summer wind-down.

... the average rate of consumption per person per day in the US is 575litres :that's: 151.899gallons. <http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=757&transpose=row>

Our Household of 3 robust, adult american specimens consumes an average of say 21-42 gallons/person/day (not counting rainwater and occasional water reuse or water we consume at work or drink-products we purchase), mainly depending on whether the rain barrels gone empty, i presume.  Containers can be thirsty buggers.

in mozambique, the average person would be consuming 4 litres::1.05669 gallons  of  agua . . . total: cleaning, bathing, drinking, cooking. 

so add the highest and lowest

151.93 :: 152.95569::152.94 = dumb on the abacus :: calculator :: calculator using the 2 decimal places i counted on the abacus = i'm dang dumb on the abacus...forgot to carry the one.

and divide by two

458.83569 /3= 152.94523 average of my first three stabs at addition without paper and pencil /2 = 

to get

76.472615. . .the crazily rough average of the water consumption of the most average person on the planet... that's slightly less than China on the graph.

So at the house we're consuming on the level of, say, wealthy urbanites in Bangladesh or Kenya.  

With the leak in the water line at the rate of flow measured by Kenny from the county, our house will wash 16,000 gallons of water into the stormwater system that pools up on occasion due to organic debris accumulations on a neighbor's back fence.

16,000 gallons per month  /30 days = 533.3repeating gallons per day /3 people = 177.77repeating gallons per person per day.

25.88 gallons more than the average american.

our main city supply pipe is corroded and water was shooting into the sky (though now it has a patch on that particular leak which has slowed the flow considerably), and that's just a lil more than what the average american is consuming everyday?

it's like everybody here has leaky pipes and hasn't recognized it yet....

water. it's so important to think about that They made it an element.

          

it's so nice out i wanna go dig some swales...utilize the filtering function of the intricate web of life that exists right beneath our feet: plants and fungi absorbing, purifying and releasing 

water 

that literally falls from the sky(!) and bask in the glow of the changing of seasons....

summer seem(s/ed) short and powerful hot but there were many merciful relief storms that washed over us.  i've just now almost drained the 275gallon rain tote plus 20 gallons i had stored from the winter to start the wine cap mushroom bed. 

under my neighbors oak tree, as per the master plan

cardboard, of course.

spawn

prettying up the joint with what's on-site

waterwater every layer of mycological lasagna

mound o' mushrooms experiment begun.

             






tomorrow i suppose i'll probably drain the last 30 gallons of rainwater to keep the spawn 'n' seedlings and their poor potted brethren happy&healthy.

hopefully one day i'll figure out how to facilitate a low-maintenance okra&eggplant patch in the woods that i can leisurely pick only in the mornings come summer, and the hotter parts of the day spend desking or hammocking under a canopy of trees...   

good thing we live in this ideal world: we can help that happen

this i believe:

it is our duty as conscious creatures to

breathe in & observe our habitat

to learn the way of life

that we may facilitate growth and evolution.

and sometimes we stumble, and kill a tree or ooze vast quantities of toxic chemicals into the ocean or douse our lawns in pesticides or fail to check our consumption,

but remember that nature tends to be cyclically catastrophic, and maybe the reason our histories only reach back very little in the span of our time here on earth is because we are part of that cycle.

perhaps we're a perpetually perishing people,

instigators of evolutionary bottlenecks,

civilizations consuming & collapsing

and forgetting (in the time it takes us to stop looting and/or re-learning how to survive)

what got us here in the first place.

still, i can't shake the feeling we're better than that; that we can break sisyphean cycles and harmonize with the hum of creation.

we shall see, ho hum, ho hum.