A short thread story about water. Grey water to be precise..
When I first moved to Spain I lived in very wild mountains in Andalucia. The kind with dirt roads (caminos in Spanish), 150m+ drops & hairpin bends & 30km of same to nearest village/town. 1.

My neighbours farmed oranges, lemons, olives, almonds, avocados & mangos. It's the only place in Europe where mangos grow. It is very hot & very dry in summer. So dry that the river bed that runs through our valley has road signs on it. 2.

It's quite an anarchic place - there's few churches & there was still a minor armed insurgency in the Franco 60s. In Autumn you can smell marijuana plants growing in invernaderos (poly tunnels) next to the road. They never get busted. 3.

Most of farmers are peasant farmers - inheritance laws split the parcelas until they're minimal. In the citrus harvest fruit is sent to cooperativas for resale across the EU then at night the orchards are lit with torches as they pick the 'illegal' fruit (below size). 4.

The citrus grow along the valley bottom the rest grow in terraces down the mountain sides & are watered by irrigation systems installed during the Al-Andalus caliphate. Some parts are even tiled. I love them. 5.

This irrigation is a 900 year old system of channels & tanks - when it is very hot you can sit in the tanks as long as you keep an eye out for scorpions & centipedes. The water is a shared resource. 6.

My garden was also terraced & I grew avocados & nisperos & other fruit, veg & flowers. And prickly pears in a circle round the edge of the land for a fire break. 7.

It was also watered via an irrigation channel but plumbed into my house (it's how they build houses) for the grey water - washing up, shower, washing machine - everything except sewage. My garden was lush. 8.

In the UK I'm on a water meter & I also have a garden on a hill. At the beginning of lockdown a year ago I decided to start another grey water experiment (without the plumbing). I have a water butt & soakaways for rain. 9.

I used all my grey water for the garden (except w machine). I literally used to dump washing up water straight onto my baby trees & veg. I grew Ratatouille + a few other veg bits. And flowers. All good. 10.

It's annual water bill time & I've received a £350 refund - (the VW alternator fairies taxed it back off me but gracias). Now imagine if grey water plumbing & irrigation was built in as standard? We waste so much... 11.

My Andalu campesino neighbours were mostly poor - the elders are really small from the malnutrition that stalked their generation. They are both very careful and very generous. And when it comes to land management, very, very smart. End.