My mom was green when green wasn't cool, or publicized

...Recently my husband decided to "finish" the basement. To finish means to pour 5 inches of cement during the dead of our North Idaho winter to create a floor. Floors are important to homes, so I said nothing about his timing. However, this meant turning off running water to the inside of our country home.
..."Five days," he promised. "Only five days without water." I grimmaced, bit my tongue and believed him.
...Our water was off for THREE WEEKS. No flushing toilets without the aid of a bucket, no washing dishes without the aid of several buckets. Water was heated on the stove because the hot water heater was disabled. You bet I grumbled and complained while I stood at the sink, heating and pouring water over the mound of dishes that had sat for six days. Standing at the sink, t-shirt soaked at the belly from disgruntled splashing my mind trickled back to another woman standing at a sink washing dishes. (All thought SHE had running hot water to fill her sink.) I was young, not too young to wash dishes just too short for the tallest stool. So my mom just let me watch and learn and let me slide an extra year. After the dishes were meticulously washed, dried and put away, she hooked up the washing machine. As this memory surfaced I started realizing I had the greenest, most earth concious mother in the world. Back when recycle and reuse wasn't even popular with environmentalists.
....I remember watching mom hook up hoses from that old wringer washer to the sink faucet; screwing it on like a garden hose. Then she yanked a long black tube from around its rotund belly and stuck that drain hose in the opposite sink. The washer tub was filled with hot soapy water and the morning ritual began. First came the white clothes because they were the cleanest, the water was at its hottest and bleach was not used for whites. During this morning tribute to clean mom never changed that water, not once. Water was too precious because you had to pay the city for every gallon you used even back then. So one helping of wash water and a second tub of rinse water did all the dirty clothes that had accumulated for a week. Next came baby clothes, towels, colored shirts and last of all my dads grimy work clothes. By this time you can imagine that water was pretty thick and took its time leaving the wash tub.
.....Mom's water wisdom didn't stop there. At our house wash day was also bath day for all of us five kids. That tepid rinse water didn't go to waste. First went baby since she was the cleanest, then on up the ladder from youngest to oldest. That rinse water and mom's gentle hands scrubbed our bodies, washed our hair and left us smelling like ... well better than when we went in.
.... I started to pull the plug on the sink, my pile of dirty dishes under controll and drying in my waterless dishwasher. But I didn't pull that plug, I scouped that greasy water back into the bucket and gave the toilet an extra complimentary flush. Too soon my water would be turned back on and I would revel in the luxury of indoor running hot water again. But I would also be relishing the memory of my mom scrubbing down baby and making every drop of water and love count.
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