Home » Science & Nature » Water » A Grey Water Miracle

A Grey Water Miracle

© Linda Bond

Whiskey Joe was quite a character, or so it seemed to his neighbors. In fact, he'd become one of their outdoor entertainments of a sort, and they took to watching him from their lawn chairs, as though he were a play at the local theater. He had a kind of slow way of moving and sometimes they'd see him strolling around his garden almost like a cow grazing in a field. He'd take a step or two, then stop and scan the vegetation at his feet. At times, he'd stoop over a little to investigate something near the ground; then, often as not, he'd come back up with a juicy strawberry or other tidbit to pop into his mouth. He always seemed to have the crispiest, juiciest, yummiest looking veggies around. Most of his neighbors had put in a little garden of their own -- largely due to his example -- but their's were not organic like his, so they usually couldn't just eat something without worrying about its safety.

His slow pace at life was not the only thing unusual about Whiskey Joe. He also had some strange ideas, including the way he'd water his lawn and even how he took his showers (so it was told). The thing about his lawn watering was that he didn't seem to do it much, at least not so's anyone noticed. In the first place, he'd planted his front yard with lots of unusual groupings of plants that bloomed off and on throughout the year. Then he put in a particular variety of grass that he allowed to grow taller than what normally was allowed. No one could remember the species name he'd mentioned, but it had recently become a fad to plant grasses that grow taller, so they decided he knew what he was doing, alright.

What was even more amazing, though, was when they saw him digging little holes here and there before he set a sprinkler. He claimed if he dug a little 2" hole, he could see if the ground was really dry and he'd know whether to water or not. Sometimes in the heat the grass looked a little wilted, but it seemed to bounce back just find and he claimed it was never in danger of dying. If he did water, it was early in the morning, so he could avoid evaporating most of it in the "heat of high sun" as he called it. He didn't have to use a sprinkler in his garden, since he had installed a good drip system that took care of most of it. Where he needed a bit more water, he'd set a hose and let it run directly into the area for a few minutes. In some places, he even had little trenches that would carry water along under the leaves of the plants.

The copyright of the article A Grey Water Miracle in Water is owned by . Permission to republish A Grey Water Miracle in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.