The Treasure Coast of Florida, where Folly finds her home, has been suffering seriously low rainfall over several years. This past dry season (October to May) has seen
very little
rain.
http://www.evergladesfoundation.org Our “snowbirds”, i.e. our affectionate name for tourists, have enjoyed our sunny, dry days tremendously, but our plants have not. We are now under water restrictions for irrigation.
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| positioning the tank |
Our effort at Folly to mitigate depletion of our wells while keep the landscape looking good, has included using very little grass, mostly drought tolerant plants, and the installation of two 4,000 gallon cisterns to provide a total of 8,000 gallons of water for irrigation. The water comes from the gutter system on the house which feeds the cisterns by means of underground hoses. Of course, during times of extended periods of no rainfall, the two wells will take over.
The installation of the cisterns was challenging.
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| removing them from the truck |
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| arriving by truck |
The large tanks, made of fiberglass, arrived by flatbed truck, removed by crane to set side by side while a large hole was dug to receive them. Of course, since we are in Florida, water seeped into the bottom of the hole at eight feet.
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| digging |
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| water! |
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| sipping water |
A pump system was set up to drain the water to create a solid base.
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| adding gravel |
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| weights |
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| tanks with anchors on each side |
After some gravel was added, the tanks were put into place.
A possible scenario might be that the water table rises during a hurricane causing the tanks to pop out of the ground. In order to insure that this does not happen, large concrete columns placed on either side anchored the tanks. A metal chain fixed the tank to the anchor. Also, 18 inches of water will remain in the tanks at all times.
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| in place and strapped down |
The hole was filled in with dirt so that only the caps show above grade. The area will be sodded.
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| only the caps will show above ground |
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Once the area is covered with sod, only an experienced eye will be able to find the caps.
This is one of the experiments at Folly. Hopefully, it will teach us all about how to use water more wisely.
