Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Ding, dong, the drought is dead!

After three long, dry years Georgia's worst drought in more than a century is finally over. We've normal rainfall so far this year, which to us has felt like an extremely wet spring. Lake Lanier is now only about 4 feet low. The state has lifted the very severe restrictions that have been in place for so long, and reverted back to the permanent watering schedule (restricted, but far less than what we've all lived with for the past few years). When called on to conserve 10% last year, metro Atlanta exceeded expectations. Lets hope some of those good habits stick.

I'm looking forward to enjoying my gardening hobby again. I've definitely got my work cut out for me. Lots of my landscape plants are dead or are very scraggly and unhealthy. The lawn is a sea of violets, weeds, moss, and monkey grass. It is full of ant hills and grubs. Between being unable to water and having to study this spring and last summer, I completely let the yard go. It will take a lot of effort to get it back. But hey, it is work that love and I can help out some local gardening centers at the same time. Looking forward to the challenge!

And waterwise habits notwithstanding, I am also looking forward to finally washing my car that hasn't been cleaned in more than two years. Oh, don't fuss. I'm not gonna be doing it every week or anything. I'd just like to remove the dead bugs and bird poop from 2007, assuming they haven't yet chemically bonded with the finish.

Tri-state water wars? Still on. Some things never change.

7 comments:

dr sardonicus said...

Still, July and August are coming, four feet in Lake Lanier is a lot of volume, the Apalachicola controversy remains unsettled, and Governor Bredesen sez keep yer cotton-pickin' hands off the Tennessee River. Y'all ain't out of the woods yet...

fermicat said...

True, but four feet is a helluva lot better than 15. The water wars probably won't ever be settled. I just wonder if they decide that Atlanta can't have the water, just what the hell are we going to do?

Dave said...

I heard the newscast. I don't begrudge your gardening; but, I worry all the conservation we learned to do will be lost.

Over the last year or so, I'm much less a user of water than I was. I'm going to keep it up.

As to the car thing, I went to the carwash which had an expemption, now and again.

fermicat said...

I wonder what the county's position will be. DeKalb may restrict more than the state suggests. As of this afternoon they had not yet updated the website.

We don't plan to go hog wild with the water use. Especially if we are getting decent rainfall - watering the plants will not be necessary in that case.

LL said...

Pfft... I say turn your hose on all summer long. You can single handedly reinstate that drought! :P

fakies said...

We've had enough rain so far this year that I haven't watered once. That may say more about my laziness than the weather, but hey, my yard looks great anyway!

Kathleen said...

Yup, your drought is the reason I haven't washed my car in two years. I was commiserating.