This is the container that the water collects in (below). It's pretty big, I'd say about 2 gallons. In the summertime this thing sometimes fills up every other day. I'm always amazed how crystal clear the water looks when I pour it out.
So I was thinking instead of pouring the water down the sink in the basement, I could use it to water my garden. It's sort of like having an indoor rain barrel! 
Now I realize this is not the most esthetically pleasing thing one could have in the garden, but hey, I'm trying to help save the planet here! Cut me some slack!
I had a bunch of bricks that I dug up from the previous owners very straight and very boring flower beds and until now they've been in a big pile on my raggedy patio taking up space and looking very ugly. So, I piled them up on the torture deck. Not only did this help me re-use the bricks, it was perfect to raise the barrel up so that I can get containers under it.
After placing the barrel, I removed the downspout from the side of the garage and headed to my friendly neighborhood Ace Hardware to get a curved piece that would make it around the corner to the barrel. After the helpful hardware guy pieced together a bunch of short sections I saw this big ugly green flexible thingy over in the corner. This seemed so much easier! I can't decide which would be uglier, this ugly green dryer vent looking thing, or an ugly brown downspout.
So, there it is. My beloved rain barrel. Oh how I have longed for one for what seemed like months (I realize that's not very long but you just don't know how impatient I am). Now I just need to catch some soaker hoses on sale or figure out how to transform my old so-cheap-and-so-thin-I-couldn't-water-without-it-kinking-to-the-point-I-wanted-to-kill-somebody retired garden hose into a soaker hose. I'm so excited! Hey, if this works, maybe I could add a barrel every year for the next 3 years and collect enough water for everything!
But, it's still sooooooo ugly! I was thinking I should paint it. Here are a few of the ideas that came to mind.
What do you think? What's your vote?
Garden Buddy alerted me a while back that the City of Chicago was offering rain barrels to encourage water conservation and to help keep the sewers from getting clogged. This is a real problem in these parts - my basement flooded because of this the first weekend that we moved to this house. Anyway, GB is on vacation and today she picked one up for me and dropped it off in my backyard. GB - I love it when you are on vacation!
This is a horrible picture. I took it in the middle of a storm, at almost 8pm, with a flash, standing in the doorway so I wouldn't get wet. I could have waited for a better photo-op but I was so excited about it. Isn't this thing fabulous????? It seems way bigger than the ones I saw on the garden walk and it was only 40 bucks! The booklet that came with it suggested raising it on a platform and attaching soaker hoses to the spigot. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Torture deck = rain barrel platform?
