The good news is that given the flow of water into the basement, we're not likely to float away.
The bad news is that my mighty maple tree next to the house is sleeping. It's still a good 5 months away from opening its May leaves, transpiring hundreds of gallons of water a day into the air.
Meanwhile, we'll keep pumping.....
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5 comments:
Your world is so different than mine. I have a dirt yard, because it seems crazy in the desert to use so much water creating a green lawn that children will simply dig divots into.
We rarely get water here (shocking, I know.)
But oddly enough, with monsoon storms, we get flooding. Growing up, we had a few times when we had to pump water out of the house.
Transpiration?! That's my favorite kind of ration!
Oh...and I feel your pain. This is what my school is sitting smack-dab in the middle of, except in the heart of the city--
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010618727_levees29m.html
How potent the contribution of trees. We have evergreens which are beautiful in the snow. Do they still transpire in the winter?
Dear John,
I've been to Arizona a few times, and each time I am truly surprised at how dry it is. The heat is one thing, the aridity another. I don't think I ever broke into a sweat outside there, even when the thermometer approached 100F
I did find it odd that bridges were built over bone dry stream beds--but the locals assured me that they were there for a good reason.
Dear Kelly,
Thanks for sharing the link--I find comfort knowing others are in the same, um, boat. It's weird that sharing misery offers comfort, but I guess it's reassuring knowing others are mucking through the same conditions.
Hang in there! The dry season here is only a few months away. (Does your region even have a dry season?)
Dear Paul,
I was wondering the same thing. Apparently not much, little more than the bare deciduous trees this time of year, at least according to this from 1919.
ha ha!
Joel calls it magic the way that he can sweat hard in the summer sun (yes, we play in the heat) and then it just disappears. He refers to the salt stains on his clothes as the "magic dust." I have yet to correct him on that one. If it's not magic, I don't know what is.
I once mocked the "Salt River" which is nothing but a gigantic ditch. Then we had two straight weeks of downpours and the river filled up quickly.
The Tohono O'Odham knew what they were doing when they first built the aqueducts. People assume intelligence and literacy are one in the same, but they built the infrastructure that makes this city possible.
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