Spring has really sprung this week and yes, sprung is a real word.  What’s the old saying?  “Spring has sprung, the grass is riz.  I wonder where the birdies is?  They say the birds are on the wing but that’s absurd, the wings are on the birds”.    One big thing that happens when spring has sprung is that its planting time.  It’s called seeding in agriculture and that’s been going on for a while already while  we urbanites call it planting, gardens and annuals.   For me it also means time to fit in watering every day that Mother Nature doesn’t do it for me.  We have a good size yard and my wife plants many annuals, many being an understatement.  Then it’s my job to keep them alive through September.  I’m not kidding when I say it takes me an hour and a half to water everything.  It makes me realize how lucky we are to have an abundant supply of fresh water in Saskatoon. Planet earth’s surface is over 70% covered with water but….and there is a big BUT….only 3% is fresh water, the majority of which is stored in glaciers and ice caps.   Then about 30% of the fresh water is in aquifers underneath the earth’s surface called groundwater and a very small fraction is in lakes, rivers and swamps.  I’m told roughly 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity for at least part of the year and over 2 billion people don’t have access to safely managed drinking water like we do.  We take for granted but we shouldn’t that when we turn on the tap out comes clean, fresh water.  May it always be so. 

That’s Coffeetalk.  I’m Vic Dubois.