The Mower's Garden

This is the beginning of my rain water collection. I gathered up all the buckets I could find around the house and even used the cooler because it happened to be outside anyway. Since I took the picture I have found a few more and a plastic bottle like you put in a water cooler that I can use to store water. I put all these right under the eve of the front porch. Very primitive, but in an hour of rain all of the buckets will be full. In a day this could be quite a lot of water and it rains frequently here in East Texas. The last rain I got about fifty gallons and that was enough to water all of our blueberry plants, peach tree and fig trees for one day. Anytime we can keep the compressor at the well from kicking on is a good thing as our power bill is ridiculous anyway. I need to get a larger barrel or tank to store water, so I can go out periodically throughout a rainy day and empty these into it. Off in a clump a trees about sixty yards from the house is an old water tank on trailer designed to be towed by tractor. The tires are totally ruined as it has been there for probably ten years, but when I have time I will try to drag it out and see if it will hold water. Of course it would be ideal to have a gutter that feeds straight into a barrel, but then I also have to worry about it getting clogged.
In the long term our goals for living out here are to be more self sufficent, use less energy, use more renewable resources from our property, produce less waste. Although I belive in global warming, I would have to admit that any attempt at eco-freindly practices are more for practical purposes than anything else. If it saves me money and makes me need something else less than I am all for it.