Can't Get Enough Rain Barrels!

Hi.  My name is Mimi, and I'm addicted to Rain Barrels.  LOL.  I say this because last year we bought  2 rain barrels that I loved, loved, loved.  I wished for rain, and did a rain dance every time it did.  Hahaha.  I loved the rain barrels so much that we couldn't resist buying another one this year!  The hubs parents saw this one at Sam's Club and picked it up for us.  It's an awesome rain barrel for an awesome price, $70!  Which is $10 less than what we spent on our other rain barrels.  The money that we have spent for rain barrels has more than paid for itself in the savings on our water bill.  It's astounding, and you really can't beat free water!

The best feature of this rain barrel is that the top has this basin that allows you to plant in.  I cannot wait to plant flowers and ivy in here, it is going to be so pretty!

As if 3 rain barrels weren't enough (it isn't), yesterday, I saw on Flatbush Gardener's blog a post about upcoming events in Brooklyn and the other boroughs. One event in particular that really made me super happy was that New York City's Department of Environmental Protection is giving away free rain barrels this year as they had done in previous years.  I'm so excited that the city has taken a proactive interest in conserving rain water. Totally cool. But it's not just a conservation effort, it's also the city's way to help manage the stormwater runoff from buildings, which can overwhelm the city’s sewer system. When there is a heavy rainstorm, the runoff of water overflows the sewer system, and in Staten Island, this causes a lot of basement floods because of backflow.  We had this problem the first winter we moved into our house, our basement flooded because of 3 days of non-stop rain.  If you live in NYC and want to know the locations for the rain barrel giveaways, check out the NYC DEP website.  The only thing that bums me out is that we just bought this rain barrel, I wish we knew about this free giveaway earlier, I would have waited for a free one.  But, who says we can't add 4 rain barrels to our yard?  Hahahaha.  If you go to the one in Staten Island, maybe I'll see you there!