The Rain Barrels Are In!

Yup, there they are; three in front and one in back. They hold 40 gallons apiece.
Mike and I put them together and installed them. We had to cut the downspouts to slide the barrels underneath. Now why on earth would we need rain barrels?

One, because the downspouts keep getting clogged at the bottom in front when the grass grows.

Two, because the downspout in back drains right next to the basement wall - which means that the rainwater on the roof gets funnelled directly to the basement and soaks thru. Now, that may not sound like a lot to you - after all, an inch or two of rain isn't that much, is it? Well, no - but when you multiply that over about 1000 square feet of roof, by golly, you get a LOT of water!

And three, because these rain barrels can provide us with rainwater for watering plants when it doesn't rain - see the hose attachments? Hook a hose to that and drain it into whatever garden, wherever we want. No pressure spray, of course... but "free" water all the same.
In this next picture, you see two downspouts. We ordered a diverter to hook up the front downspout to the rear one and divert its water into the barrel, too. Naturally, we ordered both at the same time, the barrels were on backorder, so they sent the diverter thru the Postal Service - it is still en route. The barrels were shipped three days ago by Fed Ex and are already here...


Look at the area below; see how the rainwater has pounded the ground so much from the downspout that it is almost bare? All that water, pouring straight down toward the basement wall, and collecting.... Now it will collect in the barrel instead. (You can also see where I've been working on gradually berming the basement wall to keep the water out. )


I am really excited about getting these in. They have a filter in the top to keep out the leaves and trash. Because of the wind here, we weighted the barrels with bricks and rocks - and that will raise the water level too a little bit when it rains, to give us a little more water flow when we turn on the thumb valve to water.

Ok, maybe small things really do amuse small minds; but they are just so damned neat. The FedEx guy was very curious as to why we would want rain barrels - guess they don't think much about that kinda stuff here.

Tomorrow we go to Rapid City to go to Sam's. I have a huge list; stuff I like to buy in bulk instead of 'running to the store' every couple of days. I HATE to shop anyway, and the closest grocery store is 38 miles away - just too damned far to go when I am so busy HERE. I am going to take Mike thru the Badlands on a side trip, and (he doesn't know it yet) I might talk him into going up to Mt Rushmore, too. Might as well make a day of it; we'll leave first thing in the morning - about 6 - and it is a three hour trip, so we might as well do some stuff while we are 'out'. Probably won't be too crowded, either - no one gives a damn about history or topography or geology any more, and no kid wants to spend his summer vacation doing 'old' stuff. Rapid only has a population of 40,000 - not a very crowded city, after all! And hard to get to unless you drive, and driving or flying is so expensive... we'll see just how harsh the impact is on traveling. But this ain't Walt Disney World, after all! The less people, the better...

I'd better swap out the camera battery just in case; don't want to miss a thing...