may day and thinking about water
%%green%%i took the day off in light of may day%%. i will bathe the dog, eat breakfast, and then head to centro and the markets for a photowalk. will have some coffee can catch up with some friends in the afternoon, and this evening we have a dinner planned.
may is here, which means %%red%%heat%% and hopefully a lot of %%purple%%rain%%. we are considering getting another 2000-litre rain catcher. between laundry, showering, and washing dishes, we found we use about 2000-2500 litres a month. not bad, but we can do better.
This summer, we will have finished building our dry composting toilet and fixed our greywater filters and system. my hope is that we can get our water consumption down to around 1500 litres a month. we have a 15000 litre storage pond, which should be enough to get us through the 8 to 9 months of dry season here. but %%orange%%we also need to consider water for the garden%%; hence, the additional 2000 litre raincatcher (we already have one 1000 litre one). %%green%%we do utilise a milpa system%%, so 3000-4000 litres should just get us through the dry season, and with greywater it won't be a problem at all.
the idea was to invest a bit more in our janky diy solar, but we feel %%blue%%water is more important%% at this moment. building a sustainable life is costly, so we just need to be careful when and where we invest the little money we have. %%blue%%water first%%, %%yellow%%solar second%%.
%%green%%i am less nervous about working in the solar industry than last year%%. things seem to be settling. so hopefully i have steady work for the next five years and we can invest everything we have into the land here.