Ancient Plants and Ancient Water

At one point when I was reading about the age of water I came across some research indicating that some of the water molecules we drink could be 4.6 billion years old. Yikes! That’s a little more than ancient! I don’t know the age of the water coming up from the domestic well at our little homestead near the banks of the Ol’ Guajolote. If it’s 600 years old like that of a nearby neighbor’s well, then that qualifies as old…not ancient I guess, but pretty old.  So I may be watering plants with water that was around when North America was very wild.

A few years ago we guttered our 1991 Marvelette and barn, bought 2,000 gallons of storage tanks and we now water much of our personal habitat with young water. Now that’s pretty exciting. And it’s exciting that there will now be two Spadefoot Nurseries. One near the Ol’ Guajolote and one near the Ol’ Santa Cruz. Tucson and much of the borderlands are lucky to have so many good native plant nurseries and it will be fun to be a part of that. Grow native!

The photo is of Emory oaks (Quercus emoryi) emerging from acorns I had stored since July. The planets must have been aligned correctly or the gods of acorns were kind, because as you can see they germinated. Mesquites are to follow.