Rain Barrels

Once again I'm blog hopping, hey it gives me something to post about. This time I was checking out my friend Karen's blog on Being the Change. This year, instead of the standard resolution Karen decided so wanted to make a concerted effort to make some changes that impacted her world and the world at large. You might think she's a little obsessed with water if you read all of her posts. There were the ones where she did a study to find the most water-efficient way to clean her body. Then the was the saving water when flushing the toilet posts.

Now, she's talking about saving rainwater. Hey, I'm with her on this. I've had a rain barrel of sorts for years. My old one was just a super big water cooler with a lid. Now, I have a 55 gallon barrel, but no lid.

The no lid thing isn't usually a problem, until this time of year when mosquitoes go to looking for breeding grounds. The love standing water. The best solution to this is to lid the water, mosquitoes also need oxygen (I'm guessing) and a lid on the container eliminates that little item.

I've been thinking about a couple of ideas I could use for a lid, I just haven't gone looking for them yet. Of course, for my new barrel, a lid is going to be a little inconvenient since this barrel is positioned under the gutter, but a little ways from the porch. Or maybe the porch just isn't long enough. I don't know, I just know I can't reach the rain barrel from the relative dryness of the porch to remove a lid. I can remove the lid when rain is expected, just seems like such a shame I have to think that much.

I've been using my rain barrel contents to water my patio plants, and a time or two I carried some out to the garden. Which is something I may do again when a dry spell hits. I really want to empty my rain barrel so I can level the ground it's on, but I don't want to waste the water and pour it out and every time I get the water level low enough to consider moving it, it rains and fills the thing up again.

Still, even sitting lopsided, and needing a lid, I love my rain barrel. I love being able to dip the water out of it to water my plants, and even the dog sometimes. When we were getting this house livable, one of the people helping me said, "we can haul that thing off for you." She was referring to my rain barrel. Umm, no thanks. I'm not sure if she didn't realize what it was and just thought it was an eye sore or what, but she didn't remove it.

If you have a rain barrel, you know how handy they can be. If you don't, you might want to consider adding one. Almost anything can be used. A large trash can, an empty wine barrel (if you have access to one), a large water cooler, even a large oil drum that's been scoured.