Summer Water

     

potato bed with hoses

      The Pacific Northwest is defined by our relationship with water; we have two seasons—cool and wet and warm and dry. Settlement is along rivers and our summers are cooled by the sea breeze that sweeps inward in the late afternoons. During wet winters, we may not see the sun or moon for months, but we enjoy hunkering down under the sheltering clouds, walking home in the misty dark. Then, one day, somewhere between Memorial Day and the Forth of July, the rains stop. The clouds break. The sun comes out and stays out until the fall equinox storms move in late in September. The change in weather marks a significant shift in water use and distribution in our house. Let’s just say not much leaves the property during the dry season.

            The shift happened this weekend. After a nice rain, a dramatic midnight thunderstorm, and a power outage at school (hope springs eternal for being sent home early…) early in the week, the clouds parted. Saturday morning, I went downstairs to find the dish pan and scoured it out to catch all of the sink water. Then I rummaged through the stack of five gallon buckets for the short, wide one with the decent handle to transport the dish water to the various wine barrels holding fruit trees and bushes around the house. Finally, I made the watering chart and placed the pink flamingo magnet on the kiwi vines.

      

shower stall

      That evening, after a warm day at the Mother Earth News Fair, we set up the outdoor shower. Mark attached the hose to the basement sink; it was an easy task because we had already threaded the hose through the unused drier vent last summer. Meanwhile, I found the towels, soap, and shampoo, and cleaned out the tub. Leaves swept out quickly, then I scrubbed it down with an old cloth and flushed the system onto the ground, right where the bunny had dug a burrow. After our first shower washed out the tub, I hitched up the hose to redirect the water into the flowerbeds. From now on, we shower outside.

            When we come back from vacation in two weeks, I will hitch up the laundry system. We have a 55 gallon drum in the basement which catches three loads of laundry water. When it is full, after a week’s worth of washing, I hook up the same pump and move the water out to the flowerbeds that the shower does not reach. Tuesday mornings, as the clothes dry and the barrel drains, are unusually humid times. 

            Because we cannot water the vegetable gardens with greywater, I also spent some time messing around with garden hoses. One side of the garden is on an irrigation line that allows me to shut off the water to each bed separately, which is very handy as the summer winds down or a soaker hose springs a leak.  This week, I replaced an ancient sweat hose and mended a few leaks, then covered all of the lines with straw mulch.  The other side of the garden is one strung together system—old soaker hoses cut in half and attached to pieces of garden hose— which is fine for this year, as the entire three beds is planted t in potatoes and will all need to be shut off at the same time. When we rebuild those beds, we will replace the one long hose with the same system of hoses and valves that works so well on the other side. Once the whole system is mulched in, it works quite well, keeping water right where I want it. I know I have succeeded when the grass dries out between the beds.

watering chart

            Summer, the dry season, has begun. We are all collectively worried about the lack of snowpack in our mountains and the impact of the warm dry spring on our fruit crops. Here, we save whatever water we can, hauling it out to return to the earth.

Chard or beet greens and ricotta pie:

Make a pie shell.

Saute a large bunch of chopped greens with onion, thyme, and garlic.

Mix 4 oz of ricotta with 2 eggs and 3/4 cup of milk or cream. Add cooked greens and pour into the pie shell.

Bake in 350 oven until firm, abot 45 minutes.

Outdoor Shower

Greywater is illegal in the state of Oregon. I just have to put that out there because anyone who cared to track the amount of water coming into the house and leaving the house during July, August, and September might have a few concerns that we are breaking the law. Years ago, I hitched up the washing machine and bathtub to 55 gallon barrels and pumped the water into the gardens. I also established a dish-washing chart in a place of honor on the side of the fridge, with a legless flamingo magnet tracking the next herb barrel to be watered. I like hauling buckets of water out to the herb barrels and raspberry plants. I like pumping the laundry water from an old 55 gallon blue plastic barrel into the flower garden and how the entire backyard feels humid on laundry days—but my favorite system right now is the outdoor shower.

When we first moved into our house, I used a solar shower bag from Campmor. It worked pretty well—you really don’t need that much water to get clean—but it just splashed around the old wooden pallet and didn’t water anything but some weeds. It was also really heavy, when full, to heave up onto the nail on the fence. When it died after three or four years, I gave up on outdoor showers—until I spotted an old tub—FREE—by the side of the road. Someone was remodeling their bathroom. I hauled it home. Mark and I used it as a wading pool, full of cool water, during the next heat wave. Pretty nice. That fall, I rearranged the flower garden bed so that I could tuck it into the back and we built a frame out of wood recycled from habitat for Humanity and hung fabric around it. Cool water tub…we bailed the water out.

The next summer, I hooked up a hose between the basement sink and the outdoor tub. Hot water. You had to run downstairs and turn it on and it could be a little tricky getting the temperature right, but it was hot water. A trip to Habitat produced a showerhead. Hot showers. But, bailing the water onto plants afterwards took away some of its charms. It became very problematic when I hung boards on the frame rather than fabric, so this spring I made a trip to the plumbing store. Half an hour later, I had all I needed to run the water from the tub, through a hose (purchased at Habitat), and into the garden beds. A few days later, I had the tub raised enough so that the water would flow out AND not wobble. That night, after a good hike, I tried it out. A quartermoon was rising in the sky when I slipped out. The water temp was perfect. The towel was still sunwarmed from hanging in the frame all day. The water drained out onto the mint. It was amazing. I’ve even convinced Mark to use it; he was about to grumble about pumping shower water out of the basement like we always have when I pointed out that, if he showered outside, the water would flow directly onto the plants, saving the electricity. Now, he’s considering the final touch, a cool showerhead. He may be visiting Habitat this weekend.