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Many people comment that i need to be working out some kind of Drip System.    these opinions come with a variety of reasons,  one is that it is more efficient use of water.  Some years ago i went to a Water Use Symposium and listed to many people speak and at the end went to the one i liked the best and asked him.   He asked how i use the hose.  i told him.  he said the only thing then i'd save is time.   Saving Time.   With a drip system,  it's kind of as if things happen by themselves.    you don't need to be there.  or really even know much of what's going on.  you just harvest.

Giving water DOES take time.   i went out this early evening to plant another of the Native Plum.  but fell into that Altered State of Giving Water.  almost two hours later, i'm here, telling you about it.  That IS a long time….2 hours.   and i only watered about half the tree/bushes.    but all the composts,  all the vegetable beds that are continuing to ready themselves to receive seed.  

And i also listened.  to whatever came into my ear.   sometimes it was bird sound….the meadowlark are very much back and talking Spring,  the doves of course, repeating their same syllables with diligence,  Crow flew over low and called out to me.   Song sparrows.   The neighbors down the road had company and were talking loud and rough,  but there was that musical spanish inflection and they were all talking so fast in spanish that it makes it better because i have no idea what they're saying except for the frequent Mother Fucker.  the Goats.  i listened to the Goats…their evening exchanges,  some soft,  some not.   i listened to my world.  i was IN my world,  totally.  completely.  Giving water,  i am an integral part of Everything.   and Giving Water,  i Receive.

 

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string from the walnut pot on the wood stove.  and i told Self to slow down.   wait.  What really IS this?  

 

 

 

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13 responses to “giving water”

  1. Carole Avatar
    Carole

    Oh Grace.. I so agree with hand watering, it is a meditation, and all your outside world ‘speaking’ to you .I think the plants appreciate a person with them rather than a little ‘black stick’ prodded into their earth … with Love Carole xo

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  2. grace Avatar

    Carole…YES! it is an Exchange this way. and i know,
    especially as the Warm then Hot days come, i Know their
    lives. i can see if they droop. see if they don’t. as
    these warm days go on, i can watch as spiders come to drink and then the lizards. it’s really beautiful and it’s what
    i can Give, really, the Taking Care, the giving of water,
    such a simple thing, really, but it is such a huge exchange.

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  3. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    i did have a drip system for the front part of the church garden since it needed 4 hours a day in the heat of summer. but I had to turn it on and off, and while it did it’s thing, I pruned, deadheaded, cleaned up, fertilized and bagged stuff. Then another hose in the back pot garden which I held to over water everything there was a joy. Sometimes I’d get a rainbow. Sometimes I did the back garden at night after supper, and that was nice too. The quiet of it. So we each do what pleases us most and works for the need. It’s all giving, all the doing and the noticing and the listening.
    Nice to wait for a cloth to tell one what it might be, not to push, just wait. Very nice cloth beginning there.

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  4. Mo Crow Avatar

    hand watering is the best ’cause as you say you can play close attention to what’s going on but most of my customers are pressed for time so they rely on drip irrigation systems run by computers. When we had watering restrictions during the drought years here in Sydney we weren’t allowed to water the plants except by watering can that was very hard on all the gardens.

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  5. Julie Avatar
    Julie

    I like watering at dusk, hose in one hand, glass of white wine in the other

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  6. dee Avatar

    I love watering with the hose, too… making the rounds of the yard, looking and as you say, listening. A lot of times I water with one hand, squatting, while weeding with the other. One reason I like a waterproof watch in the summertime.

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  7. grace Avatar

    i like that. What works for the need. yes.
    What works for the need.

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  8. grace Avatar

    i remember. pressed for time. i have to remind self
    all the time that when i worked most days of the week,
    i was “pressed for time”….

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  9. grace Avatar

    yes. Water and Wine. Sacrement.

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  10. grace Avatar

    squatting.
    one of my favorite words.
    squatting.
    to squat, water, weed. yes.

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  11. tracy Avatar
    tracy

    Hose watering is one of my favorite jobs. It’s best in summer when you can water tomates and yourself at the same time. I run home from work and water. Your cloth is nice already.

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  12. grace Avatar

    yes. the watering of Self. all my simple cotton clothing that i
    hose down…evaporative cooling. yes.
    the cloth.
    tomorrow.
    today was the tools.

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  13. KAMFreeman Avatar

    oh yes, Grace…there is so much that comes from the visual and auditory of the environment…so much more of what is going on with the plants is viewed when watering place by place with the hose….weeding and watering are, in fact, the music makes of my gardens every year….the hummingbirds and finches like to play in the spray of the hose when the bird bath is full of their friends.. and they seem to have little fear.. When it gets so hot in August I treat myself to a bit of water on my head to dribble down and cool me….water gives so much to me…the act of watering is a gift every day of the garden part of the year and somehow as I read your words today I began to hunger once again for that experience to return, and soon.

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