Have you ever thought about how much water you and your family use daily? Chances are you use at least a hundred gallons or more a day by the time you shower, wash dishes 2 or 3 times, wash a load of clothes or more or water the garden even if it is a small one.
We are so used to having water coming into our home all the time that we some times waste a lot of water. Kids and teens are really good at wasting because they don't realize what life is like without an endless supply of water. Truthfully, unless you lived during the mid west drought of the 1930's that turned the mid west into a dust bowl you don't even realize how much water you waste.
Now of course some of you are experiencing a severe drought right now and who remembers the severe drought that happened near the east coast a few years ago? I am sure there are at least a few of you. And what about the Texas drought? Remember that one? Lakes and streams completely disappeared and left nothing but hard dry packed dirt that cracked and blew away.
Droughts are nasty things that can happen at any time. They can devastate a state in more ways than one. Animals die, farm crops dry up and die, many farmers lose their farms because they can not produce enough crops to bring in the money to keep their farms and families going. Ranchers and farmers have to send their animals to the market early because they have nothing to feed them but the prices they get are much lower than they need due to sudden influx of meat coming in to the market.
And of course there is the impact of fresh produce for the entire country. There will be less food and higher prices. The market will not support the food needs of a country when there is a severe drought. Take a look at places like Africa. Because most of their land is so dry they can't produce enough food for their own people let alone have food to sell on the international market. Is there any wonder why they have so many diseases like Ebola and HIV and starvation over there?
Most of us depend on city water. Imagine what life would be like if the power grid went down. The entire water system that you depend on would go down with it. After all power is needed to filter the waste water and put it back into the public drinking system. If all that stopped what would you do for water? Even if you have a big supply of clean drinking water stored it is not going to be enough to last for long. Not with dishes to be washed, clothes that need to be washed, water needed for cooking, baths and so on. You need to find away to get more water.
Now some people are very lucky to have wells on their property so all they need to do is install a hand pump to their well and they are all set. Some people have ponds, streams or creeks on their property that they can get water from. But what if you have none of those where you live? Even if you live a few miles from a lake it is going to be hard to go there and back with enough water to last a day or more and truthfully how safe do you think it will be to even try? Not very safe if you ask me.
Are you thinking yet about what to do after reading the above? I sure do. I think about it all the time for several reasons. One reason is that I do not like having high water bills since I am on city water so I do everything I can to conserve water use in my house. It can take up to 5 gallons or more to get hot water from one end of the house where the hot water heater is to the bathroom where the bathtub and shower are. I keep 5 gallon buckets in the bathrooms to catch that water and then use it to flush the stools or fill the washer. I do the same with the kitchen sink only I use big pots. Why let so much water go to waste waiting to get hot water? There are many ways to conserve water. Too much to go into detail in this post but if you look around on the internet you will find them. I want to talk about something else instead of ways to save water around the house.
I want to talk about rain water harvesting. There are many systems on the internet that you can find to set up around your home to catch and save rain water. Saving rain water and using it to water your garden, wash your car or water your lawn can save you big time on your water bill plus if there is power outage that goes on for an extended amount of time you have water you can filter and drink. These filtering systems can range from a $100 or less up into a $1000 or more. Look in to them and see what system will support your needs as well as your wallet and work on getting it installed. You never know when you will need it.
Prepping Granny