Harpersville Secret: How Two Friends Are Doin’ Laundry & Keeping the Yard Green Despite High Water Bills

Stop letting high water bills suck you dry! Learn the hyper-local Alabama water saving hacks Loretta & Brenda Sue use to protect their homes, gardens, and self-sufficiency.

Intro Summary

Tired of choosing between a green lawn and paying the grocery bill? Across Harpersville, folks are struggling with soaring Alabama water rates that violate our core value of self-sufficiency. Join Lorie Mae and Brenda Sue as they share their best-kept secrets for genuine water conservation and keeping your domestic life running smoothly.

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Setting the Scene: Ain’t No Shine on This Sunny Day

The air hangin’ over Fourmile Creek Landing right now—that sweet, woodsy scent mixed with the smell of my neighbor’s morning coffee—usually makes my heart feel right. But lately, when that Shelby County heat hits just so, there’s this little knot in my stomach. See, out here in Harpersville, especially tucked back by the creek, we’re folks who take pride in our own. We keep our yards nice, we grow our own tomatoes, we handle our own business. That’s our shared value: Self-Sufficiency. We don’t need no big-city folks tellin’ us how to run a household.

But lawd have mercy, this water rate hike and all the restrictions that came with it are disrespectin’ everything we stand for. It’s supposed to be summertime, and my zinnias are lookin’ as parched as a forgotten preacher’s tie. Every time I look at that patch of brownin’ grass, I feel like I’m failing. It’s not just the money; it’s the indignity of havin’ to choose between a decent garden and a decent grocery bill. And the water pressure? Forget about it. It’s like the shower head is just spittin’ at me. It’s truly messin’ with a body’s daily routine, and it ain’t right.

Why This Is Messin’ With Our Self-Sufficiency

We’re not asking for handouts, are we? We’re asking for the basic ability to manage our homes without a board room in Birmingham dictating how much green our grass gets. The ability to water a few tomato plants, run a load of wash without worrying about the meter jumpin’ a mile, and fill up the kiddie pool on a Saturday—that’s the Harpersville promise. When they mess with the price and availability of water, they’re not just messin’ with a utility; they’re messin’ with our ability to be independent. It’s takin’ the ‘self’ right out of self-sufficient.

Main Character: Loretta “Lorie” Mae (34), The Creek Keeper. Archetype: The Resourceful Homemaker. She’s kind-hearted, a touch anxious about appearances, and deeply pragmatic. She worries about wasting anything and is always lookin’ for the smart, hidden solution. Her conversational style is quick, punctuated by rhetorical questions and a soft, melodic drawl.

Secondary Character: Brenda Sue (34), The Firecracker Friend. Archetype: The Sassy Skeptic. She’s got a dry wit, a loud laugh, and an uncanny ability to spot bureaucracy from a mile away. She views the water board as a necessary but mostly incompetent evil. Recurring phrase: “Bless their heart, they try.”

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Listen to What Folks Are Sayin’: A Chat Over Sweet Tea

Lorie and Brenda Sue are standing on Lorie’s cracked concrete porch, sipping cold sweet tea and watching the heat shimmer over the dusty gravel road of Fourmile Creek Landing.

Lorie Mae: “Lord, look at that mailbox petunia, Brenda Sue. It’s just givin’ up the ghost. I gave it just two cups this morning. Two cups! Does that sound like a successful Southern woman to you?”

Brenda Sue: “It sounds like you’ve been bamboozled by The Man, honey. Bless their heart, they try. Remember that summer back ’98 when we thought it was a drought but Billy Ray’s mama had just rigged up that crazy sprinkler system with the holey hose? We thought the creek was dryin’ up!”

Lorie Mae: “I remember! And my daddy about had a stroke over the garden. It’s not funny, though. I can’t even fill up that little green turtle pool for the grandbabies without feelin’ like I’m payin’ for a cruise. It’s just plain greedy.”

Brenda Sue: “Greedy? Nah, it’s just poor plannin’ with a dash of ‘let’s make the little guy pay for it.’ That’s their running joke, Lorie Mae: ‘We’ll give ’em cheap water for a decade, and then we’ll hit ’em with the bill for the busted pipes in Calera.’“

Lorie Mae: “Ugh. I tried to do a load of towels yesterday, and the washer just kept chuggin’ like an old train. Then my hair was still soapy ’cause the pressure went kaput. I swear, I smelled like a floral arrangement and not in a good way.”

Brenda Sue: “Well, you shouldn’t be usin’ all that fancy shampoo, should you? That’s what you get for tryin’ to smell like you stepped out of a magazine and not Fourmile Creek Landing. We’re women of the dirt, Lorie Mae. The dirt!”

Lorie Mae: (A short, genuine smile.) “You are somethin’ else. But seriously, remember when we could wash the whole car in the driveway and it wouldn’t feel like we were tossin’ ten dollars down the storm drain? That was only four years ago.”

Brenda Sue: “Girl, yes. Now washing a car is a treat. A monthly, regrettable financial decision. I tell you what, though, I been takin’ my shower water—the good, clean rinse water—and bucketin’ it over my prize winning Knockout roses. Waste not, want not. That’s my little bit of anarchy.”

Lorie Mae: (Looks into her tea glass, then down the drive. She sighs, a low, defeated sound.) “…”

Brenda Sue: “You look like you’re plannin’ a revolution. Don’t go gettin’ too upset. That’s how they win, you know. Make you so stressed out over $40 you forget you’re sittin’ on a silver-lining idea.”

Lorie Mae: “So, I tell you what,”

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And ain’t that just the way it goes. One person’s panic is another person’s opportunity to get creative. Once we stopped stewin’ in the frustration and started thinkin’ about ways to outsmart the system and get our self-sufficiency back, it felt a little less heavy.

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What Y’all Need to Be Doin’ About It: Real Talk for Real People

Get You Some Rain Barrels and Stop Relyin’ On The Meter

This is just plain common sense, but we forget it when the bill comes. Get your hands on a good-sized barrel, or maybe two, and put ’em under your downspouts. Use that free rainwater for your established landscaping, your flowerbeds, and even to rinse out your mud boots. You don’t need paid water to keep a bush alive. It’s a way of tellin’ the utility board, “Nope, not today, Satan.”

Fix Those Leaks Before They Suck You Dry, Y’hear?

Listen up: a little drip, drip, drip adds up to a ton of money by the time that bill shows up. Go look at your toilet flapper—that’s the most common culprit. Put a few drops of food coloring in the tank; if you see that color show up in the bowl without flushin’, you got a leaky flapper, and it’s costin’ you a fortune. That’s money you could be usin’ for a nice dinner at that little joint by the golf course!

Put the Good Word Out About the New Low-Flow Gadgets

Listen, we ain’t rich. We gotta work smarter. If you’ve been putting off that new shower head, don’t. A low-flow model gives you a better shower with less water, period. But the real game-changer? A toilet tank displacement bottle. Just fill a plastic bottle with water and a little sand, cap it, and put it in your toilet tank, away from the moving parts. It takes up space, meaning your tank fills up with less water per flush. It’s a cheap, easy trick to save gallons every single day.

Community Call to Action:

Don’t keep this to yourself, y’hear? If you got a neighbor with a yellow yard or a leaky faucet, you tell ’em the trick with the food coloring and the bottle. Then, hop on over to the Shelby County Water Services Facebook page and share a picture of your full rain barrel and tag it #FourmileCreekSaves. Let ’em know we’re resourceful and we’re stickin’ together!