Waterloo?

In modern history this word is associated with Napoleon’s final defeat at a village of that name in Walloon Brabant, Belgium in 1815. “Waterloo” means “water” and “sacred forest”.

From my studies online it is becoming obvious that water is the very underpinning of life and that our fresh water is being used at an unprecedented rate as heatwaves are enveloping the globe at this time. Fresh groundwater and surface water levels are constantly sinking both in North America and Europe.

So I decided on a little experiment here in my own back yard: Collecting rainwater from the roofs of my cabins. Thanks to fortuitous timing I collected well in excess of 2000 litres in June during drought breaking rain events and stored the water in numerous drums and other containers. (I also have a good shallow water well but it showed signs of stress during the 2000- 2002 drought with fine sand coming out of the tap).

This year I have also been growing green beans in my garden and tried growing them in containers as well, watering them by hand with collected rainwater.

With future possible water shortages, container gardening is the obvious way to go where I live where each bean plant consumes about one litre of water per day during hot weather while producing delicious green beans.

We all know that fresh water is at the very essence of life, but somehow, here in Alberta, Canada, we have adopted the attitude that oil and gas are more important and use, on average, some 60,000 cubic meters (60 million litres) of fresh water to hydraulically frack ONE oil/gas well. That water is gone forever from the water cycle.

Napoleon, you are in good company!