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| snowy footprints |
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| The garden is hiding under the snow |
The garden still has a fair amount of unmelted snow on the beds. This time of year it doesn't get much sun after 2:00 and none at all after 3:00.
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| Rain water catchement |
On another note, on Sunday I went out to discover that the smaller of my water tanks was full and also leaking underneath. It got blown off it's support during the July 4th storm (I know it's Dec and I'm still talking about that !@#@ storm!) so I suppose that is when it got a crack in it's bottom. That explains why it was empty the rest of the monsoon season. I thought it was because the gutters were messed up and leaking.
Well, I went and hauled the big square tank down into the yard and then I went through the junk and found an old fountain pump. mmmm need a piece of tubing for the pump, nothing handy on the porch or in the yard. Check the falling down shed. Sure enough found a piece of tubing that fits the outlet on the pump and oh goody, it is long enough to go from one tank to the other! YAY! So I pumped all the water out of the fiberglass tank into the bigger one. Got some more this afternoon. When the weather warms up I'll have to get a fiberglass patch kit and patch up the crack. In the meantime as long as it rains faster than the tank leaks and I'm home to turn on the pump I can at least get some of the rain water. The big square tank holds about 250 gallons and the fiberglass one about 150. Now I just need to buy some more tanks and finish getting gutters on the house!
Good work doing the quick fix using materials on hand. Definitely looks like winter has settled in for you.
ReplyDeleteall I can say BRRR it looks really cold
ReplyDeleteYou are so handy and resourceful.
ReplyDeleteMary, I don't leave water in my rain collection tanks during the winter months. It get very cold here and frozen water would definitely split the tank. My big collection tank is a 400 gallon horse tank. I have a smaller 55 gallon barrel that catches the rain from 1/4 of the house. A spigot was installed and a hose run from the barrel to the large tank. Since the barrel is on a higher part of the property, gravity drains the water from the barrel to the large storage tank. Through the math I discovered that the potential rain barrel harvest could be 180 gallons of water from just one inch of rain. The rain harvested last summer supplied my watering needs for the five raised garden beds all summer expect for the month of July which was hot and dry. I had to supplement the water supply with city water. I hope to integrate another 1/4 of the house roof into the system next year.
ReplyDeleteHave a great feels like winter day.
Thanks for posting the lovely photos. We're still waiting for our first snowfall, and have been having unnervingly warm days. Good for season extension but not so much for our root cellar.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very large rain water catching system you have. We have something very similar. We just installed it this fall. I have many things to repair too! Hopefully I'll get to them before the rainy season this spring.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think you really need more water tanks if what you have now are starting to give way. Also, you should do maintenance on a regular basis when the weather is cold because water can freeze. When that happens, you can force circulation by adding warmer water inside thru the piping.
ReplyDelete