Like a late-blooming teenager, 19th century Arizona was still trying to define itself. Soldiers, miners, and rugged pioneers gradually made their way to Arizona to begin life anew in a challenging landscape. These early pioneers quickly realized water was both the key to their survival and a powerful force to reckon with. Water, in the Arizona territory, was a double-edged …
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Minor leaks account for more than 1 trillion gallons of water wasted each year in U.S. homes. To the average homeowner, that means as many as 10,000 gallons wasted each year – enough to fill a backyard swimming pool. That is why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense® program promotes Fix a Leak Week the third week of March each …
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When your home is faced with water damage, it is easy to become overwhelmed. Your initial stress will probably result from the fact that your pipe just burst and your basement is flooding, or that your faucet has been leaking for weeks without your knowledge and you can’t possibly wrap your head around how you didn’t notice. After that initial …
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Want to improve your quality of life? Plant Something. Seriously. How is a plant or tree possibly going to make life better, you ask? By lowering your heart rate, providing beauty and shade, improving your property value, lowering your energy costs, cleaning the air and water, and creating a more inviting yard and community…….whew…….that’s a lot for a landscape to …
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Reading and math are important, but there are equally important skills that kids aren’t taught in school. As parents, it is up to us to model healthy lifestyles for our kids, and we can do so with green parenting practices. By showing our kids that their family strives to make eco-friendly decisions with what we buy and eat, we can …
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How do Arizona communities ensure that they have sufficient water to meet their future needs? The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center’s February 1, 2019, annual conference, Arizona Runs on Water: Scarcity, Challenges, and Community-based Solutions will examine answers to this question. Communities across Arizona are working to identify and implement solutions to water issues, both current and future. The …
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When we think of wastewater, we usually think of sewage. However, it is also comprised of any used domestic water produced from showers, disposals, washers, and sinks. Furthermore, wastewater can include any used water and water-carried solids from a community that flows to a treatment plant, such as stormwater, surface water, and industrial water. Fact: 99 percent of wastewater is …
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Last April, I had my Water – Use It Wisely table set up on the back patio of a community center for an Earth Day event. A mom and her two young children were walking by and I heard the older one, about four years old, say, “Hey Mom, look, there’s a hummingbird on that tree.” I was shocked but …
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Just because you’ve heard that the Earth is made up of 71 percent water, it does not mean that you can go ahead and waste it. We all need to appreciate it. If you have not realized how lucky you are that you’re living in a country where fresh water seems to be unlimited, then how about some demonstration? In …
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Welcome to the third installment of our early fall series on water-wise edible gardening. So far, we’ve talked about The Basics of Water-Wise Edible Gardening and introduced you to harvesting edibles from the landscape in our blog Putting The Desert In Dessert. Now it’s time to talk about seed saving and sharing. Survival of the fittest is the basic tenet …
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We’re back with the second part of our four-part series on edible gardening! Did you miss us? We missed you! Last time we introduced you to the basics of water-wise edible gardening, and now that we’ve given you a week to mulch, plant and tend to your bountiful harvest (maybe), it’s time to talk about another favorite topic of ours: …
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It’s October! Let’s rejoice with a sigh of relief for the unofficial end of summer, shall we? All at once now: ahhhhhh. Doesn’t that feel good? With cooler temperatures on the horizon, many of us in Arizona will be trading in the flip-flops for the trowel and tending to our vegetable gardens. All October long, we’ll be posting some of …
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