New rain barrel and stand

Spring comes in fits and starts. While we wait for the latest snowfall to melt, Jess and I have been busy knocking one of the long-standing projects off my to-do list: add a second rain barrel to the garage eaves. This entail making a stand. 

With Jenn out of town for a well deserved spa weekend, we decided to tackle this. Jess is currently taking construction at school so I thought this would dovetail with the finer work she's doing on a crib-board project. We also decided to use hand tools--you can still hurt yourself with a hand tool, but not nearly as badly!

The only complicated part of the plans we downloaded from the web was a pair of inset cross-braces at the bottom. I think this was mostly an aesthetic choice by the designer (we likely could have just screwed to the face of the legs). But insetting was a good chance to add in some chisel work.

We did use a power drill (because I'm too old to screw around with a hand drill) to put in some pilot holes and drive the screws. Jess did about 80% of the cutting and drilling and half of the screws. I ended up freehanding the screws on the top decking to save some time (she was pooped out and the angle was tough for her to apply enough force).

The result was pretty much as intended. We even used carpenter's glue! It held my weight no problem and even appeared plumb!

While the glue dried, we fiddled around with the downspouts and managed to fashion a run that moved the water around the corner from the alley and into the backyard. To my surprise, no one cut themselves on the sheet metal.

We then assembled everything and put the new water barrel in place. It looks like we'll get more snow or sleet tonight so hopefully it will fill alright.

The cooler temperatures have meant the garden is still slow. I was able to rake the back finally and some of the perennials are up. The rhubarb has made the most progress.

It always looks so alien coming up from the winter decay. I was quite happy with the rhubarb wine I made last year so we'll do that again this year.

Today we went out and bought potatoes. If the weather improved next week, we'll drop them and some walla-walla onions in the ground.