welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

no water

NO WATER
well they ran out of water
that community of 1100 people that live near here
they had been on stage 4 water restrictions for awhile
which dont allow for any outside use of water
and limited inside use
guess they didnt restrict enough
as they ran completely out of water

this should be a wake up call for people to restrict water use
in general as its a precious commodity
we cant live without it

since we use rainwater as our only source of water here at the
country n we stay in a perpetual state of water restrictions
we still take good showers, flush our toilets, wash our dishes
and water what needs watering outside

our solutions were to get rid of our st augustine yard completely and
replace it with xeriscaping and all native plants that get no supplemental
watering once they are established
we collect water for the landscaping-a simple solution with all kind
of different sizes of tanks available now
we use drip irrigation in the garden
we reuse some grey water for some irrigation
by using a 5 gallon bucket to catch shower water and dish water
we have low flow shower heads that can be turned off with the flip
of a lever during showers to eliminate wasted water
we have low water use washing machine
we dont run the water while shaving or brushing teeth or scrubbing
our hands
we let yellow mellow sometimes and use the outside facilities when
possible-little boys who visit get some pleasure in this
as they arent allowed to do it in town
i just tell them to find a weed and kill it for me

so if we all did some of these water restrictions we would all be in
better shape with our water supply
its not going to get better as this area continues to grow
many of my neighbors including myself have had their wells go dry as
the water levels drop around here

apparently the subdivisions water was from wells that were
dug into the aquifer that went dry and the water levels continue
to drop in the lake system that provides a large amount of water
for the central texas area

the water for the subdivision is being shipped in via tanks at an
expensive rate several times a day
we did this 3 times this spring and summer and its expensive
and is scary to have to depend on it as your water source
hopefully that wont happen here again

heck we got 5-6 inches of rain just east of austin but none of that
rain fell on the tributaries that feed the lakes
the lakes continue to drop
what will be bad here if we get into the summer here with no rising
lake levels
then a large area will be in stage 4 water restrictions

maybe i can start a water conservation class for homeowners
as we have become experts at it

2 comments:

  1. I am so glad you are doing the right thing when it comes to your landscaping.
    I think lawns should be illegal in Central Texas. This isn't Southern England. A lawn here is just wasteful.
    My husband and I are using fo ti vine as groundcover in our front yard. Its only drawback is, it is invasive. It even grew through our front house wall and stuck tendrils into our bedroom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. fo ti vine have not seen it grown
      sounds invasive
      if it can be controlled i guess its doing its job
      togd

      Delete