “The New Yorker” Enjoys My Book!

by Nate Downey

“Downey’s anthem to the rain could do for the backyard and the water table --and therefore, let’s hope, for the Earth and its inhabitants-- what the “Joy of Cooking” did for the kitchen, or what “The Joy of Sex” did for the bedroom. It’s one of those rare how-to books that, by way of the author’s wit, warmth, and passion, converts practical wisdom into a kind of transformational incantation.”

--Nick Paumgarten, Staff Writer at The New Yorker

07/02/2010 | Books | Ecology | Water Harvesting | (0) Comments