The kids clean out the cistern

Emerson and Josiah's hands

The cleaning crew

That was fun!

Did I tell you its going to rain today?

More Rain More Water

After the initial rain giving us 400 gallons it rained again bringing us an additional 300 more gallons totaling 700 gallons.

We were very happy with our gain and figured the rain was over but a day later we got hit with a heavy down pour netting another 300 gallons plus more.

It rained so hard and heavy that the cistern crowned at the top and water ran out of the weep hole for about an hour.

It’s laundry and shower time.

Let it rain, let it rain

For the many years I would hate when it rained. Rain meant seclusion, not being able to work outside, getting soaked while loading the truck, no beach time, etc. now living in the Ozarks and not having running water we actually pray for rain.

Well, it hasn’t rained for the past 4 weeks and that first 200 hundred collected gallons of rain water lasted about two weeks with taking showers and doing laundry so it’s been somewhat empty for some time.

We’ve been told daily since then by the Weather Bunnies and the Weather Fairies that there’s a 30% sometimes 50% chance of rain but it never comes much to our disappointment.

We’ve watched storms that stretched from Texas up to Montana that were two states wide and as soon as it got to our county it broke in two, went around us and re-group on the other side leaving us hot and dry.

Yesterday was different, we were going about our business doing the things we do daily when all of a sudden around 3:15 the wind started blowing, skies darkened up, the thunder started thundering, lightening started striking, and drip by drip it came down in buckets. Not really in buckets but you get what I mean.

The down pour started about 3:50 and lasted about an hour and 25 minutes.

Needless to say there was lots of dancing and smiles.

Some people go to Disney when they are happy or accomplish something … we do laundry.

It’s laundry time!

Dust from the driveway blowing up in clouds

Auntie Em, Auntie Em where are you?

Ominous black clouds

Rain in the distance

Clouds all around us.

Scary isn't it?

The first few drops

Emerson doing the rain dance while Silas catches rain water

We thinks this is for real

Free truck wash

Expressions of joy

It's been so long forgot how to work this thing

Rain, rain ... everyone loves rain!

One hour and 25 minutes of rain hailed a little under 400 gallons of water

and the forecast call for for rain for the next 5 days.

We'll wait and see.

For those of you that don’t understand what the big deal is you need to know that our cistern on the back of the pickup holds 250 gallons of water. Those 250 gallons last us around 4 to 5 days with watering the vegetable garden daily, household water and one load of laundry  and even though we get water for free from the county spring we have to pick it up.

Each trip is about 18 miles round trip, it take about 1 ½ hours for each trip and we do this sometimes 5 times a month. With the 400 gallons of rain water we will be able to use that water for showering and laundry which will cut down on our trips to the county spring.

The new water system from the Town of Pyatt is in the final stages of completion so we should have running water soon.

Then we’ll be like everyone else with running water but where’s the adventure and romance?

Update on the Rain Collection

Last weekend’s predicted storm seemed to have more show and less blow than expected. I was quite frustrated because most of the storm broke up and went around us leaving us with a small amount of collected rain.

These three photos show a very scary cloud formation that only produced three minutes of rainfall. By Sunday night I had given up on getting any significant rain collection and figured we’d have to wait for the next big storm.

Well, business as usual, we did our nightly routine and went to bed. Monday morning we woke to find almost 200 gallons of collected rain water in the cistern. Evidently it rained during the night leaving us with a good amount of water and what’s even cooler is that since last week even though it hasn’t rained when we wake up every morning we find that the water level gets a little higher each day.

I spoke with a friend about this and he said his system can produce up to 20 gallons of water a day just from the morning dew.

Go figure.

Our goal this weekend

Our 1000 gallon cistern is in place temporarily because the plan is eventually to elevate it off the ground so gravity can play more of a part in dispensing but for now the goal is to collect rain water.

As I stated the Weather Fairies and Weather Bunnies have predicted a huge storm that could last for the next five days. It’s scheduled to start around noon today so keep your fingers crossed.

I’ll keep you posted; pun intended … I guess that would be considered a Blog joke.

Can I go in the little house Papa?

Our new laundry room and 1000 gallon cistern for rain water collection

The Weather Bunny predicted rain for the next 5 days ... keep your fingers crossed!

Let it rain, let it rain ...

Last week the Weather Bunny’s predicted a terrible thunderstorm that would rival Noah’s experience so with this looming in the forecast Echo and I thought this would be a good time to install a rain collection system on the house.

With the hours ticking away we hurried at our project and finished with time to spare. Looking at the rain collection chart we figured one inch of rain would net us around 400 or so gallons of water.

After looking up in the sky and realizing that the storm must have stop off on the way for a cup of coffee or something we ran into the house to check on the weather map only to find that the storm had split and went around us.

Aside from a 3 minute rain shower the next day which netted us about 20 gallons of water it hasn’t rained since in fact our creek is drying up and the temperatures are on the raise.

This past Saturday was our one year anniversary marking our move to the Ozarks and if you remember we moved here during one of the hottest summers on record. Even though I would prefer not to believe it we’re probably in for a long hot dry summer just like last year.

Oh, wait the Weather Bunny is predicting 4 days of rain starting on Sunday. Can’t wait for this storm to split and go around us too.