Happy Earth Day!

Ok. I will admit. We are not a family big on earth day and such. We do have our recycling bin that gets picked up every Thursday with the garbage (different truck) and it’s usually filled to the brim (our bin, not the truck), but that doesn’t make us an eco friendly household. We try to reuse our plastic garbage bags and not waste anything, but that’s just normal everyday kind of purposeful living, right? Our latest purchase (before the new car) could really be deceiving if you didn’t know us better. :)

If you have ever stayed the night with us and chosen to take a shower during your stay, you would have noticed that our hot water takes quite a LONG time to get hot (especially in the master bath). Mike got tired of seeing all that money water go down the drain while waiting for hot water. We decided to collect that water and use it on our garden.

I found an old bucket in the garage and we used it to gather the water in while the shower gets hot. What is truly sickening and amazing is that we poured the bucket into our handy dandy water pitcher and we have been wasting at least 2 gallons of water a shower!

We quickly realized how much we really NEEDED some water barrels. I had been eyeing the one at Sam’s for quite some time, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $80 a pop for one.

Then while at Lowes one day, we came across some water barrels on clearance.

They are 50 gallon tubs with a cool screen on top to keep leaves and debris out. The top pops off like a normal bin so you can get inside if you need to. They also have two hoses (one at the top and the other at the bottom) so you can get the water out of the barrel/bin. We went ahead and bought the last two on clearance. I have been pouring our bucket of shower water into the barrel when I don’t have time to use the water pitcher. Then I discovered it’s much easier to just open the lid and dip the water pitcher inside and water the garden that way. I have had enough water in them to use the water pitcher and water the garden with lots of water still left inside with little to no rain. Funny thing is that the kids now will not take a shower unless there is a bucket in the shower to collect the water, even if the water is already warm. Haha Who knew being “green” (even for monetary reasons) could be so funny! :)