Monday, December 27, 2010

No Water...Again.

We have no water, again.
We are on irrigation water, it is connected to the house and all outside taps.  It is not potable but it is what we use for showers, flushing the loo, dishes...Outside we use it on the gardens, in the chookpens, for sprinklers to keep the chooks cool. 
We had no water one night and all of one day last week as well.  And a few times throughout the year we get a day or two with no water.
This morning the pressure was low and within an hour or so it was gone. 
And it is hot. I would like to put the sprinklers on in the chookpens to cool them down but can't.  They should be alright though as they all had their water topped up early this morning so it's not like they have no water to drink.
And really, we don't either.  Have no water to drink I mean.  We have a rainwater tank over near the shed which we use for drinking and cooking.  I fill up bottles as we need them.  We also have another tank that is full that I can use to fill up buckets for the loo if we need to.  And of course Hubby has made it so that I can connect a hose to it if I really need to water seeds or any plants.  There is no pressure from it but there is water.
So when I say "we have no water" I really mean that when I turn the tap on no water comes out, I need to go out and work a bit to get any water that I want.

It makes me think about how lucky we are compared to some countries where they have to walk miles to get a jug of dirty water.  It also reinforces my belief that too many people take "on tap" water for granted and too much is wasted.  I know people who rely on rainwater for everything, these people really know the value of water.

I worked for a couple once that had a son that wasted water. I was always telling him not too.  One day I said about there being no clean water to drink and he came back with the statement that we'll all be drinking recycled sewage water one day anyway so it didn't really matter.  Unfortunately, that may be true.  And I don't want to be drinking that stuff. 

So today I will use less water than I otherwise would have and tonight, or maybe tomorrow, when I turn the tap on and the water comes out I will be thankful.  It's not always clean, I won't drink it but it will be there and for that I will be thankful.

2 comments:

  1. Barb, I think it was in The Humanure Handbook that I read that industrialized nations appall third world countries because we "shit in our drinking water." Put like that, it really makes one think.

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  2. Isn't that a great book. Next year, I hope to make a bucket sawdust toilet.

    Barb.

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