Conserving water

We finally got a little rain yesterday and today, not a lot but enough that I didn’t have to water all the plants for two days. That was a nice break. I was getting a little crabby having to haul the hose around every night. I have all these plants in pots that I am growing for a display at our county fair. Pots have to be watered every day and it was so dry that I had to mercy water my flower beds too. We had to buy hay because the pasture is drying up. Yard hasn’t had to be mowed in three weeks. So the rain is very welcome. All those perky little weather girls on T.V. who assure us that the rain won’t spoil our weekend sure don’t live in farm country. Severe weather is a possibility tomorrow. Now I don’t want that. But I will take the rain.
All this talk about conservation and global warming and this drought have got me to thinking. Last fall we ran the drain from the kitchen sink out through the wall and down a pipe to my front flower bed. It didn’t freeze up all winter because water doesn’t stand in the pipe. The original drain had ran into a dry well somewhere under the house I guess, because it wasn’t hooked up to the septic. One of those old house mysteries. But it clogged up or was full and to hook it to the septic meant knocking a hole in a foundation wall in a crawl space, a job that neither my husband or I thought we could handle, so we improvised, redneck style and its worked pretty good. Keeps the front flower bed watered. In fact I would like to run the laundry water out to the vegetable garden or another flower bed. It’s a shame to waste all that water. Grey water, which laundry water and sink water are, is legal to reuse on plants and lawns. And the water won’t hurt them either, unless they get too much and the ground doesn’t drain well. My husband isn’t quite convinced yet on this one. But it would save on electricity too, pump wouldn’t have to run to water the plants. So maybe we will do it. Just think if all the gray water, shower and bath, laundry, sinks etc were reused to water lawns and flower beds what a massive savings across the globe that would be. It would be nice if some of it could be stored to flush toilets too, so clean water wouldn’t have to be used. That’s Granny’s advice for this week, let’s all try to re-cycle some water.