Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Rain Barrel

Last month, our son in Gainesville bought us this rain barrel from Alachua County, where they were selling them for about half price. He knew that we had been looking to buy one or more and had not found the right price or set-up. B set this one up while I was at my parents’.

100_7976 And then we had no rain for over two weeks. Not a drop! In fact during that time, we tied a record when we had seven days in a row where the temperatures reached over one hundred. Morning lows hung around in the upper seventies. Yuck! The grass turned brown and we had to water any plants we wanted to keep alive.

So we have just returned last night from a week in western North Carolina where the temperatures were really pretty awesome. This morning, B discovered that the rain gauge had 4.5 inches in it and the rain barrel is FULL!-----all 50 gallons!

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Woo-Hoo!!

Because of the nifty stand B fashioned from an old aquarium stand, gravity will create the flow. Now when it gets dry, we’ll just hook up the hose to the faucet and water away.

2 comments:

Kimberlee said...

I've never seen one of those. How cool! Only in the wet regions of the South could an invention such as this one be truly appreciated. :) I was talking with a friend from Wyoming last night. She related the DRAMA of recently receiving ONE INCH of rain in a single hour and the discomfort they were experiencing with their 68 percent humidity. I had to laugh!

Daniel said...

Of related note, a law recently passed in Co making it now legal to harvest your own rain water.

Glad it works!