6 reasons why Austin’s Stage 2 water restrictions will not work

Otis (my baby puppy—8 days short of 1 year) woke me up this morning to go outside at 0423 hrs. He usually gets Patsy up at that time, but she’s outta town doing Strategic Planning for her position at the credit union, so it was my turn to take the early shift.

Gus (the older of the two—he’s 2 years & 8 months) came with us to supervise I guess.

At any rate, there I sat on the deck steps while the two of them ran around the yard hither and yon as dogs do. There was some noise that shouldn’t have been there at that time of the morning—there shouldn’t be any noise at 0423 hrs in the morning in the pitch black out-of-doors. The pups gave the racket some notice but eventually let it go as not any of their concern.

I recognized the noise right away. There was no doubt what it was and where it came from. Yep, the neighbors were watering their yard. They have a sprinkler system which makes it easy to do so at 0423 hrs in the morning. There might have been more than one of them doing so but at 0423 hrs, I wasn’t gonna go check to see.

Let me describe my cul-de-sac to you.: most of the houses have an underground sprinkler system. Of the seven houses, only two don’t: mine and one other. They all got them on the cheap—a friend of a friend kind of deal. Of the seven houses in the cul-de-sac and the two facing the entrance only two no longer have any grass in the front yards. Both of these two, as far as I can tell, have rigidly complied with the City’s watering restrictions: only watering two days a week originally and now only one day a week. These two yards are now almost completely grassless. The other yards are lush and green.

The lush and green yards have nothing to do with the sprinkler systems however—it’s all about following the rules. If ya follow—ya got no grass; if ya don’t follow—ya got grass. The house without the system that has grass tends to water three or four days a week; even outside the restricted times: before 10 AM and after 7 PM.

The current rules (under stage 2 restrictions) allow odd number residences to water on Saturday and even numbered residences to water on Sundays. Of course hand watering is allowed any day of the week—but why hand water if ya got a sprinkler system?

Oh, I almost forgot! What are the 6 reasons why Austin’s Stage 2 water restrictions will not work?

1 – Monday

2 – Tuesday

3 – Wednesday

4 – Thursday

5 – Friday

6 – Saturday or Sunday (depending on your assigned watering day)

I guess come spring I will fork over the money to have the yard xeriscaped or concreted. Maybe I should clandestinely cut there source of moisture every night and stop this foolishness at the source.

You got any ideas on how to go about this?