Rain barrel production halted due to rain

All this rain we've had lately got Mom and Dad thinking we should build a few rain barrels, so we can recycle it to water all the flowers, veggies and herbs on sunnier days. Luckily Dad found a place to buy these used plastic barrels for only $7 each. He then spent another couple dollars on some tubing and faucets at Home Cheapo last weekend and he was in business!


This first one is very close to the house, so he added an overflow outlet with a hose that runs around the back of the A/C unit and comes out in the yard farther away from the patio.


This is June in Wisconsin, so of course within minutes of finishing the first barrel it started raining and soon it was filled to overflowing!


Barrel number two had to wait until this weekend. As you can see we finally got some beautiful sunny weather here! That was yesterday.


It was really nice most of the day today too, except for this freak thunderstorm that knocked out our power for a minute and dumped enough rain to fill this one more than half full in less than ten minutes!

And she scores again!

After the unexpected find of the outdoor fireplace, Mom thought she'd used up her bargain hunting luck for this summer and she'd never find the baking rack she was actually looking for. But lo and behold, driving home from work just a few weeks later she spotted this .... sitting on the driveway at a house only a few blocks away, and priced at only $20 too!

Normally we're not allowed to buy anything that Dad has to go back and pick up with the truck, but in this case he didn't mind. For the last couple summers we had a small table outside the screenhouse which was very handy for serving food and mixing drinks, but that finally got refinished and moved to the basement. We really needed something else to replace that, and this fits the space perfectly.


I think it matches nicely with the rest of our "outdoor living room" decor. With the exception of the matching seat cushions, every piece of furniture was picked up at yard sales over the years. Even the huge six-sided picnic table was carried home from a neighbor's house around the corner!