For the last couple of year's I've thought about having a rain barrel. My neighbor behind me uses them for watering his flowers & plants. He, however, has an elaborate operation where he takes a trailer full of barrels down to the river and syphons off water a few times a year (I'm thinking that this is actually illegal but he's done it ever since I moved into the neighborhood!). I priced the modern ones that are being sold at Loewes, Fleet Farm, and Menards and decided that I was not interested in paying $100 for one. That seems like an awful lot of money and I've already seen one in someone's garbage because they do break quite easily.
So, I made one this weekend out of a large steel feed pail that I had in the garage, some mosquito netting and a bungee cord. It doesn't look too unattractive since the pail was in perfect condition and nice and shiny.
My "rain barrel" is now all set up and waiting for some rain to test it out. If it works, I plan to set up 1-2 more. Hopefully, rain will come later this week. We already really need it!
I also noticed that Menard's has a compost bin at a reasonable price this week ($28) so I'll be buying one of those and setting that up too. I'm thinking that will cut my actual "garbage" down to one small bag per week.
I am already a heavy user of my recycling bin. The other idea that I would love to implement but can't afford would be a wind generated water heater. Their cost is still way too high - somewhere over $10,000 - so not quite worth the expense yet! But maybe someday.
It all adds up!
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