We had a beautiful, but very dry March here in East central Portugal, but finally the mid spring rains have arrived, and when it rains here at this time of year, it rains!
It rained HARD most of Thursday night, then on and off all day Friday, and pretty much all day today/ yesterday (depending on when this schedules = Saturday).
Got woken up by the LOUDEST thunderclap I ever heard on Thursday night - I thought a tree had fallen on the cabin, but in the absence of a tree-limb pinning my broken body to the floor I realised it was just Thunder - and then lightening, and power outages - no issue TBH as I've got a back up leisure battery that'll charge my lap top several time over!
In just one short burst of rain - the swimming pool is back up to full again:
As a result of the rain I had an indoors day today (Saturday) and caught up on some marking, some Revise blog work, but of course spent most of the day dicking about on Hive and moving chunks of crypto about (I'm currently listing to @makingstuff's show on Discord, Crim next!)
I didn't even get around to tidying the cabin, using the rain as an excuse - I tend to move in and outdoors when I'm cleaning, actually quite a good excuse - tidying can wait until tomo!
I actually quite enjoyed myself, having my first pure 'online day' in a couple of weeks - it's nice after a lot of IRL in the real world activities!
The rain was kind of ironic, given that I took delivery of four ICBs Friday, but haven't had the time to level the ground near the roof where I'm going to store them - they came a day earlier than expected, so I'm out of sync. Hopefully I can get the ground levelled tomo/ later today and then fill them up the future rain that's predicted for the end of next week.
If I'm careful 4000 litres of water should see me through the dry period in August/ September. I don't have much to irrigate, so that should be enough for two months worth of showers and washing up for one!
In Portugal there can go very warm some times :) ... I hope this water not go end :)
It's just a start - I haven't actually got anything to water this year anyway, expect 20 strawberry plants and a few lettuce!
Really this is just my shower and washing up water for summer/ autumn!
I hope those ICBs are factory fresh... you never know what they had stored in them, you know?
They are used, but they look clean and probably more importantly no smell of anything suspect - Besides, it's not for drinking!
There are odorless substances that are very dangerous, even in small doses.
I should have told you before you bought them, I guess :/
They should be ok for showering and such things, but didn't you also have a well?
I do have a well - but the ICBs are for storing water quite a way from the well - I want one up by the house which is a good 300 meters away up hill!
The guy that delivered is well known locally so I'm sure if he had a reputation of delivering toxic storage containers I'd know about it!
I'll flush them through a couple of times before using them just in case - plenty of rain forecast in the next week!
Nice! Our rain water tank is used for irrigation during our dry summer her in SA. And it’s amazing how quickly it fills up from a single downpour. We have 1 huge flat roof and all the water channels into the tank, so in winter we actually have to empty the tank otherwise it over flows. All these IRL things we have to sort out. Hope you got the ground levelled!
No where near levelling the ground, I'm just going to go for a few flat stones in the corners and centre - metal bases so should be fine!
Better get to it, it's 9.00 already and I'm dithering!
When I lived in the Black Forest there were some great storms unlike what we tend to get here. I think the landscape affects them.
A reliable water supply is important if you are off the mains. Can you do some solar heating to avoid cold showers?
Those intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) are super handy. Not to add to your workload but if you are not going to have them in an enclosure... then painting the exterior of them will help protect the plastic from UV and help keep algae from growing in them. Exterior grade latex paint seems to do the trick quite well.
Hey thanks I was just wondering whether to paint them or wrap them in plastic, or maybe an enclosure would be easier!
Still thinking it through!
As long as the UV gets blocked then you are all good. Some people just screw roofing metal directly to the wire frame of the IBC and that seems to work well for longevity.
That's not a bad idea - I guess plywood would work well!
I bet that it would. Maybe painted or pressure treated plywood to inhibit mold growth.
The problem is I just need so much of it!
Haha. Indeed! I need it also and whoa has it been pricey and hard to get!
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Whoa you moved to Portugal? Some big changes for you eh?
Hey good to hear from you, and yes it's been quite a transformative six months to say the least - it's great out here!