I love bats! I used to be a cave guide and i consider those helpful little critters friends.

I now have had the water turned off for longer than a month and am using my rain water for washing dishes, scrubbing the house, for pet water and things like that. For drinking and cooking I use water that I fill up at the RO water hut.

The hardest part is not having a shower. I have to run out to an RV park to use one of theirs'. I miss hot water on command.

Now it is mid-march and I have to admit i am letting dishes pile up, because setting things up to wash dishes is more time consuming than i would like.

I am also letting dirty clothes pile up, since i don't like going to laundromats.

There has got to be easier ways of doing these things without having to give in and turn the water back on.

It's a new monsoon season and i am getting lots of rainwater for my three 55 gallon barrels. One is totally full and the other two are 2/3rds full. So they will all be topped up soon.

I am thinking maybe to add a new barrel to my yard each year. So I am due for another.

Anyone else thinking of getting a rain barrel?

OK, it still keeps raining here in AZ. I will pick up a 4th rain barrel tomorrow from my local feed store tomorrow. $20 for a cleaned and reused food grade storage container. That is the cheapest i've seen for anything strong enough to work as a rain barrel.

So once that one is full, i will have 220 gallons of free water to use all year for landscaping, gardening, pet washing, car washing, and as an emergency water supply in case of power outtages.

Here is my boy John Crichton relaxing on water barrel 1 -

I ended up not getting a barrel from the feed store since the price had risen. I did find a free one in the back of my local fire station. They said I could have it. So that was easy! I am working on filling that one up now.

It only has a bung hole, so i use a funnel to fill that one up. this one sounds like a great candidate for adding a tap to, and maybe even finally get some gutters and set up a 'real' rain system.

My other barrels have covers I can take off and on, but hey - this one was free!

Finally, I decided to take the leap and pull together all my experience from capturing rain on an extremely frugal budget - and make an ebook! It's about 1/4th written at this time. If there are questions you want to see answered, let me know and I can add that information.