Rain Barres, 2012 :)

:) Our rain barrels are set up! :)

Seriously, after laboring for a few years over the best way to do these, they're really easy to assemble, now that I've worked out all of the kinks.

In fact, for anyone interested in making your own, go HERE for probably the best instructions I've seen.



The *ONE* thing the link doesn't address is linking multiple barrels. That was the biggest struggle I had.

My conclusion about overflows is pretty simple. You gotta have the primary barrel higher than any of the others, as you can see in the above photo. Your barrels that will store are lowest. The end barrel has to be a little lower than the primary barrel. The idea is that the excess water will flow down from the main one and deposit in the middle and flow through to the last one. I do not have an 'overflow' on the main barrel or second one. I have that on the last one only (it's more easily seen in the top photo here, though).

A few more tricks:


I didn't want my barrels on the side of the house where the downspout was, but around the corner. So I used the flexible downspouts. If it gets really windy, they won't stay, so I use bungee cord to secure them in place. This is really a key element for me.



This is my overflow barrel. The second in line. I used 1.5 inch PVC to go from the primary barrel to the final one. Those are connected through the side. Any barrels in between are not. They simply have the spigot in the bottom and mesh on top. The joint is moveable and when the barrel is full, I can move the entire elbow mechanism into the UP position so water flows to the last barrel, but not into the ones in the middle. Does that make sense?

2011 Rain barrel update

I think these videos are from April .... but with the busy April/May I had .... blogging just went away.

SO, I know rain has been elusive around here (I'm actually irrigating our garden from the tap!), but thought I'd share. This year it took less than 15 minutes to set the barrels up and they were rolling!

Rain barrel update (again)

Ok, so the barrels. Gotta love 'em. Here's a video. The first clip is from before I figured out the overflow. There is a brief sunny dividing image, then it will show the ones with a completed overflow. I haven't 100% got the overflows complete. I have the east barrels done, but not the west. I'll be ready for Spring 2011!

Enjoy:

Here's the scoop:

Ok, so you have been spoiled with daily blog posts.

That's because I pre-blogged a ton, and my pre-blogging has all been blogged.

So, patience while I get more stuff together. Still a ton of photos to share from DC ....

In other news around here:

• I'm SO CLOSE to getting the rain barrel overflows complete!!! I promise, a full blog post (maybe even video) when it happens.

• Wrestling with figuring out how to pay sales taxes online. Seriously, state. I know you want to cut budgets and this is more cheap for you, but HELLO!!!! Summer is a massively busy season for us. Why now?

• In all of my free time, I'm reading the following book:


It stems from NFP (the other major NFP model is HERE).

Even for the general person, there's a wealth of excellent information about eating a balanced diet. Just all around good reading.

• It's 7 a.m. and I want to take a nap. Sheesh.

• Mike and I are gearing up for the big bridal show in Wichita in about 2 weeks!!!! Still some last minute stuff to do, but we're in fairly good shape.

• I've been eating an obscene amount of guacamole as of late. I stinkin' love that stuff ... and it's SOOOO tasty!!!! Anyone else? Oh, I want some more now!

• I'm listening to "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" on CD right now. Unabridged. It's long. And not much about the hunchback so far ... but once I got past the Disney version and expected it to be all about him, I'm enjoying it rather a lot.

Rain Barrels, 2010 style!

I'm not 100% done. Heck, I'm not even 25% done, but here's where we're going in 2010 with our water harvesting.

This is the back of our house.


We added some railroad ties. And the space in between, I have dirt removed during the patio project last summer. I'll put it in there and then rain barrels will go on top!


Sort of like this.


I have only one done, but all of the rain revealed a flaws in my efforts, so I will have to empty it and then do a bit of tweaking, but this is where we're headed this summer!

I hope to have more time this week to work on it. In between all of the rain we're getting. Seriously! I wish I had this all done so I could just harvest the water! Geek, I know!

The simple things ...

This morning, I made a decision.

I would brew a cup of tea.

I would go outside.

I wold sit.

And I would watch time slip by.

