Editor:
It is helpful to view this dry summer as a challenge to find new and creative ways to save and re-use water. The smoke and ash visiting our place in Halfmoon Bay were a real wake-up call. And when tree faller John Phare gave his life trying to protect our community, it further focused our thoughts and feelings. We examined how we might do things more efficiently and came up with a lot of water to re-use for watering our fruit trees and ornamentals, thus moistening our property to help inhibit the spread of fire.
I took a down-pipe from our gutter system, inserted the drain pipe from our top-loading washing machine to transfer used water to our bathtub and was amazed that one wash filled a whole tub. The rinse fills the tub again. In the process I noticed that the water from the wash and even the rinse cycle was surprisingly soapy, so I decided to cut down on soap, for which my septic system will be grateful.
At first we carried the water out to the orchard in buckets by hand – a lot of work! Then, we hooked up an electric pump and a garden hose and pumped the tub water out to the fruit trees. We also figured out that once the pump was pumping out the water and the flow was established, we could disconnect the power and the siphoning action would continue by itself.
It looks like a bumper crop for our orchard!
Roger and Denise Lagassé, Halfmoon Bay
