Hot summer and shades of gray

Well, it couldn't be much hotter here in south Texas. Okay, maybe it COULD be hotter, but we've set records the last couple of days...so who wants hotter? Not me. Like lots of people around the country who've been struggling with natural disasters, flood, fires, tornados. We too, have our problems. We're in the the throes of a drought. Not a baby, hey it hasn't rained for a while kind of drought, we're doing the least-rainfall-in-recorded-history kind of drought. There was a photo on the front of the San Antonio Express-News this morning of the upper Guadalupe River. It was just a pile of bleached limestone boulders, nothing was even damp.

There's not a lot that anyone can do. We just have to wait on the clouds. I would say "pray for rain" but line is getting so overused by our politicians it's become cliche. Still, do it for us when you think about it.

In our neighborhood we're on Stage 2 water restrictions. Without a change in the weather, Stage 3 should be upon us any day.

We've been following the rules and have been very stingy with our plants and trees. Especially our trees. Our yard is not so amazing that anyone would ever comment, but we do have a couple of incredible trees. In the front yard we have a tall white oak that somehow manages to find a way toward the sky between the electric poles and overhead wires. In the backyard we've got a red oak that was probably planted when our house was new. It is about four feet across and tall enough to shade the entire back yard and the deck for most of the day. It is wondrously elegant. And in the early morning, way up high, it catches the suns rays and glistens when everything below it is still gray and quiet.

The water restrictions allow us to water twice a week or by hand. We've been doing that. But it's a big tree and I know it gets very thirsty.

Earlier this week, because of my thirsty tree, I began to feel bad about my baths. I love to soak in a bath. I have the best soaking bathtub on the planet and there is nothing I like more that sitting in hot water up to my chin. Yes, I admit it. Even in this time of drought, I have still been soaking up to my chin.

The guilt has been driving me crazy.

I decided that I must give up the baths. No, I didn't plan on foregoing hygiene completely, but I thought a quick shower would probably be good enough.

It's my experience that sacrifice, both large and small, is a great boon to innovation. As I was contemplating a showery future, I began to think about how I could have my trees and bathtub, too.

I decided that I would not drain the tub. After my leisurely soak, I would get my trusty bucket, dip out the water and carry it out to my oaks. After all, before the advent of modern plumbing a woman would have to tote water both to and from her tub. And those women were wearing long dresses and workboots. If they could do it I can do it.

At least I thought that for the first few buckets.

Water is heavy. Hmm. As I learned in school, "A pint's a pound the world around." So that makes my 5 gallon bucket weigh 40 pounds. And I'm...I'm... okay, I admit it. I'm a wimp. Way too much time spent sitting in front of a computer screen. The heaviest thing I move is the mouse.

Sadly, I decided that I just couldn't bale out the bathtub on a daily basis. Once more I sadly bid

adieu to my decadent soak. Bravely I vowed to shower.

Then this morning Bill told me to go ahead and take a bath, he'd take care of the water. He pulled a hose in through the back door and siphoned the water left in the tub, out the back door across the deck and down to the roots of the red oak. Being, as he is, a math geek, he told me how much water this would be for our trees. 500 gallons a week. Five hundred gallons of gray water to keep the shade flourishing over our heads, eating up our CO2 and giving us back a lovely breath of fresh oxygen in our air.

As God is my witness...I will never feel guilty about bathing again.

Thanks Bill. Happy Father's Day.