Our New Gadget: A Rain Barrel

We are experiencing a very hot and dry summer this year. Our annual flowers need to be watered once or twice a day and even our many native plants are often drooping.
It is therefore rather appropriate that we recently installed a rain barrel. Not only does it provide a little relief from a probably astronomical water bill, but it also keeps some storm water out of the sewers.
One decent rainfall fills up the barrel and the overflow diverts back into our downspout. The rain barrel has a cover because we do not want to to breed mosquitoes in it. And the barrel's earth tone even matches our house. The way things are going with the heat we might even purchase a second barrel to take even greater advantage of the occasional rainfall. The only downside is that we'll have to store them indoors or in the garage over winter.