Archive for From the Office

Public Hearing

At our next board meeting, on March 12, 2014, there will be a public hearing regarding moving into Stage I of water conservation.  The public is invited to attend.  The meeting will be held at 10:00 a.m. sharp and will take place at the district office, which is located at 24917 Marion Ridge Road.  We hope to see you there!

board meeting audience

Posted in: Board Meetings, Customer Infomation, From the Office, Water Conservation

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Raised Bed & Container Gardens

Gardening is a very popular and rewarding past time and is alive and well here on the hill.  We have a local garden club and I personally know many people who just love to garden.  So, as promised, here is a post about raised bed and container gardening.

Gardening here in Pine Cove can be very challenging.  We face a variety of obstacles which included unpredictable weather, plant munching critters such as deer, squirrels and gophers, less than perfect soil and drought conditions.  So what is an avid gardener to do?

Build a raised bed or container garden of course!  I have found this to be the perfect solution to all of the above dilemmas.  Containers come in a large variety of styles, materials, colors and sizes to fit any style of home or garden.  Many plants, including vegetables and fruits, can be grown in containers.  You can also get very creative and create a container garden out of some unusual objects such as metal animal water troughs, old buckets, dressers, wagons, wheelbarrows, wash tubs, old sinks, rain spouting, baskets and many other things.  You can let your imagination run wild!  Here are some pictures to get your creative juices flowing.

Check out my next post for more on raised bed gardening!

Garden wheelbarrow

Container Garden

Vegetable-Container-Gardening-300x219

lettuce

Water trough container garden

wagon planter

Posted in: Customer Infomation, Edible Landscaping, From the Office, Garden, Uncategorized

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Saving Water in the Garden

With the drought continuing to strengthen it’s grip on California, gardeners are wondering how they will be able to maintain their gardens in the coming years.  Here in Pine Cove, we are a step ahead because we do not typically have large lawns to worry about maintaining.  But even so, many residents do like to garden and even grow some of their own food.  Now is the time to start thinking about spring projects and what you can do to conserve water in the garden.

If you have an existing garden, there are several things you can do to reduce the amount of water you use in the garden.   First, be sure to add compost to your existing garden.  Soil that is high in organic matter stays moist longer. Improve your soil by adding a source of organic material such as compost or well rotted manure.  If you consistently work to improve your soil each season, the texture and water holding capacity of your soil will increase and your garden will require less water.  In order to make this easier for you, we have wonderful compost available to our customers for free!

Compost

Once you have amended your soil, it is time to add some mulch.  Why you ask?  Well, mulch accomplishes three things.  First, it adds a source of organic material which, although it is not rotted and therefor not readily available to the plants, will eventually improve the structure and the water holding ability of the soil. Second, it slows surface evaporation so you will water less and third,  it helps to smother weeds, making your gardening easier!  As it happens, we also have mulch available to our customers for free as well!

Wood Chips

Another wonderful thing you can do to help keep your garden looking good throughout the summer is to harvest rainwater.  This can be as simple as a rain barrel under your down spout or shallow trenches to divert the rainwater to the garden.  You can add swales and berms strategically placed throughout your garden in order to keep rainwater from running off your property.  You can even go so far as to install a large water storage tank either above ground or underground in order to store thousands of gallons of rain water.  For more rainwater harvesting information, go to Brad Lancaster’s website at http://www.harvestingrainwater.com.  He has lots of information and tips on rainwater harvesting.

Rain water is FREE water.  That’s right.  Just catch it, store it and use it.  If you do a search for rain water harvesting online, you will find a treasure trove of information and lots of examples on how to set up rain harvesting system.  By using your roof water you will reap water benefits from even a gentle rain by capturing all of the water that falls onto your roof surface.

rainwater_big

Finally, install a drip irrigation system which will deliver water directly to the plants root zone instead of watering the entire surface of the garden.  Although a drip irrigation system can be expensive initially it will certainly pay off in drastically reduced water use if you intend to grow a  garden year after year. The hoses, emitters, fittings and valves must be laid out to deliver the water to each plant.  If you can’t afford to install a drip system,  an easy alternative is to use soaker hoses that allow water to seep through the porous material along their entire length.  They are less expensive to install and you can put them under the mulch to prevent evaporation.   Both methods are better alternatives than sprinklers or letting the hose run.

Remember, we are all in this drought together and each of us plays a very important part in conserving our water.

Next week, I will discuss the virtue of raised bed gardens and container gardening.

Posted in: Compost, Conservation, Customer Infomation, From the Office, Garden, Mulch, Rain Barrels, Rain Water Harvesting, Water Conservation

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Leak Reward

Just a quick reminder about our Leak Reward Program.  Anyone who spots a leak and reports it to the water district, will earn a $25 gift certificate to their restaurant of choice here on the hill.

It has to be a valid leak, not a spring or something we already know about.  And it can’t be something like your toilet is leaking.  This has been a very successful program and we hope you will keep your eyes and ears peeled when you are out and about in Pine Cove.

Reward Flyer

Posted in: Community, Conservation, Customer Infomation, From the Office

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Finally a Storm!

A storm finally moved in at the end of last week and according to the weather station up at the Rocky Point tank site, we received .43 inches of rain.  That is almost half an inch!  While we need much more rain and snow than this to pull us out of this drought, it is better than nothing and we will take it.

We are hoping that February and March turn out to be much wetter than January was.  However, since we don’t have a crystal ball here at the water district, we cannot predict what will happen weather wise.  What we can be sure of however, is the fact that the residents of Pine Cove have been and will continue to conserve as much water as possible.  For this we are very grateful.  When times get tough, Pine Covers really step up to the plate and do what needs to be done to get through the tough times.  We know this, because we have seen you in action.

