Water

It got to 112 today in southwest Ridgecrest. I don't actually know where that weather station is, although I always imagine it's just down the street, and I wasn't watching our patio thermometer closely during the afternoon, so I'm not sure how hot it was at our house. But it was 106 at 6 pm, when I did finally glance at the thermometer, so let's just say it was hot. Tomorrow's supposed to be worse, and then it'll drop back to around 100 for a few days before gearing up for another round of blistering temps.

In theory, I'm ready for it; in practice, no. Mentally, I'm ready; physically, no. "I can deal with this, it's not so bad," I say, while lying on the couch, unable to stand. Today I sat on a plastic patio chair to pick clothespins off the ground, moving the chair a few inches every 30 seconds or so to reach the next batch, because I couldn't imagine getting down on my hands and knees. It doesn't help that I'm on another round of nasty Keflex for my strep throat -- Keflex is a good antibiotic, in the sense of being effective, but it doesn't make you feel good when you're taking it. Plus, this is what -- my 6th round of antibiotics since Christmas? I've lost count. I've never taken so many antibiotics in my life. Something's happened to my immune system (as in, I don't have one anymore).

Rocket Boy is convinced that Ridgecrest is hazardous to one's health. I have to agree. Or maybe just to our health. With our 100% northern European genes, maybe we just don't belong in the desert.

Our main ways of coping with the heat are shade, lethargy, and water. We try to stay out of the sun as much as possible -- and our big covered patio is a great help with that. I park the car in the garage, always. I drive around parking lots looking for even a tiny bit of shade, even just the shadow of a very large truck or SUV.

When in the Mojave desert, do as the reptiles do.

As for lethargy, well, I've always been good at that one. My daily walks with the twins are over until fall. Rocket Boy likes to take an evening stroller walk, but only after the temperature drops below 100. During the day I try to be very sedate, except I've got these two little boys who don't know the meaning of the word...

And then there's water. Glorious, heavenly water. Water that makes our swamp cooler work. Water from our faucets that we drink (except that this time of year it comes out of the tap warm, which I find rather distasteful). Water that we wash clothes and dishes and our sweaty bodies in. The twins love to drink "why" (their word for water). "Moh why!" they demand. Sometimes they argue about what they are going to drink at a particular meal. "Why!" Baby A will shout. "No, miyelk!" Baby B will argue.

Pause for gratuitous cute photo of twins enjoying water:



The Indian Wells Valley (where we live) actually has quite a bit of water, from an aquifer, but it's using that water up much faster than the aquifer is being replenished. And the water lower down is of a much poorer quality. Supposedly they won't run out of water for a long time, but it will gradually get more and more expensive to treat the water enough to make it drinkable.

Therefore the IWV water district has imposed severe water restriction rules this summer. You can only run sprinklers between 8 pm and 8 am, there can't be any visible run-off onto sidewalks, you can't use water to wash down a patio. Stuff like that.

You can, however, water by hand at any time of day. Mornings and evenings I go out with the hose and water the tortoises' grass (they have pieces of sod in their pens) and fill their water dishes. The twins then overturn the water dishes and I fill them again. Then the tortoises walk across their water dishes, obliviously, and I fill them again.

Then I turn off the water and hang the hose over the branch of a tree so the twins can't drag it around the yard. They know how to turn the water back on again, plus their hands are just starting to be strong enough to work the nozzle on the hose. This evening they amused themselves by turning on the water, grabbing the nozzle of the hose as it hung from the tree, and spraying what they could reach. Every few minutes I turned off the water again and said no no no, but you see, they work as a team. Baby B raced over to turn on the water again while Baby A manned the hose nozzle. I was very much outnumbered.

The other hose in the backyard has a sprinkler attached to it. The babies know how to turn that one on too (how I miss the days when they couldn't even walk, when they just lay on their backs gazing at me in adoration), and they do so at every opportunity. Somehow, last night, we all went in to get ready for bed without noticing that they'd turned the sprinkler on again. Somehow, even though I opened our window before we went to sleep -- and our window looks out over the area of the yard where the sprinkler is -- we didn't hear the sprinkler. Not until about 7 am did I suddenly realize that water was running (upon which realization, I rushed out in my nightgown and turned off the sprinkler). So if you figure the twins must have turned on the water around 8 pm last night, that means we were watering for 11 hours straight.

Now technically, we were within our rights to do that. It was between 8 pm and 8 am, and there was no visible runoff onto sidewalks (just a swamp in our backyard).

But I'm not looking forward to next month's water bill....