THE BIG BUCKET INITIATIVE

We've been in a drought for a long time.  For the year, we're about 13 inches below normal.  Over the past three years, we're about 45 inches below normal.  We've been taking lots of steps to conserve water: we use rain barrels to catch water from the gutters and use it on our plants, we don't water our lawn, we use native plants that require less water, we use mulch to retain water better, etc....  But here's a new thing I started doing.  It takes a long time for the water in my shower to warm up, and all that water has just been going down the drain.  So I started putting a really big bucket (it's an industrial-sized laundry bucket) under the faucet to catch the water until it gets warm.  It was amazing how much water that was.  The bucket could almost be filled up with each shower.  Then I can dump that water in our rain barrels, directly on plants, in bird baths, etc....  Our recycling bins have gotten pretty funky, and I'll use this water to soak them.  Give it a try.  It gets a little addictive.  Let me know if there are other things you're doing to conserve water.