Earlier we saw that not only humans but inanimate objects too have their designated area (techum), so that they cannot be moved beyond the two thousand steps. On Shabbat one cannot carry things in the street anyway, but on a Yom Tov (Festival) this law would apply. Someone's objects would have the same restriction as their owner. By contrast, ownerless objects have no owner. Some say that they do not acquire any techum, and thus cannot be moved beyond four steps, others – that they acquire the two thousand steps around them.
What about rain water? We have a rule that whoever picks up rainwater collected on a Festival can carry it as far as he can go. Why is that? The rainwater should acquire residence in the ocean or in the cloud!? And if you try to answer that the water is not physically present, that it is vapor, then I will say that it's even worse – if it only appears on a Yom Tom, then it is something new that came into existence just now, and the rule is that one should not use it at all! Rather, our explanation should be that the water in the cloud is constantly moving. As such, it does not acquire any techum whatsoever, and when someone picks it up, the rainwater gets its new owner's techum. The same explanation would work even if we say that the water evaporated from an ocean just today – it was moving there also, and never acquired the techum restrictions.
Art: Joseph Henderson - Summer Clouds
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