My new Clay Trap

Just putting the finishing touches on my new outdoor clay trap.

It's a biggie! 

It's a design based on the Pottery Making Illustrated magazine article - How to Build a Better Home Made Sink for Your Pottery Studio. I had this type of sink and trap in my old studio in the city which was connected to city sewer. Hubby balked at installing a similar setup when we built the new studio six years ago. Here we are on a septic system and also because the basement (where the studio is) is below grade, we have a sump pump that pushes waste up to the septic system. Both the sump and the septic tank are points where escaping and settling clay sediment could cause us grief. As a result a I end up with a collection of smelly muck buckets here, there, and everywhere in the studio - mostly because I am terribly lazy about hoisting them and taking them out to the back forty to dump.

Gardener hubby has several rain barrels hanging about his veggie garden. I was on the back deck having an afternoon beverage a few weeks back when I locked in on one of the rain barrels, went 'hmmmm' and a clay trap plan was hatched ..... why not put a 5 gal bucket, with holes drilled near the top, inside a rain barrel. I ran it by hubby, and in his wonderful way, he made it happen. The hardest part was getting him to give up the rain barrel ;)

Now I can step out the door, dump my clay water into the barrel (using my handy dandy milk jug funnel) and be done with it. As the water filters off the pail and into the barrel, we will use the barrel tap to water the deck plants ... brilliant!