Catching rain water and rooting willows
Mark's words of wisdom: "Build a rain barrel; call a drought."
Sure enough, once our IBC-tank rain barrel was ready to test...it stopped raining. We used up
the few inches of water in the bottom pretty quickly, and then we had
to run a hose to the mushroom area to irrigate using water that began in
the creek. Not a huge deal, but it would be nicer to use straight
rainwater with no electric pump as a middle man.
So I was thrilled when
the tank started to fill back up! We haven't had enough precipitation
yet to fully test our tank supports, but I hear it's drying up in Texas
and thus might be getting wetter here again. (My weather guru says these
events actually are linked.) Mark tells me he likes it dry, though, so maybe he'll build another rain barrel to slow the shift in weather down.
Meanwhile, the willow cuttings
I stuck into the ground near the mushroom area (in the wettest part of
our core homestead) all rooted with alacrity. They're growing so quickly
now that I probably need to start training them to one trunk so I can
begin to weave with the living wands. What fun!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
After record setting cold and snow and a late spring, we had the hottest and driest May on record here (all the spinach bolted about the time it was big enough to harvest) and now when it is time to plant the corn and sweet potatoes, we have dipped back into the low 40s. Ah, such is life.
What kind of willows are they, and what do you plan to weave?
Ps. I am picking up two little goaties tomorrow! Soooo excited. (Just had to tell SOMEbody.)😊