My father once told me I am a true water sign, being born under the star sign of Cancer. He said it when I was relaying a story to him about a house I rented before I married Paul. One weekend while I was away, a dripping tap in the kitchen caused flooding and ruined the drawers and benchtops. When he said it, I automatically thought of the screaming when they tried to put me in the pool for swimming lessons, and the time I nearly drowned when someone jumped on me while I was underwater...yes I am a true water sign, if you believe in that kind of thing.
And actually, its hard not to believe it because all of us that live in this house are water signs...and we live in a house that floods. Funny how things work like that sometimes isn't it? You could almost believe we are attracting the water somehow. Silly stuff, but sometimes it helps to look at things in a different way and the last point above kind of sums up my crazy logic :)
Anyway, that's not the reason for writing this post about water. In terms of my simple living lifestyle, water is a crucial factor...to grow my own produce, especially because I do not live in town. We rely on rainfall to fill our tanks and when they run dry, we use our bore (decent, clean water) to refill them, but only if we have to.
These are some of the measures we take to ensure that we are conserving our water usage:
1. We installed water saver shower heads to both showers
2. Baths are restricted during the dry season
3. When it rains I put all available containers (saucepans and all) out on the verandah to catch the rainfall
4. When we boil vegetables or eggs, we let the water cool down and then use it on the pot plants
5. I water my gardens directly from my bore - this avoids the cost of double-pumping
6. We only run the dishwasher when it is full
7. We replaced our washing machine with a water efficient front loader
8. We wash our cars in town
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These are all good things and many of them also save power, but I have worked out that there are so many more things that I could be doing and that I will be investigating/investing in:
1. Water Saving Gardens - wicking beds
2. More water tanks to catch the run-off from our sheds
3. Installing a drip irrigation system to water my plants without wastage
4. Using permaculture principles such as the creation of swales which use water effectively
5. Investigate the use of grey water in the garden
So, even though I have some measures in place to conserve water, there are still so many ways I can save even more. Save Water is a great site if you are looking for ideas.
Do you think about saving water? What steps have you taken, and what tips can you provide me?
