Now this article might seem a little lame to some. To others it's just part of what they already do. But I figure that some may never have really even though about it. We all in Australia know about water restrictions and some sadly know all too well the effects

of drought.

I have to admit when my first two children were little I was one of those who didn't think much about it. I would fill up my little babies bathtub wash and yes throw out the water, down the drain so to speak. I was just 18 when the first was born and I never even gave much consideration to enviromental matters. I am being totally honest here. 

But I had grown and matured a lot by the time the second two came along, thirteen years after the first. I thought more about enviromental issues. In particular saving water. I stopped filling up the sink to wash a couple of dishes serveral or more times a day. 

Bathing baby was a great water saving opportunity. Since I used the bath in the laundry on my washing machine. And I also used cloth nappies, I thought why not re-use the water. Since babies especially newborn don't really get dirty the waters still clean. Unless of course they had one of thise nappies that the mess went all the babies back, you get the picture I'm sure. So after the bath was finished and baby comfortable I would despose of the water. NOT down the drain. Into a fresh bucket with nappy soaker, ready for the days nappies. At this time I usually put yesterdays ones on with sheets or towels or whatever to wash. But if I didn't do that I would tip the water into the washing mashine. It didn't fill it right up, but when you put the machine on you didn't use as much water, well the same amount but some of it was recycled. And of course if you pump the water on the garden that bit of water you used a second time from the babies bath is being used a third time. Amazing but true.

I also had my washing machine waste water go out into the sink. I had a hose set up and sent it out to the garden. I know lots of people do this one. One tip for those who may not have done it. I made a really big mistake, twice. I used to put the hose straight into the outlet hose from the machine. On the second occassion when the repair an came to fix my machine we realised what I had done. By putting the hose directly into the machine it makes the pump work to hard or somethink anyway it burns out your pump. Lucky for me the machine was still new and under warrenty. Of course the kids grow and progress to a big bath. And most people will either bath a few kids together or one after the other, which is great for saving water. And I did this too. And for a while I even bucketed out the water onto the garden. But that was hard work, so Vic came up with a better solution. We bought a bilge pump. The use them on boats. It was a small one and from memory cost arount $30.  Boy it worked great. We had it pump out to water the lawn and gardens, you just move the hose around.

At this point I have to stress one thing. Please if your going to do this and I recommend it. Do it right away, not later emty the bath I mean.         As forgetting about a bath full of water can spell DANGER with toddlers and young children.  Drowning is the highest killer of children under five in Australia. If you think you can't do it right away maybe fit a lock really high up on the outside of the bathroom door. I don't mean to put you off saving the water, just remind you leaving water lying around is not a good practice. Even nappy buckets in the wrong place can be a hazard, I always kept mine in the sink not on the floor.

Anyway back to water saving. At our current house we are even more water aware. You see we don't just get it on tap anymore. Well it still comes from the tap. What I mean we get everydrop we use, either from the ground (our bore) or from the sky, we collect it from our roof (our water tank). We live in the country so there is no such thing as scheme water. All our outside water, gardens, pool, animals troughs, even the toilets are from the bore. And hopefully by next year we will have our windmill working too. Because we have two houses here  we collect more than enough water. The trouble was we didn't have enough tank space to keep it all. In winter we watch it go on the ground, which for anyone using tanks, is a sad sight. We just recently got a bigger (2X) size holding tank. And in winter Vic even diverts water if the rainwater tank is full to the bore water tank, so we don't have to pump from the ground. People would be surprised how much water they really consume in a year. We have never run out of water (touch wood) we came close the first year we moved in. Vic made me take the washing machine outside and use bore water in it.  But we didn't have to buy water, like many of our nieghbours did. It was a really dry winter that year. 

We now have a 5,000 gallon or 23,000 litre holding tank plus our big rainwater tank which holds 20,000 gallons or 90,000 litres. Plus we have a bore water tank which is a 5,000 litre or 23,000 litre one. All this takes up a lot of space and  is a bit of work.

I am not by any means saying everyone should race out and buy water tanks. It's all about balance and choice and were we live. Gee many people these days only have a 600 sq block or less, so it's not practical. But we can all do our bit. Even somethink as small as saving and reusing the babies bath water it is a start. And I am sure if you thought about it you could think of many more little things that could help save water and help the bigger picture our enviroment. Don't forget saving water also saves you money too.        

In closing I must say we do use heaps of water, we are not terribly stingy to our children We have a pool (bore water) and I have a dishwasher and we even have a spa bath not that we use it often. But we do sometimes for a treat. It takes a lot of water to keep the animals we choose to. One cow with a calf, producing milk drinks 90 litres of water each day. We have one of those as well as 5 other cows and a bull. So on one hand we are fruegal as we can be with water on the other we do use quite a bit. But we work to save what we can.