Water, or rather, the lack of it

Originally posted by michelef ↑

Well it still hasn't rained but I have quietly fixed the hose situation with joiner thingos and a couple of trips to Bunnings for more hoses. While doing so I discovered one of the tanks at the studio is empty already. Have changed it over and kept rather quiet about anything to do with water. I may have also (read wasted) over watered my new bee friendly garden which is adjacent to my studio a bit too enthusiastically, combined with all the visitors. English and Italian basils, euphorbias, lavender, sage and salvias and a new water bowl beside the bees (more water) and a wooden home made seat to sit on and watch them with a cup of tea. Must admit some of the visitors are rather fazed by all the bees whizzing past them.

As you may have gathered my garden and studio is my happy place and I only reluctantly share the studio. Hubby has helped with a lot of rock work and walls, ponds, the odd Belgian water pump, loads of stones and soil and **ion construction. But I prefer to spend my time pottering around it by myself, I guess you could call it meditation. The garden is separate from the rest of the property which is rainforest, some remnant, a forked and a boulder lined forked creek with a bridge over it (built by hubby) which I just adore. Sitting by the creek on a warm day, maybe weeding, maybe collecting picabeen palm seed pods ( which I weave) is something I know I'm lucky to be able to do. I have yet to manage any symmetrical weaving and my efforts are avant garde to say the least, but it doesn't really matter. I reckon we all need a connection to the land we live on and it grounds me. I have used some of the landslip clay to make a solitary bee wall and it is a winner. It forms part of one wall of the studio, near the tanks. My studio is western red cedar lined on the inside with lots of windows here and there but I have painted the exterior red (dulux sultry glance) and green (dulux robinhood). It has an open shed/dirty work space underneath it which is always a mess. It also has a lovely chinese water bowl with a fountain made of old taps and copper pipes which I also love, along the entrance/path to the studio door. Wonderful sound to hear, even if nearly all of the water tanks are low. Yep, I do most of the activities Dex mentioned except knitting, crocheting and tapestry and I am just getting into pouring fluid acrylics (def a dirty workspace activity). Business stuff is confined to the house but I do happen to have some lovely peace flags fluttering along the telephone line just outside my office window. I suppose my home is a reflection of the lifestyle hubby and I aimed for along the way, something with a bit of character. We obviously love it, hose problems included. The screen saver water exhaustion graph has been quietly replaced by the way with a lovely photo of my granddaughter, Lola

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morning all,

I find Aus. to be an amazing place -- here you are talking about a water shortage and I reckon in the last 4 weeks we have just let about at least a million litres flow down our hill to the lake at the bottom - our tanks and dams have been full since very early this season.

My partner and I just last night watched a doco. about Mexico city - which has huge water problems -- amazing since Mexico City was built on a wetlands ------------- the water is long since gone though besides one area.
But, they do have rain -- and, it is captured by what we saw in only very limited ways -- the odd tank - but, tiny little things - amazing really - and yet, people conserve the water they have - reusing it over and over --

god knows why they just don't put in a bigger tank for the house - they do have the space.

We found a not dissimilar, but even worse attitude in Uzbekistan ---------- dry as a bloody chip - but, they do get rain each year - and, catchable rain.

We arrived at a boon docks place for tea (or something like that) with a local - out in the dust - they get their water from a well - which ain't too generous - and, not a gutter or a tank in sight.

We said to the older man who was the owner --- 'why don't you have a tank'?

basically - we got the response -

'what's a tank?'

hmmmm -- the following couple of minutes of description of gutters and tanks was like Moses had reappeared with a tablet he wasn't able to carry down the mountain last time --- revelations 3 and 4.

Of course we fielded resistance questions like --- 'isn't it dirty?' - getting dirt off the roof etc.

hmmm -- in the end, I think he believed us - ie. that we weren't BS him - (we also talked about diverters and filters and the like - if they were needed etc.).

but, it was just stunning that they basically just had never thought about roof water at all ----- just for millennia - watched it run off their roofs and run away - leaving no more benefit than a bit of green for a short time.

Then got on with a dry life lifting very limited water from the bottom of a small well.

Water is life - pure and simple - without it - pretty much everything stops.

My partner has a massive garden - 6 acres inside 15 cleared inside 30 ac all up.

When we got there - there were 2X 24K litre house tanks and that was it - and, Tassie can have some dry summers.

50K is well enough for the house - we have never looked like running out - but, for a garden - even a small garden - gardens take water like there is no tomorrow.

Even a house tap running a sprinkler for a couple of hours ---------- say 9lt per minute -

that's 9X60 mins --- 540 litres per hour --- 2 hours = 1080 litres

do that twice a week and you are over 2000 litres ----------- 2 tons of water.

Make it 2 spriklers from 2 taps and you are up to 4 tons of water per week - 4000 litres.

Take that out of a house tank in the dry season and - she no go far.

We hold 3 million litres in storage -- the house only has 45K litres (now a single concrete tank) - we have backup rainwater in other tanks - another 75K litres - which just sits there looking silly - the rest is in dams. And, we have a bore which feeds a header tank - which does the garden almost exclusively ------- the fire systems also use this system.
The bulk of the storage just sits there in reserve - for fire or garden in a catastrophic year - we have only ever used storage water on the garden once - when we had dam that was a leaky thing anyway and was just evaporating away - and, there wasn't enough in it to factor it into the fire plan - and the plants could do with a good drink - so, we put a fire pickup in it and gave them on hell of a good drink.

Water is life ----

god puts it on the ground - but, we have to manage it if we want gardens and the like

have a great day all

Pinto