Above Water

When I left California, it was in the midst of the driest winter in twenty years -- so dry that when my friend Luke and I went to Yosemite last December, every single road was open.  (On my previous trip there, Dad and I arrived in May to find most of the roads still closed.)

I wrote about the state of Californian affairs in my weekly Seeing Green column (water has, so far, been making an annual appearance, as it also graced my first-ever piece for the Stanford Daily), and then hopped on a plane to New Zealand, where I've been enjoying plenty of clouds and the occasional bout of precipitation.

Though I greet any kind of overcast weather with unabated delight (ever since a summer in Juneau, I've preferred clouds to sunshine), I was particularly ecstatic to go for a run in the rain during my first week in Christchurch because, as my landlords had just informed me, this is the dry season here in New Zealand.  Although the place seems unbelievably wet compared to California, at this time of year, water restrictions are tightened.  This is especially true in the wake of infrastructure-damaging earthquakes, which have compromised water delivery in the metropolitan area.

I've never been the best at conserving water -- I don't drink very much of it, but I sure do take long showers.  I'm trying to get better, though, especially after experience with a shower timer in Death Valley and military-style showers shipboard a few years ago.

To my great delight, I also received the following set of great tips from a Seeing Green reader:

1. Collect rainwater in buckets for outdoor use.  My landlords do this!  But note that such things are not permitted in all areas.  For example, Colorado residents need permits to capture their own runoff, because the legal system there believes that rainfall belongs to the downstream recipient.
2. Flush toilets with shower water.  (Did you know that if you pour a bucket of water rapidly into a toilet, it will flush?  This is a great trick Dad told me about when I was little, just in case...)
3. Xeriscape (i.e., plant drought-tolerant ornamentals; landscape to eliminate the need for supplementary water).  Very important in dry places like California.  Plus, the best plant choices tend to be natives.
4. Capture the first, cold wash of shower water in a bucket.  This is my absolute personal favorite.  I have to confess, even with the shower timer, I never flip the hourglass until the water is tolerably warm.  Now, I have a way to partially alleviate my guilt!