Guess what? I LOVED it! Seriously. Life has been SO busy/chaotic lately, I barely have time to have a full conversation with Erik. Ok, while not ENTIRELY true, more often than not, I find myself running around like a chicken with my head cut off. It's true. So, when I decided to slooooow it down this morning, it was spectacular.

Those of you who have tackled big projects in the homefront will know what I mean when I say how wonderful it was to sit on the patio we'd LABORED to build last summer and just think "all of the hard work is DONE!!!!!" :) Last year at this time, I was thinking and planning and drawing sketches of how I wanted it to look. And now, it's done! Oh, I can't express what a relief it is (Amanda, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right, girl?).

It's interesting how projects evolve. Yes, evolve.

I am a doer. I think of something and I want to do it immediately. But some of these projects have simmered over time, and they're all the better for it.

Last year, I intended to put our rain barrels on the patio itself. But, then we opted to not entirely do that. Well, over the winter, the question of what to do with those barrels simmered. And yesterday when I was at Lowe's, I think the final solution has presented itself. It's hard to explain, but believe me when I say it's going to ROCK! (Ok, anything with EIGHT rain barrels would ROCK, right?) ;) I just need to gather a few more supplies, then it will be full steam ahead with this project.

Also, while we're talking about home improvement ... we're thinking of having the hardwood floors on the main floor redone. And we don't think we'll be doing it ourselves. Any tips/pointers on the process? Anyone?

ps-HOW on earth did this post start with a simple morning on the patio and end up with our hardwood floors? Oh well!

Arizona XII

Ok, last Arizona post ... this will be long, though. Another neat place we went was Tubac. It's a little artists colony and I really could spend days going through all of the shops!

First, for those of you who have been here around Christmas know we don't have a tree. Only a nativity set. We have a cat, I think she'd climb a tree. I'm lazy, I don't want to mess with a tree and a cat who likes to climb it. SO, this seems to be a great alternative:

But I've seen ones with knobs on the branches, to allow you to hang ornaments. If I ever see one like this with knobs, I'm totally going to rally for making it our Christmas tree!


Fabulous!


A vertical, a little closer.


I was SO taken with this wall! I really love it!


Seriously, what's NOT to love???!?!?!?


It's a bit difficult to see this, but it's a vertical metal planter thingie ... I'm not sure it has a place in our backyard, but I think it's uber cool!


SPEAKING of uber cool, I found a rain barrel! See how big it is! And see how pricey it is! Anyone living in Salina, there's a thing Tuesday night and you can get a rain barrel for $10. A TOTAL steal!


There were these cheerful metal flowers that were painted brightly all over the place! How fun!


Another one.


I dug this little courtyard.


An arrangement in a shop that I liked.


Yeah. No words. Just. Yeah.


There were these crosses that had all sorts of little figurines made into a larger artistic cross. I really liked these!


Another one; they also made frames and other things, but these were the most interesting looking pieces.


I liked seeing more of the room via the mirror.


Another beautiful little cross.


I'm kinda crazy about this overall wall. Really like it. It sort of reminds me of something from the new "Romeo and Juliet" movie .. er, the "new" one made about 15 years ago. :)


Just liked how the background is framed. Nothing too special, just some nice framing. :)

Fall cleaning ...

I was prepping the rain barrels for winter (so the water doesn't freeze and bust up my lovely barrels!).

I tossed off the screen tops .....


And then .... what (more accurately WHO) do you see below?


Not sure if she thought it was a good hiding place .... but it was pretty amusing.


Silly kitty!

Un-short shorts

Any other ladies out there have trouble finding DECENT shorts? You know, the kind that don't ride up the leg ... and that you don't have to constantly tug down.

A few weeks ago, we were at the mall in Manhattan, and I poked around .... but it was either the crack riding shorts, school marme-ish shorts or leg-hugging bermuda shorts. NOTHING in between. :(

But last week, I got the Victoria Secret sales catalog. And .... TA DA! Who'd have thought I'd find modest/decent shorts at Victoria's Secret? ;)


Since it's been at least 5 years since I bought shorts, I picked up 2 pair! Heck, even if they're more than the normal sale reck or Goodwill, I'll probably won't buy another pair of shorts for 5 years, so it was worth it!

