| This is my beloved rain barrel, we have a long and loving history |
I love my rain barrel. So much so, I included this picture of her in our family year book a few years ago. She continues to trudge along, year after year. I now put her on a pedestal (literally, I made a pedestal for her out of old bricks) which gives her more water pressure. Soon I will retire her for the winter, allowing her to bask in the warmth of my garage until we finally thaw next year. But, I hope to add another rainbarrel come spring, to the other side of the house so I don’t have to haul water as far and won’t run out between rains. I can barely believe how full this barrel was this Summer since all it did was rain!
Over the past 2 years we have replaced all of our spigots in the house with water-saving aerators. The pressure is great and they use so much less water. We also repaired 2 leaky toilets during that time. We got a water-saving front loader (energy star, naturally) washing machine when our washer broke, and we try to run only full loads.
But today I finally took the plunge and carried a bucket up to my bathroom to start a new habit that I have meant to do for awhile. Now, when I need to run water to heat it up (in the winter it seems to take forever!), I will run it into the bucket, then put it aside until I need to use it to flush the toilet. I am happy to finally have found the motivation to start this.
Interesting Lake Erie info:
Sustainable Heights requests that we clean out the storm sewers on our street and reduce our water usage on rainy days because the storm sewers are heavily taxed during rainstorms and can combine with waste sewage that flows into Lake Erie along with the trash in our sewers. I love the Lake and hope we all can try these two simple things to keep Lake Erie beautiful and thriving.
