Stigma! Stigma! Stigma! and My Claypot Cistern

In my May 16 post, I said I thought "water abuser" was a creepy title. This week it seemed possible I might get hauled in for being one. It happened at the old homestead.

When my husband’s grandfather, Mr. Boyd, came to Florida in 1956, he bought several lots a mile from the beach where he built cottages and rented them to vacationers for income. The cottages were simple and small. He built them single handedly in the old Florida style. Jalousie windows with cross ventilation let plenty of airflow through the house: it was hot air, but it moved. Then he planted palms, a sausage tree, rubber tree, myrtles and a cypress to hang over and cool the air outside.

The properties never had a real lawn or an irrigation system, but he did put a planter with shrubs across the front of each (before people started getting artsy with their yards).

Fast forward to this week 2008. Florida is on water restrictions. The water management district allows irrigating two days a week, and this week on a watering day I was at the cottages, which we now own. I took the opportunity to give the shrubs in the planter a drink from the hose. Technically, irrigation systems are to operate during the wee morning hours, but we have no system. It was late afternoon after work.

I was tucking the hose into the planter when my husband called me urgently from next door. A medicine cabinet he was installing was slipping; he needed me. I raced off to help. Five minutes later, I returned outside to find an official looking young woman dressed in khakis and a shirt with an emblem. She held a clipboard and was staring at my hose, now flipped out of the planter and gushing blatantly on the ground. “Stigma! Stigma! Stigma!” my brain accused. “You just turned into a water abuser and she’s officially writing you up!”

Actually, she wasn’t; she was going door-to-door selling pest control, but the incident does make a point. Never trust a hose left alone; they’ll run all over.

There is a plan in the works for the cottage yards, one that includes rain barrels, abundant native shrubs, micro-irrigation and possibly turning the 20-year dormant septic tanks into rainwater cisterns for irrigation.

For immediate results, there might be another solution. Clay pot irrigation. It’s ancient and it’s efficient using far less water. Pots are placed into the ground near the shrub and filled with water. As water sweats through the clay walls the roots of the shrub are drawn to the moisture. Mini-cisterns from clay flowerpots are easy to make. Two clay pots of the same size, sealed together with waterproof caulk around the edge. The hole of one pot is sealed with caulk. Bury the pot next to the shrub with the open hole just above ground. Fill the pots with water as needed. Here are photos of one I planted.

Good Deal for Moms

I'm on the run, traveling again. But I just learned about Whirlpool's "Mother of Invention" grant program. Here's the scoop from Whirlpool's PR.

It is the fourth annual Mother of Invention Grant program and this year, Whirlpool added a green category for moms to recognize moms who develop an enivronmentally-friendly product/service or use natural/recycled materials to create their invention.

Five moms will win in all - at least two with green ideas. The grand prize mom will receive a $20,000 grant, two first place winners will get $7,000 and two second place winnes will receive $5,000. All moms will come to Whirlpool to take part in a business boot camp to learn about starting a business.

The program kicked off Sunday and runs through July 31. Moms can enter at www.whirlpool.com/moms.

Driving Miss Faucet

It's the dry season in Florida. You can tell by the crunchy brown grass by the roadside. Last weekend old friends from out of town came to spend the evening. We had a lot of catching up to do, everything from kids to jobs, from cars to websites. So the conversation went on and on. Together we prepared dinner, ate it and cleaned up afterward, yakking all the while. The companionship was great, except for one thing --the running water.

It amazed me how they didn't seem to notice it. From the rinsing of the strawberries to the loading of the dishwasher, my friend, who was the faucet operator, was driving without any knowledge of how to use the brakes and turn it off. Turning it on he could do, but then it stayed on and on and on. Soon I was hyperventilating over how long the water had been running, but I was trying not to let it show. I dealt with it by casually spinning past the sink in a pirouette of merriment and flicking the faucet handle down.

Odd as it seems, I flashed back to literature class and what I learned about the "coming of age" story. Remember? That's when the main character crosses a threshold from innocence to awareness. I can only say that while I was bustling in the kitchen with my friends, I was painfully aware that I had come of age, and they had not.

Several years ago, my participation in a water symposium played a large part in my loss of innocence, which was really a loss of ignorance. A couple of key statistics pricked my conscience and hung on like sandspurs on my sock.


- A faucet dripping at one drop per second will waste 2700 gallons per year.
- The average American uses 60 - 70 gallons of water indoors per day.
- Six to 10 gallons of water from the shower goes down the drain per minute.

Along with that I picked up this sound byte which has been ringing in my head. "It's not that there is no water, it's that we're wasting the good water we have." To emphasize the point, frequent references to "abusers" brought into focus the stigma of being a water waster. "Abuser" is about as creepy a label as you can get. I don't want it.

Over the last 3 or 4 years I have improved my water habits. At first, I went down the list of water saving tips" and picked those that were most painless, like turning off the water when I brush my teeth. Installing low flow fixtures and aerators on the faucets was another. I don't waste water flushing bugs down the toilet.

Like the revelation with my friends, we first must become conscious of water wasting then we can devise our own ideas for reusing it.

One website tip said to save the water from my shower and use it to water plants. I'm considering that, but I think perhaps this tip is meant for showers that run into the bathtub. For a tiled shower such as ours, the only idea I've come up with is to place a huge trash can under the shower and then climb into it. Please let me know if you've got a better idea before it's too late --and for heaven sake, turn off the faucet!