The first of the month is Battery Day, in which I go around and top off all the battery cells at Landlady’s, Ian’s and my places.
Since the big chickenhouse is attached to Landlady’s powershed, I was also able to bring back the ladies’ water bottles, all topped off.
Here’s a bit of irony related to the unintended consequences of moving your ass so far out in the sticks the coyotes need road maps: The most basic necessities can become locally unattainable without notice. For some reason, despite a significant minority of the county’s residents generating their own electrical power and storing it in lead-acid batteries, the crappy little market in the crappy little town nearest where I live has decided to no longer stock distilled water in gallon jugs.
Instead you can only get it in these useless things, and only sporadically…
Tomorrow I’m taking advantage of an opportunity to take a rare trip to the little town about 35 miles away, which has much better services including a Safeway, the incredible food palace, in which I hope to stock up on distilled water as well as a bunch of decent meat for winter.
At guess it probably costs more to ship in the water than they think they can sell it for. The bigger, but crappier units, reduce handling costs per unit.
Are you aware of any explanation for the tortured configuration of that water container?
It’s cheap to produce? That’s all I can think of. On the one hand I don’t mind buying water in 2.5 gallon lots, it would be convenient if the means of getting it out weren’t so infuriating. But there’s no vent and the spigot won’t even glug so you have to raise it vertical every pint or so to let it suck air. You can’t see what you’re doing while filling your battery jug so water spills every time. And once you break the seal every single one of them leaks so you have to remember to store them vertically – which means you can’t poke a hole for a vent. Final insult, where I live an empty gallon jug is useful: there’s always someplace away from any well where I need water for some little job. But these things, once empty, are just space-consuming trash.
I’ve been able to get 6 bottle cases of distilled water. Our old source went to Essential Everyday (big private brand for independent grocery stores), but it’s about 40 cents a gallon more expensive than other sources. Haven’t seen that funky big container just yet.
For what it’s worth, using a turkey baster is good for water filling. I pour distilled into a big jar and go from there. Less spilling once I figured out the tricks of the basting syringe. Had to skip a month before my last check, and a full baster was about perfect for each cell.
I wonder if that crazy container is supposed to fit into a custom water cooler/dispenser.
They have to have been designed to fit some particular application requiring all those contours, and the tiny “spout” to connect to a certain feeding system. Perhaps military surplus? Or industrial application? Some machine requiring distilled water with a tube that extends down into the container while allowing air to enter as well? Are we even sure water was the original intended use?
For filling batteries – and I fill a lot of batteries every month – I swear by one of these.
That looks better than the baster. Thanks!
Re: the shape of the 2.5 gal container. the flat part to the right in the pic goes down – handle (left side) goes up. It’s meant to sit on the edge of a counter or shelf in a fridge – a dispenser of sorts. One’s supposed to poke the vent hole on the highest part of the jug when it’s sitting that way.
It wasn’t my idea or invention – so don’t blame me for it being an awkward POS. I’m just the messenger!
I save a good supply of used and empty gallon jugs with threaded lids (milk, vinegar, muriatic acid) for just such purposes. Tie a string around the handle of one and thread the string thru the handles of the rest and hang ’em up somewhere out of the way and out of the sunlight so they don’t get brittle. That way when I get distilled water in the pop-off top containers I can just transfer it over to a threaded lid container which is less likely to spill out if accidentally tipped over.