Natural Perspectives:

Remember what Vic and I wrote a couple of weeks ago about not being impressed with the amount of rain we’ve had so far this winter? We take it back!

As dedicated “urban farmers,” we watch the weather channel and do whatever storm prep is necessary. For example, I worried that the weight of the navel oranges on our semi-dwarf tree combined with wind and rain would break branches on the little tree.

So, in anticipation of this week’s series of storms, I picked seven big oranges, leaving only a half dozen on the tree. I also picked the last of our large bell peppers, the last of our limes, and some chard. Now I won’t have to go out in the rain this week to harvest.

Before the rain started, I put a layer of mulch all along the fruit tree and flower border in the back yard. I use straw, but there are other mulches that will do the job. Mulch helps reduce evaporation and will help in our water conservation efforts. It also reduces erosion of soil from hard rainfalls.

Next, I set up my water collection containers under the eaves. I had used nearly all of the water collected from early December rainfall to water my garden, so I was ready for more. My containers were all full after less than a day of medium hard rain. I now have 150 gallons of rainwater saved. But with three more storms coming in quick succession, I’m thinking of adding even more containers.

It’s so easy to save rainwater in Rubbermaid 20-gallon trash barrels. I just dip a watering can into the containers when I need to water later. Not only does this save water during a time of mandatory watering restrictions, it saves energy because that water doesn’t have to be pumped up over the mountains and put through a purification process. And for gardens, naturally soft rainwater is better than hard, chlorinated tap water.

Vic prepped the yard for the storms by clearing leaf litter from the storm drains in our driveway and sidewalk. Because we’re on a slope, those drains have to stay clear or water will back up into our garage. With rain falling as heavily as it did this week, monitoring the drains during storms is a task we can’t neglect.

Storms this big always cause damage somewhere. But our little losses were nothing compared with those of people who lose their homes due to mudslides in burned areas or who are injured in weather-related traffic accidents. The anchor screw of our bird-feeder stand snapped under the weight of the seed feeders blowing in the wind. One of the feeders broke. Big deal.

Our Florida Prince peach tree just began to bloom Sunday, but with these storms, I don’t expect much pollination. Not all of the flowers are open yet, so maybe some bees will be around for the later-blooming flowers to set fruit. The first gale also knocked down my lovely spring-blooming paperwhite flowers, so I cut them and brought them indoors.

Another thing that these storms have done is delay our garage-cleaning project. I got a metaphorical burr under my metaphorical saddle a few weeks ago and decided to do something about the clutter in our garage. As Vic likes to point out, our cars are our second-most valuable possessions after our house. And yet they sit outside exposed to the elements because our garage is filled with stuff that is far less valuable.

I decided that the garage interior, which has been virgin drywall since the house was built in 1979, needed to be painted first. We had some leftover paint, and painting the garage seemed like a good use for it. We prepped walls, painted and sorted. It really was a joint project.

I bought some stainless steel shelving units from Costco along with some clear plastic storage boxes. We sorted like objects with like, remembering things squirreled away in this or that corner of the house that really should be with similar objects in the garage. Keepables went into boxes and then onto the shelves.

A lot of stuff went to Salvation Army, and some went into the recycle blue bin. Vic took a box of spent batteries and old yard chemicals to household hazardous waste disposal at Rainbow Disposal on Nichols Street. They are open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

We only got about half done with the project before it started raining. Because we use the driveway as a staging area to sort, we will need dry weather to finish the job. We also need our recycle bin to be emptied so we can fill it up again. But some of our recyclables are too large for even an empty bin. Fortunately, everyone can have Rainbow Disposal pick up things that are too large to go into the bins. We’re going to use our first free pickup of the year to get rid of some big cardboard boxes as well as some boxes of old magazines and papers.

Another thing that we’ll recycle are some unopened boxes of leftover ceramic flooring tile. We’ll take those to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Garden Grove. They accept many types of new and gently used building materials, and sell them in their ReStore. That’s a good place to visit before any home remodeling job. To see what they accept and what they have for sale, visit www.habitat.org/env/ restores.aspx.

This project has been a great lesson in reducing, reusing and recycling. We’re pleased with how little actually ended up in the brown trash bin. But maybe this isn’t relevant to our readers.

Maybe we’re the only people who accumulate junk in the garage. Ha!

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].