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Thirsty?

July 23rd, 2008

One of the blogs I read is written by a woman in Australia. For a while now she’s been talking about the water shortages, today she didn’t have water when she tried to make her morning tea. You can read the article here.

I am an advocate of not using resources just because you have them. I grew up in South America and we didn’t get water all the time, we built a huge cistern and saved rain water for all of our water usage.

In our part of Ohio, we have plenty of water and have never had problems with shortages. I’m sure sometime in the future it will happen, but for the moment we have plenty. It always amazes me that people consume so thoughtlessly until there is a problem. We Americans probably won’t do much to curtail our water usage until we’re beyond the point of no return. I always cringe when I see sprinklers on in a rainstorm, or water from a sprinkler system running down into the storm drain. Thoughtless consumption is the American way!

What have I done personally to use less water? We just installed a rain barrel system that can hold 400 gallons of water, this will be used for gardening & car washing (more photos and info on this project to come). We also save gray water to use for gardening. I have also planted mostly drought resistant plants that do not need watering, and I let my yard get brown & crispy in the summer when it’s hot & dry.

So what are you doing to save water?

No water was wasted for the photos in this post, the glass of water was finished by yours truly and the bowl of water was used on my zucchini.

7 Comments to “Thirsty?”
  1. […] buy items with less packaging and by recycling and composting much of our waste. We also built a rain barrel system to collect rain water for our outdoor water used. We were able to reduce our city water usage in […]

    Reply to Here’s to a Healthier 2009 for the Planet at Chiot’s Run's comment

  2. dig this chick on February 3, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    so cool! what an amazing system!

    Reply to dig this chick's comment

  3. inadvertent farmer on March 12, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    what a great system…I’m in the process of designing mine for the garden and chickens. We live in the Pacific Northwest where water is never in shortage but I figured why should I waste all the great rain water? Besides it will give our well a break!

    Great post, Kim

    inadvertent farmer’s last blog post.. Winter’s Only Rose

    Reply to inadvertent farmer's comment

  4. pocketina on March 15, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    This is so cool! I can’t wait to see more pictures! You’re inspired me to look into doing this at our house, too.
    .-= pocketina´s last blog ..Wild stormy day =-.

    Reply to pocketina's comment

  5. Florence Mills on July 11, 2010 at 7:29 am

    nowadays, we are seeing some water shortage and water conservation is even more necessary-”

    Reply to Florence Mills's comment

  6. Deejay on January 11, 2011 at 2:51 am

    I found you on flickr while seeking out these food grade barrels. I’ve been digging so deep for these barrels. But I can’t find them for a reasonable price. You stated you only paid $10each for yours. Where the heck did you score those at?
    Thank you

    Reply to Deejay's comment

    • Susy on January 11, 2011 at 8:03 am

      I actually got them from a guy that worked at Smucker’s jelly. There’s another guy locally that sells them for $20 each that I’ve seen. I found both of them on Craig’s List.

      Reply to Susy's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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