Thank heaven for the rain! Rain rain come and stay, and then come back another day. We're not out of the woods yet, though; we still need to conserve. There's a Web site at http://www.savewaternc.org/ designed to provide some tips on saving water in North Carolina.

The site has the usual tips on how to conserve water at home, but there are some other interesting items: how to read your water meter, a statewide drought status map with commentary, information about and links to major cities in NC and what they're doing about the drought, and a news page.

As long as you're surfing the Internet learning to conserve water, don't forget to drop by Instructables.com. I was searching there the other day and found extensive instructions on how to build a rain water collector and how to build a rain barrel. (Don't forget to read the comments -- suggestions and questions are discussed for each project.)