Western datebook: “There it is. Take it.”

Native garden with drip

Conventional garden with lawn and sprinklers

In a December article for Chance of Rain, Southern California irrigation specialist Bob Galbreath recalled the arrival of Owens Lake water in Los Angeles from the Eastern Sierra and William Mulholland’s 1913 exhortation, “There it is. Take it!”

Take it we did — with such abandon that a century later our water supply is on the verge of exhaustion. Galbreath, who for two decades has preached abstemiousness in the form of drip irrigation over sprinklers, concluded the article by musing, “Perhaps it would help if I put out a big pile of drip tubing at my next seminar and said: ‘There it is. Take it!’”

Perhaps indeed. To see if he does, go to his talk on January 7th at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic

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Image of the day: ‘Borderlands’

Chris Linder’s photograph of a sagauro cactus, icon of the Sonoran desert, is part of the 13-person show “Borderlands,” which opens tomorrow at the G2 Gallery in Venice, California.

Sponsored by the International League of Conservation Photographers, the exhibit documents life along the fence dividing Mexico and the United States.

“Borderlands” runs until February 7, 2010. Click on the image to be taken to the gallery.

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