We found a 18" doll sized water barrel!

Our Laura Ingalls doll stands next to a doll
sized cask or barrel.

       A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wood or metal hoops.

       Someone who makes barrels is called a "barrel maker" or cooper. Barrels are only one product of cooperage. Coopers also make buckets, vats, tubs, butter churns, hogsheads, firkins, kegs, kilderkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes, tuns, butts, pins, troughs and breakers.

       Barrels have a convex shape and bulge at their center, called bilge. This facilitates rolling a well-built wooden barrel on its side and allows the roller to change directions with little friction, compared to a cylinder. It also helps to distribute stress evenly in the material by making the container more curved. Barrels have reinforced edges to enable safe displacement by rolling them at an angle (in addition to rolling on their sides as described).

       Water barrels are often used to collect the rainwater from dwellings (so that it may be used for irrigation or other purposes). This usage, known as rainwater harvesting, requires (besides a large rainwater barrel or water butt) adequate (waterproof) roof-covering and an adequate rain pipe.

Mr. George Smithwick talks about what a cooper does.

He helped make the video for the Sydney Living History Museums.

The above barrel is authentically made with real wooden staves bound with metal hoops! The Ingalls would
have used a barrel like this one to collect rain water in. The rain water was used to wash dishes or sometimes
clothing, bathing and to water a kitchen garden close to the cabin.