nothing wrong with a little bit of redneck engineering.
at our first anniversary we were in between residences and stayed in a trailer on my parents property for a few weeks. we were completely broke, I had no money at all for anniversary gifts.
I had the day off and she didn't. I looked over the supplies we had in the machine shed and equipment barn and went to work.
(all of this equipment was new spares, never used)
first I found a new galvanized water trough and set it up near the trailer. then I set up a steel trashcan (also new, we used them to store feed in ) on a stack of 3 or 4 tires to elevate it above the trough. I then ran a hose from the can to the inlet on the bottom of the trough. I cut the hose in the middle and attached a coil of 1/2 copper tubing in between the ends. I stretched out the coil until it had about 1" of space between loops, then set it in a galvanized wash tub. I poured 3-4" of sand in the tub to hold the tubing in place, and pushed the tubing down so it was flat on top. I then began filling the trash can built a fire in the tub (in the middle of the copper loops).
then just a little pump (the kind that run off of a drill) to pump it from the trough to the can when it gets low.
then I let it heat up as I headed down to mom and dads to raid the freezer.
when my wife got home from work that night the whole area was fogged in from the mist off the water in the cool night air, I had a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket of ice, and a couple steaks grilling on the copper tubes.
it may not have been pretty but you could hardly tell in the dark, and I was a hero for a day or so.