Water conservation is an integral part of living on the hill.  We are solely dependent on our ground wells here in Pine Cove and have no back up sources of water.  We take great care to pump water from different wells throughout our district so as not to deplete any one particular area too much.  Keeping water loss and use to a minimum, will enable us to continue to provide clean, potable water to everyone here in Pine Cove.  So remember, conserve water regardless of whether or not we are in a drought.  Conserving water when we are not in a drought is like putting money in the bank for a rainy day.  Or in the case of a drought, for a sunny day.  Keep up the good work Pine Covers!

Remember to turn off your water at your customer valve anytime you leave your mountain home.

 

rain06

Posted in: Community, Conservation, Customer Infomation, Customer Valve, From the Office, Water Conservation, Weather

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Water Saving Kits

With this winter’s lack of moisture, comes the reality of having to conserve water.  While this should be an ongoing way of life, here on the hill, the weather we are having, or the lack of it, seems to effect how much we think about water conservation.

In an effort to boost your conservation efforts, we are providing a few items to our Pine Cove Water District customers, FREE OF CHARGE!  That’s right.  Stuff for free.

For your outside areas, we have compost you can add to your soil to improve it.  We also have wood chips that you can put on your garden to help retain moisture.  The wood chips will eventually decompose and turn into compost as well, there by improving your soil as well.

We also have water saving kits by Niagara Conservation available free of charge to any Pine Cove Water customer.  These are great kits and include the following items:

1 Earth Massage 1.5 GPM showerhead with a two setting massage spray showerhead.

1 Kitchen Swivel 1.5 GPM Aerator with dual spray functionality, with wide spray radius and water pausing on/off valve.

2 Bathroom Faucet 1.0 GPM Aerators that deliver half the flow, but twice the power.  These are commercial grade aerators for the home.

1 Toilet Water Saver (Fill Cycle Diverter)- This patented water saver takes excess water from the bowl and diverts it to  the tank to reduce water consumption.  (This is NOT a flow restricting device.)

Toilet Leak Detection Tablets that are FDA certified, non-toxic dye tablets used to detect leaks in toilets.

Water Conservation Wheel that provides useful ways to conserve water around the house.

Flow Meter Bag.  The kit bag doubles as a flow meter to identify water wasters throughout the home.

This is a pretty good deal considering it is free of charge.  So stop by the office any time during normal business hours and pick up your water saving kit.

We also have our famous blue bird houses back in stock.  While they don’t help you save any water, they do provide shelter to our little bird friends here on the hill.

Our office is located at 24917 Marion Ridge Road and we are open Monday thru Friday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. So stop by today and get your free stuff!

 

Posted in: Compost, Conservation, Freebies, From the Office, Garden, Mulch, Water Conservation, Wood chips

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Still no Snow…

This morning is very overcast, so I checked the weather forecast in the hope that rain or snow was expected to arrive, but alas, I see no rain or snow in the immediate forecast.  Here is what is predicted for the next week.

Today, mostly cloudy, with a high near 53. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph.

  • Tonight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 41. East wind around 5 mph.
  • Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 55. East wind around 5 mph becoming west in the afternoon.
  • Saturday: Night Mostly clear, with a low around 41. West wind around 5 mph becoming north in the evening.
  • Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 56. West wind around 5 mph.
  • Sunday: Night Mostly clear, with a low around 42.
  • Monday: Sunny, with a high near 58.
  • Monday: Night Mostly clear, with a low around 44.
  • Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 60.
  • Tuesday: Night Mostly clear, with a low around 47.
  • Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 63.
  • Wednesday: Night Mostly clear, with a low around 48.
  • Thursday: Sunny, with a high near 60.

While this weather is certainly enjoyable and makes for easy winter living, it is not helpful in easing our drought conditions.  We are hoping that rain and snow fall in February and March will make up for the extremely dry January, but if they do not, we will be considering going back into Stage 1 Conservation.  Stage 1 is voluntary compliance.  Customers are asked to conserve, when possible, the amount of water used to that amount necessary for domestic and business purposes.  Hopefully, everyone who lives in Pine Cove is already doing these things.

Fix leaky plumbing, prevent irrigation runoff, refrain from washing down sidewalks, driveways and parking areas and avoid sprinkling unplanted areas for dust control.  Customers will be encouraged to utilize wood chips to mulch around all plants and trees in order to minimize outside watering.  An added bonus is that the wood chips you mulch with will gradually compost and feed your plants and trees and improve the soil, thereby enabling it to retain water better.

We will be monitoring the water situation very closely and will take whatever measures we deem necessary in order to continue to provide water to the customers of Pine Cove.  Getting in the habit of conserving as much water as possible will ensure that we all will have what we need down the road.  We all have our part to play and we hope we can count on you to play your part!

Wood Chips

Wood chips provided free of charge to Pine Cove Water District customers.

Posted in: Community, Compost, Customer Infomation, From the Office, Garden, Pine Cove Water District, Weather, Wood chips

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Office Closings

Just a quick note to remind everyone that the Pine Cove Water District will be closed on Monday, January 20th in honor of Martin Luther King Day.  We will resume normal business hours on Tuesday, January 21st and 9 a.m.  If you have a water emergency, there will be someone on call.  You can call the office and listen to the recorded message or call 951-294-8282, which is our emergency number.  Remember, this number is for true water emergencies only.  Please wait until Tuesday to call about an other water issues.  Our normal business hours for next week will be Tuesday through Friday, from 9 am until 4 pm.

Martin Luther King

Posted in: Customer Infomation, From the Office, Holidays, Pine Cove Water District

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