Hot.

While heat is all relative, we're having quite a heat wave for our area. For us, that's temperatures in the upper 90's to triple digits for more than a day or two. It happens pretty much every summer for a week or two, but it seems to always be shocking to the residents of the area, who are used to thinking of themselves as living in a rainy and cloudy area.

Our new house is built with a daylight basement, which means the downstairs is fairly cool even with no air conditioning or fans, even in sweltering heat. Since we do most of our "living" downstairs, it's a pretty convenient state of affairs and much easier on the pocketbook than it might be if we had to cool most of the house. Conversely, it stays relatively warm in the winter, and if we run the wood stove, we don't have to turn on the natural gas furnace very often either. I suspect, though I don't know for sure, that our heating/cooling bills for this house are significantly lower than the previous house.

In any event, the heat has had me looking at weather reports from all over the country, and even outside the country. In particular, I have been examining the water restrictions in San Antonio, Texas, and in parts of Australia. We don't consume ridiculous amounts of water at our house; we don't water the lawn in the summer, we always run full loads of dishes and laundry, we mostly shower instead of taking baths, and we use rainwater we collected during the rainy season for incidental watering. However, we aren't particularly conservative about water, either. The weather reports just made me look at how our water consumption might have to change if we lived in an area so desperate for water, and has prompted me to conserve a little more water just "in honor" of them, to see what it might be like.

(On another note, the severe water shortages in arid, hot areas also point out the ridiculousness of humans. Who honestly thought that moving into a desert and then trying to live as if it were a temperate, farmable area was a good idea? Living there is fine, but living within the capabilities of the climate would have been much better for both humans and the environment. Who seriously tries to grow a lawn in a desert? Ah humans, always trying to bend Nature to their will. Eventually, Nature bites back, and her teeth are much bigger.)

For our area, we've been asked to conserve water, but it's more of a polite, "Hey, we would like it if you didn't tap all our water resources" request rather than a mandate. So today, I took the quart of just-off milk and poured it to my tomatoes instead of washing it down the drain. I washed my day's harvest of pickling cucumbers, peppermint, and onions over a bucket, and poured the gray water to the lilies and the hydrangea instead of watering them with the hose. I know in parts of Australia they shower in buckets; while I understand the need, I'm not quite that interested in the experimental mindset! Washing vegetables over a bucket doesn't make much difference, I know, but I suppose if everyone in my city were to cut back by just two gallons of water a day (about what I poured onto my flowers), it would lead to a daily savings of 34,000 gallons, or 238,000 gallons a week. I've heard the argument that water evaporates and goes back into the water cycle, so it doesn't matter how much we use. That'd be okay if it weren't also true that we use water faster than we the system can replace it in many areas. There's also the fact that humans pour water into a sewer system, where it then has to be cleaned and treated and purified, so any water that doesn't go down the drain means less stress on the infrastructure, and less expense to the homeowner both for water consumed and for sewer volume.

Even with water conservation in mind, in this heat, we're still filling up the wading pool for the little one, though! (When we have to drain it, it all goes on the various plants in the yard and into the bird baths and such.)