A Greenie I am not

I have a confession to make. Up until a few months ago I was not that concerned about the environment. I mean I would recycle most things, try to use environmentally friendly products for cleaning when it was convenient and cost effective and I never, ever worried about water. Why should I? Ontario has freshwater lakes everywhere you turn,,...heck,they even named one after the province and if you look hard enough you can probably find one named after you.
On our Canadian property we have a well and in the five years that we lived there we have never had to truck in fresh water, even when some of our neighbors had to. Washing your car, watering the lawn, filling the pool were all activities that we were free to do and never thought much about.

I even watched Al Gore's movie on global warming in the comfort of my living room during yet another record snowfall during last winter and thought ??? this is not effecting me at all??? I am not concerned.

Then we moved to Australia for the year. One of the first things that I was asked was;" Do you have any water restrictions in Canada???"

My answer was "No,...um, Whats water restrictions??

I quickly found out that
here in Mt. Eliza we have been on Stage three water restictions which means things like no washing your car, watering your garden 2x a week in a two hour slot, never watering your lawn and hitting the goal of using no more than 155 litres of water a day per person. There are commercials on TV which encourage residents to use conservation techniques like; have a 4 minute shower, don't leave the tap running while brushing your teeth and don't rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.

I have also been introduced to terms like recycled water, grey water and tank water.
We have buckets in the shower that catch the "grey " water and when they are full I take them outside so I can water the plants in the garden. When I do the laundry (which is often) I use environmentally friendly soap so the waste water runs out the back and is used to water the garden. Many people have also installed a tank to collect rainwater off the roof of their buildings when the rain comes.

The last few weeks we have had a bit of rain but it has not done much for the resevoirs around Victoria. They have only been at 30 percent capacity. This is due to the drought that the area has been in over the last 12 years.

The drought was very evident when we visited the city of Ballarat. It is a very beautiful city with many old historic buildings. The city is built around Lake Wendouree which was the site of the Olympic rowing competitions when Melbourne hosted the 1956 Olypmpics. Here is a picture we took of the lake on the weekend.

SHOCKING?!!!

I wouldn't recommend swimming in there either.......

Am I becoming a Greenie??? No, you won't catch me hugging trees or supporting the Green Party.

But I will say that I am
developing an awareness of global environmental issues and climate change
and have realized how blessed Canadians are to have such an abundance of natural resources,
especially fresh water.