Here on the West Coast we are facing a major drought.  You will have realized this from the major forest fires that run from California to the Yukon.

It is normal in the summer in Paradise to have lawn watering restrictions.  Year round we draw our water from Comox Lake which in turn is fed from the Comox Glacier. The freshest, best tasting water in the world.  Well maybe there are a couple of villages in Switzerland that might claim this but as their glaciers are fed from clouds coming from the Ruhr valley or Bulgaria, I doubt it.

When we first moved here I asked my contractor what was the name for the huge glacier to the west of us.  It is the Comox Glacier and it has been a glowing white view all year round.

This last winter we had no snow and when spring came along the Glacier was nowhere near as big as it should be.  As the warm spring and summer came on the source of our fresh water shrunk and they put all the residents on Level III watering restrictions.  We look up in the mountains and despair about the shrinkage in the colossus.

Now this is not as bad as in California where they give instructions about toilets… “if it is yellow, let it mellow, if it is brown flush it down”  We are not yet at that stage.  The rivers are still running and the lake is there, but lower level than normal.

Following the rules, I have turned off all our automatic sprinklers and water the flower beds by hand.  Despite this there are many homes in our neighbourhood where the residents live in Alberta and only come to play golf, where they leave the sprinklers on.  Now there is no actual fines but there are volunteers that go around handing out notices.

This morning I was heading off to pick up my morning National Post.  No one was walking on the street so I cheated by turning on the sprinkler system for the front flower beds for 8 minutes.

Came home to a notice in our mailbox that the watering police chose that 8 minutes to walk by our place and catch me.

No excuse,  I was guilty.  Should have dragged the hose out when I came back and watered the flowers by hand.

I am sure there is a moral to this story…  I suspect it is… do not get caught.