Andrea Stone : In the early days when 90% of people lived on a farm, The barn was sited where a good spring was located, the animals came first !
The farmers wife hauled all the water from the barn until a rain catchment system of gutters/eaves and down spouts was put in emptying into a cistern
tank in the basement.* There was an inside kitchen pump fed from the cistern and pouring directly into a sink or a tin basin !
Between rain falls the roof
wood collect anything wind blown and of
course bird droppings! If the farmer was mechanically inclined and the farmers wife
was lucky a pulley system was set up where the first several gallons were collected, weighing down a large pail that descended by the pulleys causing
redirection of the primary down spout so its discharge flowed into a second separate downspout flowing into the Cistern !
The great benefit to this system was rain water is soft water, and the kitchen cistern was the source of all the Farmhouses water
This was long before any one had heard of bird flu and were happy with soft water that L@@KED clean !
Volunteer to clean out a set of gutters so you can see what collects there today !
Having said all that, I would drink it if it was boiled, some people are more finicky ! For the good of the Craft ! Big AL
