A pit-a-pat upon
the shingles. A gray haze seeping around
the edges of the curtains. A whispered
scent of dampness. Uncommon stillness.
Rainy mornings. I miss them.
I miss snuggling deeper under the blankets and allowing the thunder of
drops to lull me back to sleep for another minute or another hour. I miss the refreshing coolness that comes in
its wake. I miss the smell of nature
washed clean.
Unlike rain in the
Midwest, rain showers in San Antonio are sparse, but when they come, they come
in torrents. They pummel the sun-baked
earth for a minute or two and disappear.
The ground barely responds to the slaughter, unable to soak in the
sudden onslaught, and so, the rain runs away, into the streets, pooling in spots
of least resistance. There are few storm
sewers. There’s so little rain, it’s not
worth the infrastructure investment.
After a particularly strong storm, the water will stand in the streets,
until it evaporates or finds a way to escape.
The standing water is dangerous to cars and people. Residents tend to wait for the water to subside,
rather than fight it.
Water is a precious
commodity in south Texas. Faucets and
toilets have, by law, low-flow valves to lessen waste. Water bills are high. Local ordinances restrict water usage. We are allowed to sprinkle our lawn once a
week, either in the early morning or late at night. Our day is assigned by the San Antonio Water
System (SAWS).
The only exception
to the rule is new sod. When our home’s
builder put in the lawn, we were allowed three weeks of daily watering to
establish the lawn. As we didn’t know
exactly which day our lawn went in, I counted the three weeks from our move-in
date. SAWS didn’t like that. The water “police,” in white uniform, showed
up at our door, informing us that we could no longer water daily. How did they know?? What sort of monitoring does this Big Brother
organization have in place? Our water
bill for that one month was almost $300.
The weekly watering
allowance can be taken away, depending on the aquifer level.
Aquifer.
I had no idea what that was when I moved to San Antonio. People bandied the word about as normal and
routine. I nodded pathetically without
understanding, until I did my own research.
An aquifer is an underground geologic
formation that can store and transfer groundwater. San Antonio sits on the Edwards Aquifer,
which is a karst aquifer. It is made of
porous and permeable rock that has been dissolved over time and stores water in
fractures, conduits, and cavities.
Instead
of some muddy river or freshwater spring, San Antonio gets its water from this
underground table. The level is
constantly tracked and SAWS imposes rules about usage based on the level.
The
rules are necessary, I guess, when rain is rare. Rain capitulates to days and days of
brilliant sunshine. When I first moved
to San Antonio, a former Air Force officer told me that the city averages 350 days of sunshine per year. That’s why there are three Air Force bases in
and around San Antonio; pilots can fly nearly every day of the year.
I’ve been forced
into a trade-off – curling up with the latest bestseller on a dark,
rain-streaked afternoon or by the pool with margarita in hand. Hmmmm.
It’s a swap worth making.
(As I was writing
this, Mother Nature decided to thumb her nose at me and let loose with an uncharacteristic
downpour in the middle of the afternoon.
Just when I thought no one was paying any attention…)
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