I've Got Water on My Mind

Slowly, but surely, we have been working to get our food storage built up. It is going . . . . slowly . . . . but . . . . surely (did I already say that?). The main concern we have had recently is water. We are very limited in the space we have to store water. Water takes up TONS of space and weighs . . . well, TONS. Side note: I just started giggling when I noticed what the word "tons" is backwards. Back to the topic -- plus, I get a little freaked out about the idea of water sitting in our basement for an extended period of time. I realize there are ways to treat water, but I just assume that any water left sitting for a long time will turn green and grow mosquitoes. For those of you with plenty of storage, you can go back to whatever you were doing in your gigantic house with a 3-car garage. For the rest of you, I have found something that, we think, will work for us. And might could work for you. (that last sentence was for those of you in Oklahoma).



We found a special on these water bottles that are supposed remove up to 99.9% of pollutants and contaminates found in most water sources (i.e. rivers, streams and lakes) and comes with some free water chlorine tablets. The site claims that between the filter and the tablets you have a portable "mini-municipal bottled water plant". The site also claims that each bottle filters up to 100 gallons of water, so one small, lightweight bottle takes the place of one of those huge, heavyweight water barrels (that may, or may not, turn green and grow mosquitoes). On another site, a reviewer claimed that the bottles worked fine up to 400 gallons. We live exactly 0.62 miles from a large creek and 1.25 miles from the Potomac River. Each of these bodies of water contain exactly 9.7 gazillion gallons of water that has the potential to be drinking water (if only we had a mini-municipal water plant). Here is a link to the website where you can get one water bottle for $16.95. However, if you buy 10+ you can get them for $10 each, which includes shipping and tax. We bought 10, which means that for $100 we now have at least 1,000 gallons of drinking water and at the most 4,000 gallons. That is a lot of barrels (or old 2-liter Diet Mountain Dew bottles) worth. If some of you want these, but do not want 10+ you could always coordinate to buy them together.



The big downside to these is that we have to lug the water at lease 0.62 miles to get to our house. Our hope is that in the event we have to use these water bottles, the plumbing will still be working in our house (it just may not be safe to drink). If not, we will get to perfect the art of balancing a big water jug on our heads like in third-world countries . . . and who has not dreamt of that?