RAIN!!!!!!!!!!

8/18/08 - 2nd Day - Evening. Ok, so the rain finally came. I had encouraged everyone (as much as anyone can) a week or so ago that in the 3 previous years that I had lived here, we had ALWAYS received rain in the end of August. Everyone was very hopeful, then when a week ago the prognosticators started pointing towards this past weekend and early this week as very probably for some good rainfall. Well, we received close to two and a half inches on Friday night and on the Sabbath, and then we received another two and a half inches or more yesterday and today. Today has been an ideal rain day, and our rear catchwater tank now sits at about 1200 gallons, which is about half full. Because of some poor planning when I first built the cabin, the front roofline is a foot or so lower than it would need to be to pipe the water back to the back tank, so for the last couple of years, we have caught water off the front of the cabin into large Rubbermaid garbage cans. Usually we would have about 4 of these 55 gallon cans, and every time it would rain we would have to go out in the rain to bail water from one to the next until all were full, then we would have to start hauling water by bucket brigade back to the 2500 catchwater tank in the rear of the cabin. Well, over time, these garbage cans begin to spring leaks, and we learned on Saturday that several of ours were leaking really badly, so, since it had dried up a little this morning, Dusty and I drove to Brownwood and I bought a galvanized 170 gallon stock tank to catch water in the front. I figured: a) as little rain as we have had, it would take quite a while to fill the stock tank, and, b) we would save all of the bucketing from garbage can to garbage can in the front, and we would have to bucket brigade to the rear far less often. In fact, as little rain as we have had, I figured it would take several days of really good rain even to fill the catchwater tank one time. WRONG. This first picture is of the new tank about 25 minutes after we installed it. Tracy decided to take a picture of the first rainfall filling the tank:


This next picture is of the stock tank less than an hour later.


As you can tell (praise God) we were bucket brigading almost immediately, which is really not much of a problem for us, since we all really enjoy it - especially after a long and brutal drought. Our next step is to install a small pump which will be operated from inside the cabin and will pump the water to the back catchwater through a garden hose. Of course then we would miss out on the fun of the whole household pitching in to bucket brigade life-saving water into our large catchwater tank.

Well, our back pond is not only full, but it has been overflowing the dam for about two days. I haven't had an opportunity to check the front pond yet, but I will soon and I will give you a report and maybe some pictures.

Anyway, thank you all for your continued prayers and we praise and thank God for His ample provision.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker