Just a Barrel of Rain

 “Just a box of rain

Wind and water

Believe it if you need it,

If you don’t just pass it on”

-- Robert Hunter, The Grateful Dead

We don’t exactly have a box of rain, but we have a long rectangular gutter and a barrel of rain, which is frozen at the moment.  Constructing the rain barrel last summer was really our first attempt at a big “DIY” garden project. 

For my April birthday, my husband purchased a small greenhouse, and he and his father constructed it near our shed in the back for convenience.  Shuttling my seeds, pots, potting mix, gloves, and spades back and forth between the two really was convenient.  Obtaining water, on the other hand, was not.  It was a time consuming, up-hill chore.  .  At first, I tried dragging a hose back and forth from the house to the shed.  But invariably, I’d forget to put it up.  After discovering it in his path while in the middle of mowing our huge yard, several times, my husband had enough.

Then, I tried lugging a watering can back and forth; that didn’t last long either.

Finally, we saw an episode of Michelle’s Beschen’s B.Organic concerning rain projects on PBS http://www.borganic.net/videos.php?video_id=26

My husband decided that we didn’t need to purchase a rain barrel; he could make one.  His cousin had several empty plastic pickle barrels, and he was more than happy to give them to us.  Hubby drilled a large hole in one, put a spigot into the hole, sealed it, and there it was.  He’s gifted and talented.

Next, we had to purchase a green gutter for the shed.  We thought this would be easy.  It was not.  We rushed over to the hardware store only to find out it had to be special ordered.  Whoever was in charge of picking up phones and requesting special orders was not there; we’d have to come back.   We headed back a week later.  The phone calling specialist was not there.  We trudged back a week later, still not there.  Then an idea warmed and began glowing like a compact fluorescent light heating up to save the environment.  This person could call us whenever he came to work.

We did at some later date order the gutter, and it even later arrived.  Someone, with  specialized skill in making phone calls, left a message that it had arrived while my hubby was working, but I had his truck, so it was no problem.  I thought. 

Once I arrived at the hardware store, I realized that his truck was a problem.  The bed is six feet long; the gutter was eight.  I had not one thing to secure the gutter.  And unlike my hubby, I am not gifted and talented.  Ingenuity escapes me.  The guy loaded it into the back and tied it down with a piece of twine that had to have come from Thumbelina’s spool.  With two feet hanging out of the back and the box ripping, I pulled out of the parking lot.  It began hopping and flapping before I reached the first stoplight.  We weren’t going to make it home.  I stopped at the next stoplight, beside the post office, signaled, headed in, bought packaging tape, and taped the box and Thumbelina’s thread to the bed of the truck – in many places.   I cut my hand, but overall, felt very MacGyverish when I pulled into my driveway.

We placed the gutter at the rear end of the shed, situated our rain barrel underneath it, made a rain chain out of some small tin flower pots, and waited, and waited, and waited.  Three weeks later the rain finally did come. 

Was it worth the work, hassle, and wait?  You can believe it, if you need it.  If you don't just pass it on.