If you're interested in your *very own* pair, CLICK HERE.

SIDE NOTE: YES I'm up awfully early. I had a great idea and now just can't go back to sleep. Unfortunately, there are 5 hours until Erik's normal wake up time, so I can't tell him about it. :( My idea ... is involving the rain barrel. I know, I know .... I need to get a life. But we're constantly evolving ideas for our back patio .... and I recently saw how to make an overflow barrel. This is key because ours BOTH have overflowing issues. But for now, I'll just make an overflow spout.

Back to my idea. I think we could line up maybe 3 or 4 barrels in one spot on the patio. THEN get some sort of hard surface/countertop to put over them. This would serve several purposes: 1) cover the tops where we'll have to cut them open. Covering the top is important to mosquitos don't start breeding. 2) It could serve as a side buffet sort of thing where we could put food, drinks, etc. on the patio.

I have this idea in my head, and am not sure if I'm describing it well (it's 6 a.m., after all, and I'm not usually awake at this hour).

So .... if any of you Wichita (or even KC, we could get it when we visit the in-laws) people have an idea where I could get some countertop for "on the cheap" .... I'm basically looking for something at least 2 feet deep ... and I'm not sure how long. If you have an idea where I could acquire this, please leave a comment!

Rain Barrel upgrade!

Before:


After:


So what did I do? Erik and I added a screen to the top of the rain barrel.

We took a 48-inch bungee cord and wrapped it around screen on the barrel.


Let me tell you, it is ABSOLUTELY a 2-person job. It took both Erik and I to wrestle it onto the barrrel.

We opted to do it because there was an awful lot of gunk in the barrel. We cleaned it out, and it was good as new. But, then it was empty (we watered the garden with all of the 50-55 gallons).

So, last night it rained about an inch and a half, and now it's full again! :)

Rain Barrel update!

I'm excited to have my rain barrel up and running!!!!!!!

We tested it this week and it is able to drain to our garden! :) i've done a bit of testing with the soaker hoses, but they need a little TLC before they're 100% ready to go, so the jury's still out on that one.

Twice, I've drained almost 1/3 of the barrel, and twice it's rained less than 1/4 of an inch. Guess what the result was? It filled the barrel to the point of OVERFLOWING!!!!! Seriously amazing! I have no idea about the actual amount of square footage that drains to the barrel, but it's about 1/3 of our roof.

I have another barrel and I'm excited to get it up and running!

On the slightly down side, I have yet to make a screen to keep gunk out of the barrel. And I'm having some issues w/ light through it, so I have some algae ... it doesn't look the prettiest, but it works and is saving water as I water my baby garden plants! :)

My rain barrel runneth over!

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!! The rain barrel is UP AND RUNNING! :)

Yes, I'm a big, fat dork. Ok?

The best part was it was finished before our 10-inch snow. Before the roof even started melting, the thing was FULL. And it's 50 or 55 gallons. I can't remember.


I can't count the number of hours I worked on this darn thing. Seriously, a week ago, I spent the ENTIRE day running around town looking for pieces/parts.

Above is a moveable rain gutter. This was a fantastic tip from one of the guys are the hardware store. :)


After much trial and error, I finally ended up with this design option. There were LOTS of options on the table, and after a lot of trying things, this just worked best.

I wanted to have a spout where I could attach the garden hose ... and put my soaker hose at the other end. I'm excited to get my garden planted and try this thing out! :)

I'm also getting VERY interested in using "grey water" .... but there are all sorts of "issues" here in the U.S. Check out what Colorado says HERE. And they have awesome looking systems, but you gotta go to Australia. Check them out HERE.

So, for the time being, I'll just be content to collect rain water for my veggie garden (and strawberry patch!).


If you want one of these bad boys, I'd be happy to make one for you for $30. They retail for $40 at Orscheln or almost double that in hardware/garden stores.

If you're picky about color, I can get the barrel in black or blue.

Bricks/blocks to raise the barrel off the ground & moveable rain gutter are NOT included.