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As we are in drought conditions, I have been collecting my dishwashing rinse water in a pan in the sink and dumping it on my roses and newly installed plants to help them stay going. I need to get organized about tracking who’s gotten water when, but we’ll see. I have a couple of rain barrels made out of old plastic 55-gallon trash cans that came with the property when we bought it, and they’ve served well enough, but one of them has a crack midway down and will now only hold a fraction of the water it might. I’ve kept the mosquitoes at bay with a few 10c goldfish from the pet store, dumped in the barrels. They can be quite hardy! I’ve had several of them survive freezes in the winter.
But the time has certainly come to be an adult about rainwater collection and pony up the money for a proper set of pickle barrels. I’ve been longing to do it for some time, but have been hampered by the fact that I have a very small car that would only hold one barrel at a time, and won’t do that if the small fry are in the car with me. Deliverance has come in the form of neighbor Rob, who’s interested in getting his own rain barrels and has a pickup truck. Two weeks from now, we’re going to buy a bunch of barrels and convert them using a simple set of instructions and some plumbing supplies from the hardware store. I’m not a skilled plumber by any means, but I love a project. We shall see how it goes.
MissingHenryMitchell 