Day 175

With our plumbing problem still unsolved, we had to resort to less than convenient methods to get water to the barn. Filling up buckets in the house and transferring them to the barn, a daily chore in winter, would not cut it any longer. There had to be a better way. 

Before chickens, water was easy. Using a spigot in both the front and back of the house, we connected a house and watered the plants and garden as necessary. When we planted trees the shoe couldn't reach, we loaded up a big bucket of water in the back of the tractor trailer and pulled it with our riding lawn mower to where it needed to go. But adding chicken complicated this. Of course, to make life even more interesting, we added many more trees, planted raspberry bushes by the house and by the barn, added a butterfly garden, and quintupled the size of our garden.

A hose in the front and back of the house was a start, but we needed to think in a whole new way.

The hoses still made sense for the garden and new trees, but to save time, we used a sprinkler instead of hand watering every single thing. Providing water for  the chickens, raspberry bushes, and butterfly garden needed something different.

To make life somewhat easier, we installed a two-way valve in the back spigot to avoid having to haul hoses around every day. This allowed us to use one house for the garden and plants near the house and one to stretch near the barn. The barn hose ended up right near the retaining wall, so it made sense to put some items there to store water. We used an old cooler, an extra plastic tub, and a couple of carboys and filled them up. I still had to transfer water to everything, but this made the walk much more manageable. It didn't help that we are basically in a drought, so this has become an everyday necessity. 

We also fill up a small swimming pool in the chicken yard and now have access to two rain barrels.

Hopefully this will keep our plants and chickens happy.