Home again, 2/6/15

The batteries need charging up, ya'll.  I'm feeling kinda drained.

Slow day today.  It was a slow week.  The money situation is not improving.

Okay, so now I'm considering moving again.  If I move, I have to have a plan.  The first part of that plan is to get something built out there.  I can't just park on the land and expect to live there.

Today, I got an idea to go big.  Instead of just a couple of these quonsets, let say I make a quadrangle of them, so that they will make an enclosed area inside.  Why?  I'd like to capture some water and I don't want to use expensive materials.  Even cheap plastic can hold water as long as the wind doesn't get to it.  At least that is what I'm thinking now.

The middle of the quadrangle will be reserved for capturing the water and using it as a chicken run.  I'm thinking a 16 foot by 16 foot inner area for the chickens.  That's 256 square feet.

Now, for every 100 square feet, the potential exists to collect
1 inch divided by 12 inches in a foot yields 0.083 feet.  100 square feet times this equals 8.3 cubic feet.
Let's go in increments of one tenth of an inch, so that's .83 cubic feet.  Take that and multiply it times 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot yielding 6.23 gallons for every tenth inch of rain that falls on 100 square feet.  The quadrangle itself is a structure with four walls that enclose 128 square feet apiece yielding 512 square feet.

Added to the open are inside the quadrangle gives 256 square feet plus the 512 square feet, which yields 768 square feet.  Including my canopy and an extension to the quadrangle, and we are over 1000 square feet.  That means a potential to collect 62 gallons of water for every tenth of an inch of rain.  If it rains an inch, that's over 600 gallons.  Usually, it will rain a fraction of an inch each month, and on rainy months, more than that.  Which means that a structure this size could yield plenty of water for my purposes.

The details of the construction of the quadrangle may follow on future posts.  Needless to say, there are a few details.