Did you ever see the movie The Rainmaker? The one with Burt Lancaster and Katherine Hepburn? Well, around here, fiction has become reality. When I was in school, a professor told us that the next big war wouldn't be about oil, it would be about water. Not sure I believed him at the time, but I certainly do now. Everywhere I turn, the topic is water. I picked up a novel to read on the plane not long ago, and it wound up being about the war between the "waterbaggers" and the environmentalists out in California. Apparently, waterbaggers are companies who go pump the water out of one river and then sell it somewhere else. Who would have thunk? I suppose California has been dealing with these issues for quite some time, but it's just now hitting us full in the face.
At first it was just the creeks that were drying up, but the other day I saw kids walking on dry land out in the middle of the Blanco River! I opened the Houston Chronicle a couple of weeks ago, and saw a front page article about drought in central Texas. It featured the photo of a Dripping Springs woman bathing in her outdoor tub, so she can use the bath-water to irrigate her garden. The next week, the Wimberley View covered the big conference that was held here recently, to discuss protecting our water supply. This past week its two top stories were about Hays County hiring a water attorney and the fact that Jacob's Well, a local swimming spot since the Indian days, has now slowed to a trickle. It seems like every time we stepped into a cafe or shop this weekend, we heard the same thing. People were discussing the cattle that were starving, which family was the latest to have their well run dry, or they were voicing their opinions on who, or what, was to blame for it all. Some blamed the drought, others said it was misuse and waste, still others blamed overdevelopment. Regardless of the cause, it's obvious that something needs to be done.
Since I have always preferred being pro-active over reactive, I think it's time to pull out all that water-catchment literature I've collected over the years. I first toyed with the idea when we lived in a Dallas suburb, about ten years ago. That was when I really became passionate about gardening. One day I took my kids to the local living-history museum - a small farmstead from the turn of the last century, that had been preserved intact, right in the middle of the city. My pet peeve has always been waste, so I was fascinated by how self-sufficient, independent, and ecologically sensible farm families were then. The whole farm was like a well-oiled machine, with each part working together in harmony. Bath water was used to water the garden, and soapy dishwater was tossed on the plants to keep the bugs from eating them. Scraps were either fed to the animals, who in turn supplied meat, eggs and milk to the family (not to mention good ol' manure), or they were used to make compost, which fertilized the plants and improved the soil. Every single part of the pig was used for one purpose or another, and not one scrap was wasted. Vegetables from the garden were canned or stored in the root cellar below the garden shed, and rainwater was collected and stored in the cistern. It all epitomized the environmentalist slogan "Rethink, Reuse, Recycle", and it made me much more self-conscious about how much waste their was in our own lives.
It was around this time that I was given my first compost bin for my birthday. For Christmas it was the chipper-shredder. Then came the first rain barrel. My sisters feared I would divorce John over these "dreadful" gifts, but I was ecstatic. Not long after that, we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, near Austin. John was snapping flower pictures right and left, but I just couldn't drag my attention away from their amazing water-catchment system. It wasn't just practical, it was gorgeous, and I knew that someday I would have one of my own, here in the hill country. John loves buying me souvenirs from museum gift shops, but with all the great gardening stuff available there, he was quite disappointed when the only thing I wanted was the video about their water system.
The video got tucked away for future reference, and traveled with us from house to house. I wanted a catchment system just because it made sense not to waste water, but I certainly never dreamed that it might one day be a necessity. When the first wells began to run dry, I was still rather complacent, thinking "Oh well, there's no big rush. It can wait a few years, until we move to Wimberley full time. After all, we don't use all that much water, just being here every other weekend. Right?" Wrong! It was recently brought to my attention that, when there are too many straws in the same milkshake, it doesn't matter who's sucking fast and who's sucking slow. You're all gonna run out of milkshake at about the same time. Now isn't that a pisser?
At first it was just the creeks that were drying up, but the other day I saw kids walking on dry land out in the middle of the Blanco River! I opened the Houston Chronicle a couple of weeks ago, and saw a front page article about drought in central Texas. It featured the photo of a Dripping Springs woman bathing in her outdoor tub, so she can use the bath-water to irrigate her garden. The next week, the Wimberley View covered the big conference that was held here recently, to discuss protecting our water supply. This past week its two top stories were about Hays County hiring a water attorney and the fact that Jacob's Well, a local swimming spot since the Indian days, has now slowed to a trickle. It seems like every time we stepped into a cafe or shop this weekend, we heard the same thing. People were discussing the cattle that were starving, which family was the latest to have their well run dry, or they were voicing their opinions on who, or what, was to blame for it all. Some blamed the drought, others said it was misuse and waste, still others blamed overdevelopment. Regardless of the cause, it's obvious that something needs to be done.
Since I have always preferred being pro-active over reactive, I think it's time to pull out all that water-catchment literature I've collected over the years. I first toyed with the idea when we lived in a Dallas suburb, about ten years ago. That was when I really became passionate about gardening. One day I took my kids to the local living-history museum - a small farmstead from the turn of the last century, that had been preserved intact, right in the middle of the city. My pet peeve has always been waste, so I was fascinated by how self-sufficient, independent, and ecologically sensible farm families were then. The whole farm was like a well-oiled machine, with each part working together in harmony. Bath water was used to water the garden, and soapy dishwater was tossed on the plants to keep the bugs from eating them. Scraps were either fed to the animals, who in turn supplied meat, eggs and milk to the family (not to mention good ol' manure), or they were used to make compost, which fertilized the plants and improved the soil. Every single part of the pig was used for one purpose or another, and not one scrap was wasted. Vegetables from the garden were canned or stored in the root cellar below the garden shed, and rainwater was collected and stored in the cistern. It all epitomized the environmentalist slogan "Rethink, Reuse, Recycle", and it made me much more self-conscious about how much waste their was in our own lives.
It was around this time that I was given my first compost bin for my birthday. For Christmas it was the chipper-shredder. Then came the first rain barrel. My sisters feared I would divorce John over these "dreadful" gifts, but I was ecstatic. Not long after that, we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, near Austin. John was snapping flower pictures right and left, but I just couldn't drag my attention away from their amazing water-catchment system. It wasn't just practical, it was gorgeous, and I knew that someday I would have one of my own, here in the hill country. John loves buying me souvenirs from museum gift shops, but with all the great gardening stuff available there, he was quite disappointed when the only thing I wanted was the video about their water system.
The video got tucked away for future reference, and traveled with us from house to house. I wanted a catchment system just because it made sense not to waste water, but I certainly never dreamed that it might one day be a necessity. When the first wells began to run dry, I was still rather complacent, thinking "Oh well, there's no big rush. It can wait a few years, until we move to Wimberley full time. After all, we don't use all that much water, just being here every other weekend. Right?" Wrong! It was recently brought to my attention that, when there are too many straws in the same milkshake, it doesn't matter who's sucking fast and who's sucking slow. You're all gonna run out of milkshake at about the same time. Now isn't that a pisser?
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