Rain water collection

In an entry in the guestbook, someone asked about rain water collection. We do plan for it. Basically, water runs downhill and so you just need to provide an easy path for it to go where you want, and away from where you don't want it.

Water from our roof (or any roof for that matter) will have dirt and/or other debris in it. So when we provide runoff of surface water on our roof, we plan for there to be contains that the water can be routed to, and the containers will have filters so that the water runs in, but we want to minimize the dirt and grit that enters. If the containers overflow or if the filter gets clogged, the water should continue running further on down the line to other containers or to the woods. Our woods need water during drought, so we have the ultimiate destination to be places in our woods.

The stored water can be used for the garden or to wash the car. I should point out too that our driveway will have a drain or two, so if we wash cars there, the water will run to the woods.

We have a well, so our water supply is very good and the water is clean and great to drink. It's better than the water in the city. I've never tasted better water.That said, if anything were to ever happen to that water supply, we might dig out part of our berm and put in a cistern for more water collection, and then invest in the right kind of filtering and purification so that this water supply could be potable. For now, collected water will be used for gardening and livestock.