The Rain Barrel (or Going Low Tech)

I hate waste and will go to great lengths to not throw anything away that can be reused. I recycle all my plastic bags, compost all my food wastes and wear clothes until they’re threadbare.

That’s why it bothered me for a long time that the rain and snow that came off my cabin roof washed onto the ground around the cabin. The only beneficiaries were the grasses and few aspen trees growing next to the building.

I know that water law in Colorado says that rain isn’t mine anyway, even though it’s falling on my property. Supposedly, someone has claim to that water, which tunnels down through the bedrock, heading to the nearest stream and joining other bigger streams, ending up on the plains where a farmer or municipality has a legal right to a certain amount of acre feet. If I tried to keep that water, it meant the farmer is not getting his or her share.

But recently, Colorado law changed to allow landowners in places where no municipal water system exists—which is my situation—to keep the water. So now I have a rain barrel to collect the water, and I’ve learned a few useful things: first, the water freezes in winter, so I have no access to it. Second, it doesn’t take much to fill a rain barrel; a good half hour of an afternoon summer thunderstorm is enough to send it spilling over.

When I’m at the cabin, I empty it, which is labor intensive, because it involves carrying heavy pails of water to the pine and aspen trees on my property. When I’m not there, and we’ve had rain or snow, water spills onto the ground where it’s not needed.

So I rigged up a hose from the barrel and set it in a rain gutter, which I propped on a rock near the plastic barrel, high enough that it flows down toward the base of the tall ponderosa pine in front of my cabin, thus providing free water with little effort on my part. However, I have at least five good-sized ponderosas and maybe 20 small to medium-size aspen trees scattered around the cabin. I thought about cobbling together a system of gutters all over the yard so I don’t have to carry pails of water.

But it would look ugly and would require some maintenance to keep it all in place and running smoothly. Besides, I love those trees. With all the diseases threatening both the ponderosas and aspens, I want to do everything I can to keep them alive and thriving. So I’ll just consider it a labor of love and keep toting—unless winter comes.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Hi, Kathy—

The loveliness of your world up there, and the gorgeous language you use to describe it, are sometimes almost painful for me. They make me long for Colorado in a way nothing else does, with the possible exception of the occasional random memory that stops me in my tracks while I'm washing dishes or lighting the shrine.

Thank you for keeping up this blog. I've tried several times to do likewise, but whatever it is that keeps you faithfully recording the exquisitely subtle joys of your cabin life doesn't seem to have visited me. So I console myself by catching up with your journal. Long may it—and you—flourish.

[sally]

HEAR!! HEAR!! I will second that!! I am amazed at how you come up with all these interesting subjects....I really have adoration for this blog also and it helps me to be there too! I need to find some woods to inhabit!! Thanks Kathy!!

[Rolf Matchen]

Why don't you make a canal by digging around the base of the trees, just deep enough so that it doesn't collect water. It should be pretty accurate, but it may solve your dilemma. In any case, you should also check the stability of each part of the system - from your gutters down to the rocks.