Preparing for Summer

So the last few days have been very busy with guests and extra work to be done around the house. During the middle of everything I decided to take on a couple of extra tasks.
First on the list was to make some rain barrels. I had been trying to find some 55-gallon plastic barrels to use on the garden and everywhere that normally had them was out of stock whenever I called. I picked up a pre-made rain barrel, complete with hydrant at a local farm store for about $40. That was the cheapest I had found them, but I kept hunting for more. I finally lucked out and found two 55-gallon plastic barrels at a local food manufacturer and the lids were just right that I decided to create a composter out of one of them. Each barrel cost $8.
Once I found the barrels, I went to the local family owned hardware store and bought a couple of hydrants to hook up to a water hose. They installed pretty easy and only cost $3 each.
I also installed 20-feet of guttering on the back of my house so I could collect more rainwater in the barrels and rushed around to get that done on Sunday before a storm rolled in. The storm held off until Tuesday morning and I was very happy to see when I woke up that the barrel was allready full with only a half-inch of rain.
For those that are interested, I'll post more on the construction part later.