What 's the weather like where you are ?

[Ruby]

Hope the situation improves soon. Spoke to my mom in CT recently and her entire gardening efforts have all but been wiped out. A bad situation. And of course the clowns in control did nothing for years other than up prices. As if that is going to fix the problem.

I remember not too long ago a certain Minister for Water citing the reason a town in one of the drier regions of the country had run out of water. 'The old apartheid regime built the dams too big and they take too long to fill - that's why we have run out of water' ??!!??!!

I am ad-libbing here but there is supposed to be an old Native American saying that goes something like this;

Only when the last bird is taken from the sky
The last fish taken from the stream
And the last beast slaughtered on the land
Only then will man realize that he cannot eat money

It’s quite stressful so I hope it improves soon too! Not a nice time for garden lovers at all … even some of the indigenous gardens are starting to look straggly and sparse.

Re that dam comment – I remember thinking it was idiotic at the time, but now realise that it contains at least one tiny kernel of common sense; Theewaterskloof, CT’s biggest reservoir, is massive, but it’s widespread and actually quite shallow which means there’s a huge amount of evaporation - was on a flight over it the other day – not a pretty sight. IMHO we would be much better off with deeper dams that have a smaller surface area. One only realises when this kind of catastrophe strikes, how complex the story of water really is!

That proverb has been milling around in my head since this whole thing began. There are people who don’t give a single toss about our/their water – the attitude is that they’re paying so they WILL use as much of it as they please (hotel, B&B guests, those with large rolling lawns, those who are convinced that this is all some kind of con, etc.). Can’t they see that once it’s gone, no amount of money will bring it back?? So disconnected. There are a couple of versions – all valid …

When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.