Come home, sweet rain!

[the_last_muse]

It seems that, while I was in Prague and the lakes finally disappeared, someone out there finally admitted that we are, indeed, in a drought...and that perhaps water conservation efforts should be kicked up a notch.  Sigh.  I was born in San Francisco- we had a hell of a drought in the 1980's ("If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it

Comments

[fulguritus]

You can hand water. But I know UT and those other places aren't.
You can save your pecan tree though.

[the_last_muse]

I have to double check this, but I heard tonight that UT is spending 3.5 million a year on water. They have that stupid fountain that spews water fifty feet in the air (most gets caught by the wind and pushed onto the cement stairway, so they are constantly refilling it) on every day, even now. I thought fountains were out?! Drives me nuts.

I'll keep on my trees- the problem is there are so many, but I can't just let them die. Ugh.

You guys have a well, right? How's it holding up?

[fulguritus]

No well. We haven't been able to afford one yet.
We're on Aqua water supply.

[the_last_muse]

On the (not so) bright side- I know a bunch of people that ended up having to redrill (or rather, drill deeper) because their wells have dried up the last couple years. Now would be a good time to find out from your neighbors how their wells are doing- and when you install your well, base it on "extreme drought" years- I'm sure this isn't the end of it. Sigh.

[katesmash]

One look at our yard will tell you we share your sentiment.

One thing we've been doing (not on purpose at first, but now it seems to be working in our favor) is collecting the condensation from our A/C unit (and there is A LOT of it) and using it to water our 150 year old live oak in the back yard and the handful of plants in our yard that we care a lot about (like our climbing honeysuckle we planted on our first anniversary, the mango we planted when Max was born along with his placenta, etc). Ordinarily this would just go down a drain. Now we're grateful for it.

Our neighbors all have relatively lovely yards, but they only water every now and then at night - they've also got much shadier yards than we do.

[the_last_muse]

OH, I wish I had talked to you sooner! Beaux just realized today that we could use our AC condensation- we have a bucket in place now. Sigh.

I had a friend that hooked up her washing machine to a large collection tank- she'd only water from that (there are a couple detergents that apparently wont fry your plants, yay!). Reason 4,398,622 I hate that I'm renting.

[fulguritus]

Can you tell me what detergents won't fry your plants?
We're intent on making grey water collection here.

[heatherthegreat]

Here is a fantastic website on graywater collection: http://www.greywaterguerrillas.com/greywater.html

Seventh Generation claims they are safe for plants.

There's also this website about detergents specifically: http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/greywater-harvesting/greywater-and-your-detergent/