This is not normally how I deal with the rain barrel. I do understand, as a general principle, that the rain barrel is meant to stop me from over-using my garden hose by collecting and holding the rain water that would otherwise run off my roof. And there has been no shortage of rain water running off my roof this week. But last week, there was a lot of wind. So much wind that all the stuff that was outside started blowing away, including the little elbow shaped spout that directs the water from the down spout into the rain barrel. So while it was raining, the water was just flowing uselessly out of the down spout and onto the patio. Also, in the spirit of winterizing, El Husbando very wisely drained the water out of the barrels so that the water inside the barrels would not freeze and burst the barrels. And then the winds came back today and started blowing things around, including a rain barrel that no longer had enough water weight in it to keep it from leaving.
The dog was the first to notice. He stood at the window and barked like a fool at the spot where the rain barrel used to be. Usually he barks at deer, and birds, and invisible currents of air, so I ignored him. But then I thought he sounded kind of insistent, so I looked out of the window and saw this:
The dog did not care for this kind of unpredictable rain barrel behavior, but he didn't know what to do with the barrel so he left it for me to fix.
And so I moved it back where it goes and stood there, leaning into the wild wind at about a 30 degree angle--kind of like they do in the cartoons-- and filling my rain barrel with hose water.
The cat watched all of this from the mud room window. She looked very superior when we came back in, as if she could have told us all along not to drain all of the water. Silly humans.
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