Minnebar or Rain Barrel? Decisions, decisions…
Well, I didn’t make it to Minnebar. I had every intention. It’s been a while since I’ve mingled with my peers in a geeky environ. Alas, it was on a Saturday (strike 1) and it was beautiful (strike 2) and pretty much the first ‘real’ weekend of spring (strike 3). Convincing the family that the first really nice Saturday of spring should be spent indoors without them was going to be a hard sell. (Note to Ben and the Minnebar gang: PLEASE consider a work day next time…I’m always looking for a ‘employee development day’ excuse at work… ;o)
Plus, well, I REALLY wanted to build a rain barrel. When spring comes, I’m eager to drop all freelance gigs and get the hell out of the house to putz around the yard. Last year we grew a garden for the first time. The kids loved it. So did the pumpkins, which soon overtook our garden space. However, our water bill kind of spiked last summer so, hence the rain barrel idea.
So I was off to get one. Googling for resources in the area only returned the odd, deeply buried, 7 year old PDF on some local government site, or the the Minneapolis Rain Barrel program (allowing you to purcahse a pre-made rain barrel at half price). Being in St. Paul, I didn’t have that option but eventually found a blurb regarding Vine Park Brewery giving away free food-grade barrels. I called them up and they said ‘sure, stop on by’ and by that afternoon I had myself a 55 gallon blue barrel and a 6 pack of Vine Park Root Beer (good stuff!). A few plumbing odds and ends from Menards and a whole bunch of this really sticky waterproof gutter glue and we were up and running!
I was pretty proud of myself. And then I stumbled upon fellow St. Paul Graphic Designer Jason Hammond’s Strib blog documenting the journey he and his wife are having building a modern home in Maplewood. There’s a lot to like about the house they are designing, but check out the ‘rain barrel’ idea they’ve come up with. Impressive!
4 Comments
Well I can’t say that you made the right decision but at least you were doing something worthwhile.
What do you think it would cost to build that “rain barrell-tube” they got going? That is awesome.
Well, that would be one way to get our attendence back down to manageable levels…
Sorry for using this to reply to your comments at another site, but this is the only way I could find to do so since the comments there have been closed. I just wanted to make one point. See my comments after // below.
Darrel — 10:38 on 04.06.07
“That’s all fine and dandy, but should we make all sites conform to the bare bones mobile device version?”
The slippery slope argument is tiring and pointless.
// This is not a counter argument.
Businesses should care about accessibility. It’s good for business.
// Not when a business has to spend a ton more money to satisfy 0.05% of its site’s users.
If you want to reply you can contact me at the email I supplied to make this post.
Have a good day.
Hi,
We do have the large barrels available as we use the malt extract originally inside up. They are put outside the building in the back and are accessible thru the alley.
They are free but in a “used” condition. We put out anywhere from 1 to 3 a week, depending upon how busy we are. Its first come first served.
to have more barrels available, book a brewing adventure with us.
Thanks, Dan