Don't have a lawn--the ranch grows right up to our front and back doors. After 30 years of living in homes where we did all of the work of maintaining a yard, I decided I never wanted to mow, mulch, fertilize, water, prune or worry about a lawn again. I now live in our retirement home on a 200 acre ranch. We are still in an "exceptional" drought (the worst there is) and it just burns me up to drive by homes where water is obviously wasted with watering a lawn. The attitude of many is "it's my water, I paid for the well and I will use it like I want". What they don't realize (out here in the country) is that their well may be drawing from the same vein of water that other people are getting water from. So many ranchers have been losing their wells and having to pay to have them drilled deeper. Our well is almost dry and we had to have the livestock removed from the ranch. Fortunately we have invested in a rainwater harvesting system and have a 20,000 gal tank which right now contains about 17,000 gal of water. We can collect about 2400 gal of water with each inch of rain. I conserve like a maniac. My showers consist of getting wet, turning off water and soaping up then turning the water back on for a quick rinse. Haven't mopped the floor in weeks. Only wash laundry when I can fill the washer, etc, etc, etc. I firmly believe that water will be a defining issue of this century and that people aren't going to value it for what it is worth until they are either no longer getting it so cheaply, or they run out.
My apologies for preaching from my soapbox but this is an issue that I am passionate about. Thank you for reading and please appreciate every drop of water that comes out of your faucets!