What you bought: You should have 2 (or more) 55-gallon recycled barrels, each with 2 brass spigots fitted at the top and bottom, an aluminum louver with a screen fitted inside, and a 5' starter hose with male, female and shutoff fittings. One of these should already be installed under a downspout on level ground. You need to have just as much space on level ground within 5 feet of the original barrel for your second barrel, and it needs to be as even in elevation with the first barrel as possible. You also purchased a connector kit containing a 5' female/female hose and a "Y" connector.

WRONG!	RIGHT!

What we want to do here is to connect the lower hose spigots together, with a fitting in the middle to allow us to attach a long piece of hose to take the collected water out to our garden. As we catch water from our downspout, both barrels will fill together (something about water seeking its own level, as I recall). This should be easy enough -- just hook the barrel starter hoses together using the "Y" connector, connect the extra starter hose to the "Y" connector and that hooks up to the hose, right? Almost -- problem being that the ends of the hoses coming from the barrels are both male, and there's only one part on the "Y" connector to accept a male fitting. So, we created a female/female hose to swap with barrel #2's starter hose, and we're in business.

Step-by-step instructions

• You can hook the end of the extra starter hose over the top spigot of one of your barrels when not in use.

• Be sure to minimize strain on the spigot connections to the barrel by allowing plenty of slack in the hose during use.