Lance Armstrong has bad water karma. First he was accused of fouling a pristine swimming hole when he dammed up a creek on his Hill Country ranch. Now he’s been outed on the front page of the American Statesman as being the city’s biggest residential water user.
Give the guy a break. It’s hardly news that the rich have the biggest water bills. In the global sense, we Americans are all scaled versions of Lance Armstrong, especially when compared to third world countries where clean water is non-existent for drinking or hygiene purposes, let alone available for agriculture or esthetic landscaping purposes.
What got me about this story was the photo of Lance’s swankienda, reproduced here. How old can this garden be? How big were the pine standards when they were originally planted? I’m so impatient with my toddler garden and know it’s going to take a minimum of 3 -4 years for the crucial backbone stuff to get settled in and start looking good. Even 222,900 gallons of water won’t hurry that process.
3 comments:
I saw that story today too. His mansion is located in my neighborhood association boundaries, and I only know this because he donated some nice landscaping, including maintenance, to a long public median across the street from his house, and it was written up in the association newsletter. It was all done anonymously, but everyone knew it was him.
I'm trying to remember how long his house has been finished and want to say it's been about 3 or 4 years, maybe less. So that's how old the landscaping would be.
The story made me really wonder how much water swimming pools suck up, since we're fantasizing about installing one. All the big water users, the paper pointed out, have pools, except one. That gives me pause.
I was guessing the same, max 5 years. Which in that case, means the pines were probably mature when planted. Ka-ching.
I am the biggest water mizer that I know. I think of my 5000 gal. rainwater collection system, syrup tubs under the leaks in the gutters and weighing out saving annuals or letting them die to save water all so that some one like this can use in a month what I use in 5 1/2 years. Totally disgusting, I don't care who you are.
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