The good news this week is we got some rain! Admittedly, it wasn't much. According to Weather Underground, my area received 0.12 inches (3.05 mm) of rain early this morning. But rain of any kind in May is reason to rejoice. The sky remain gray much of the day but we got nothing more than a few sprinkles after daylight.
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| This morning's view of the cloud-covered Los Angeles harbor |
Although we received relatively little rain, it was enough to fill my small, 50-gallon rain barrel. Or it would have been, if the valve hadn't been turned partially in the "on" position, causing us to lose a good portion of what nature delivered.
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| The relocated rain barrel surrounded by soaked pavement |
We recently emptied, cleaned and moved the barrel from it's former location attached to the gararge to its new location attached to the house. Apparently the valve was left partially open. The soaked pavement was the clue. That problem was easily fixed.
We were pleased to see that our new, 160-gallon tank had collected approximately 25 gallons of water from what was very modest rainfall.
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| The tank has notches on the side to indicate how much water it holds |
But we noticed that the pavement was also soaked underneath that tank's valve. After emptying a portion of the contents into our other barrel, we determined that the new tank, thankfully, wasn't cracked but the valve required tightening to prevent the precious rainwater from slowly dripping away. Locating and correcting the problem took more than half an hour but at least we discovered it before we had a really significant rainstorm.
Our morning was capped with the delivery of the other rain tank we had on order. We'd hoped to pick it up from the same warehouse our other tank came from but, as the result of confusion between me and the distributor, we found that the pick-up location for this tank was almost 100 miles away. So we had to arrange freight delivery at (ouch!) extra cost. Now, though, all "we" (by which I mean my husband) have to do is install the thing behind our garage, which will give us a total of 475 gallons of rain storage capacity.
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| The delivery truck |
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| Frankly, despite the cost, I'm just as glad we didn't have to haul this thing on the LA freeways in a pick-up truck |
My husband's not sure the extra water storage is worth the cost but it gives me peace of mind that I'm doing what I can to take care of my garden during our drought. Other measures include shortened showers, recovery of kitchen and shower water for reuse, use of washing machine graywater, and lots and lots of mulch to retain soil moisture.
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| This week's mulch delivery |
Mulching will be in process throughout the weekend. (A second delivery may be required.) I hope you have a fun weekend in store!
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© 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
