Water Conservation, Counting Flushes and Creative Cleanliness: Desert Living Part 2
Have you ever had to clean yourself in half a gallon of water and one cup of hot water from the Keurig in a tub? Nope, well I have… TWICE THIS WEEK!
Yup, that’s right two times, actually the first time I didn’t have the cup of hot water. I got smarter for my second “bath” and made it feel far more luxurious than the first. BTW, I wasn’t camping either…
How did I find myself in this situation?
Well, if you have been following my blog lately, you know that I have been living in the Arizona Desert with my in-laws. We have become one REALLY BIG family while our new home is being built. Same for my sister-in-law, husband and two kids who are also new home shopping. There are six adults, four children and four dogs out here in the North Scottsdale area desert.
My very generous in-laws have a beautiful property with plenty of room for all of us. Unfortunately what has been a well oiled machine for them has recently had some issues. Apparently we and our water consumption has taken it’s toll on the running water situation. Whether we have been using water faster than it can be delivered (it gets trucked in) or water pumps burning out. We have been without water on four occasions in the last two months.
How do we deal?
We have been taking it day by day, and each day hope that we don’t get the dreaded message from FIL. I have found myself being more and more water conservative with each “outage”. We have started making sure to have a stash of water (currently 10 gallons). I have found that I can get by on 10 gallons of water a day. I am not sure if that is good or not for a family of four. Did I mention that it is about 105-115º in the summer in a Arizona? Water is obviously essential for survival.
Living far from the conveniences of city life means that I have to drive about 30 miles round trip just to refill my water jugs. This inconvenience has made me count every flush and ration drinking water and bathe in ways that I would only do when camping. I have my personal hygiene ranked pretty high on the importance list. When I am down to 4 gallons, it is time for me to fill the toilet tank for the last flush, take a gallon for personal use and another to fill our water bottles. Then it is off to the nearest Walgreens with a water filling machine.
The lesson learned…
We have always been aware of the need to conserve water, but never really known how little we were actually doing to conserve water. Our new home is going to be receiving city water and won’t have the worries of well water or trucked in water delivery. But what will we take away from this? Hopefully a lot and an awareness of how precious water is.
There are many water conservation options and products available to make your home more conservative. These items are…
- Low flow toilets/ Dual flush
- Water Sense rated dishwasher and washing machines
- Aerating your faucets
- Rain Water Collection System
Water conservation tips…
- Turn off faucet when brushing teeth or washing hands
- Watering plants in the morning
- Less or no grass
- Native plants
- Shorter showers
- Collecting water from shower while waiting for water to warm up (then using to water plants or fill the toilet tank)
- Only running dishwasher or washing machine when full
- Rain barrel collection
Hopefully we will forever change our ways and work towards conserving water as part of our everyday lives.
Do you live in an area that water is scarce? If so, how do you conserve water? Please leave a comment below.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out Desert Life Part 1for my first and hopefully only rattlesnake bite experience .
-April aka ZonaMom
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