The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

New pond construction

Anna digging new pond with shovel and wheel barrow

The first pond turned out so well we decided to make another to deal with gutter runoff at the other end of the trailer.



Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.


Why no rain barrels?
Comment by gerry Sat Jul 27 19:34:03 2013
Gerry --- The trouble with rain barrels in a wet climate like ours is that all that water still needs to go somewhere. We haven't had to water much of anything this year due to heavy rainfall, so a rain barrel would just fill and then overflow, resulting in the same sodden ground problem we currently face.
Comment by anna Sat Jul 27 20:44:06 2013
I thought that rain water could be used as supplement, even replacement, of your well water for domestic consumption. It may offer a cleaner source that requires less treatment than your well water. Adequate storage volume could be developed over time, and in heavy rainy periods you could redirect overflow as you are planning to now.
Comment by gerry Mon Jul 29 08:01:42 2013

Gerry --- I hope you didn't think I was picking on you. I generally assume if one person asks a question, 10 other people want to know the same thing.

I appreciate your clarification. But I think that roof water would need more treatment than water from our well, not less. Sure, it has less sediment, but rain tends to pick up bacteria as it goes through the lower atmosphere, while well water tends to have all of that filtered out by the soil.

My main reason not to drink the roof water, though, is pure laziness. Our well water is finally all the way piped into the trailer, and this water would have to be piped 60+ feet to get to our kitchen. I figure if it's not broke, don't fix it.

Comment by anna Mon Jul 29 10:14:52 2013





profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.