Well, all the rain we had is no more and we are officially in a drought. (sigh) I wish they would make up their minds! :-)
We collect the rain to use during the droughts. Learned a good lesson one summer we had to let almost all of the plants die, because we hadn’t saved enough rain water, and the barrels were empty by the end of May, when they normally would have lasted through August.
So that’s when we bought a swimming pool that was on sale, and now we have 4000 gallons collected to use for irrigation, if it’s needed. Since we have it located as far uphill as possible and still catch water from the roof, it’s a great gravity fed deal.
Just turn on the hose that is attached to the pool, and a good stream comes out to water every thing pretty quick. I used to haul buckets from the rain barrels, so the hose is easier.