Plato said..

Necessity, who is the mother of invention. and he lived (427 BC - 347 BC). He would be happy to know not much has changed here at Sunnyside Farm. Now that the days are warm the livestock consume lots of water. Our system works with a cut off valve that fills the water tray from a 5 gallon bucket on each pen. Right now, and until Thanksgiving, every pen that we have is full and in use. About 20 chicken pens, 2 pig pens, the moveable cow shade, and the 3-4 turkey pens. And the brooders..3-4 of those. The water gets filled in the morning and checked in the afternoon..and running that much water can take a while. Homer solved this standing and holding a hose challenge:

Now he can walk away and get other things done while the bucket fills. The hose cannot flip out of the bucket, and he used a bit of the copper tubing purchased in bulk when on clearance 3 years ago at HD.

Homer also bought plastic panels from his plastic supplier years ago. Not certain of the original intended use, but these panels now comprise both ends of our hoophouse, used in a shingle like fashion to keep out the cold. And when cut up into different shapes, as a part of this windmill:

Homer removes the sides of the hoophouse once it gets warm at night. The rain barrels are lined up all across the sides and capture the water from the roof. This year we also have an interest in making sunflower oil from our own sunflowers, so we planted the Russian Mammoth variety..usually the variety grown to be converted to oil. They are massive, and along with cosmos and zinnia are shading the rain barrels, keeping them out of direct hot summer sun and keeping the water a bit cooler:

time to look for hornworms..