Thats awesome Clod. What a wonderful thing to do.
Even better that it was set up and run so smoothly.

Things are looking bad right now.

Not only have we not had the extra rain we needed from this summer's drought, we are still receiving a good deal less rain than normal. Still on mandatory stage II water restrictions. Winter is effectively finished--it's going to hit 85 degrees this afternoon--and summer is heading towards us full-speed.

Our water utility provider is in trouble with the public because it came to light that they've been selling some of our water to farmers further south. Meanwhile, a rural area to the north of us is pissed because their utility company gave emergency water supplies to us at the height of our problems in August, and now they themselves are running too low.

I'm pretty sure that soon they will announce that all lawn-watering is completely forbidden this year, and uncovered pools will be fined as well (most are already full, but if it's uncovered too much evaporates and they require a certain amount of regular refilling.) We will still have enough to drink and shower, no worries there. The problem, as always, is the fires. Long-dry places like Arizona don't have a huge fire risk because there's nothing growing to begin with. We are increasingly surrounded by dry-as-a-bone dead wood and grass, and we're not allowed to water it...

What kind of xeriscaping/preburning/covering with gravel can you do now before you spontaneously combust? I mean, around your dwelling that is.

Maybe it's time to move to Canada.

HLJ's state has tons of H2O right now. Maybe they can ship it to you.

We could, except UPS can't get up the road.

We've been in our own drought this year.

Realistically, none. For one thing, we have deed restrictions that wouldn't allow us to randomly cut down the trees and cover the yard with gravel. But that aside, we live in a typical cookie-cutter suburb, and the houses are minimum distance apart. We can't make our neighbors cut down all their trees too, and we can't make their houses scoot over 10 yards.

We're not really worried about the house burning down; and if it did, we have fire insurance, and an evacuation plan, including the things we would pack up in a hurry. But in this land of weirdos who care about having a lush, green lawn, I can easily see neighbors breaking out in fistfights if someone is caught watering when no one is allowed to.

If that happens, get video.

We have had incidents of water rage here.

At the worst of the drought in Adelaide, lawn watering was down to one hour a week, hand held hose, after dark. Senior citizens had certain exemptions to water before dark, but many people didn't know this. Arguments sometimes ensued.

It's been raining a bit lately, but Clod, I know what you're facing. It sucks. Water is everything. Well, nearly.

I'm sure I've told this story before, but in case you don't remember one of my fifty billion posts, it's worth repeating.

Water is everything. I remember a drought...must've been 88 or so because I wasn't long out of school...and there was just no rain for I don't know how long. I lived in town at the time, and when it finally rained, from almost every house, people came out and just stood in it. Then we were all kind of hopping around in it, laughing and cheering...we were so happy. It was such a relief. It seems silly unless you've gone through a serious one, almost too dramatic. But it was real relief, and I remember that time acutely all these years later, because it was just...like, it's Ohio ffs. Where'd you put the extreme weather?

And those who watered their lawns somehow anyway were looked upon with disdain. ;)

I remember being threatened with standpipes in the street in 1976.
I was worried because we lived on a path not a street.
I have a real memory of a standpipe at the end of our path. This "real" memory is complete fiction, cobbled together from news footage of other people's plight and conversations about how we would get our water if the drought continued.

Mummy and Daddy filled our camping water bags (which had a dispensing spigot on them) in case of emergency.

Mummy was pregnant and we needed to be able to flush the toilet, even though we were told we weren't supposed to. I was four. It was all very confusing. But it was a damned hot summer, and a dry one.

When I watched 28 Days Later the need for fresh water really resonated with me (if you've seen it you'll know what I mean, if you haven't it's not really worth the explanation).

I remember that year in Ohio. I think we stood out in the rain at one point, too. I lived there then, but we moved partway through the year to Colorado. I remember thinking how strange it was that Ohio's drought conditions were like normal in Colorado. I missed all the green we were so used to in Ohio. Though CO is beautiful in many ways, we don't have the green lush-ness that other states do.

Drove by the first wildfire of the season this morning. Little baby blaze on the side of the highway, but the black smoke was causing major traffic problems.

Happy summer, everyone.

The way fires seem to have grown bigger and more frequent, I think it's time to get serious about aerial fire fighting.

A good number of the fires are either arson or carelessness. If we could eliminate those two, we'd be doing really well.