My usual heavy spring rains were late showing up this year. I made this second rain barrel a couple of weeks ago. It gets the runoff from half of the front roof. However, it has to rain for that to happen.
Finally, some serious clouds appeared. Best of all, I could rest from all my digging in the dirt. Disappointingly, there was less than a quarter of an inch of rain. So it was a big surprise for me to find the 55 gallon barrel completely full. I couldn't have been happier if I had good sense.
The rain wasn't enough to deeply wet the soil, but I hooked up hoses and watered new plants and the garden with it. Everybody got a nice drink of pure rain water. Because the other barrel has less roof to catch the rain from the workshop, it only collected 30 gallons. Even so, from such a scant rainfall, I had plenty of water.
It's not the money savings at all, although it will help a little on the water bill. I'm big on not wasting water. I have rural water here, which is usually reliable and affordable.
When I go down to the river and watch all that water flowing by, I think of those poor souls in California who would love to have it. The Grand River flows into the Missouri River and it joins the Mississippi and then finally loses its usefulness when it mixes with salt water in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite repeated suggestions from me, it refuses to be diverted to California. They could surely use it, if they didn't mind brown silty water in all those swimming pools.
The very next day, as I was gloating over my water catchment, one of the gully-washer rains came through. Nature has a way of making gardening a barrel of fun.
