The temptation was to ask: So, how often do you mow that van?

Yep, there it was, parked in front of a neighborhood house the other day in all its man-given glory; a work van covered with "grass." Like a lawn. Well, an artificial lawn. Which is what the workers were installing.

The reason for the increasing popularity of this "fake grass" is the necessity to do something about the diminishing water supply aggravated by development, drought and a 3-inch-long fish up north that we're supposed to get all worried about.

And lawns.

Turns out the verdant patches of land found throughout most Southwest County developments guzzle up to 70 percent of the water consumed by a household.

Think about that. A family of four drinking, bathing, washing clothes and dishes, flushing and otherwise turning on the tap typically accounts for less than half the residential usage of this regionally scarce resource.

Of course, there's yet another reason for its scarcity hereabouts. To quote Sam Kinison: "You live in a desert!! Understand that? You live in a -- desert!!"

We could get technical and insist it's only semi-arid, but the average rainfall in Riverside County is put at 10.22 inches and falling. That's a quarter-inch from the benchmark many climatologists use to define desert.

And in the last couple of years we've easily qualified as desert in terms of rainfall.

There are measures we can be take to mitigate the situation.

We could build desalination plants, but the California Coastal Commission thus far stands in the way of that solution in Carlsbad where a proposed plant would produce an estimated 50 million gallons of drinking water a day.

Or we could build more recycled-water plants. Not to worry, they could be for non-drinking purposes. But, even if they weren't, water never goes away. It just changes. Best not ask what that upscale swallow was before nature reinvented it.

Or we could say to heck with the delta smelt, and resume the supply from up north.

Or we could put a halt to sprawling development

Or we could insist on the universal use throughout the state of water meters so that those who use public water pay.

Why, we could even conserve.

Which brings us back to fake grass.

Even though water districts are beginning to offer small rebates for installing artificial turf, much less than a buck a square foot, it costs about $12 a square foot.

Not such a good deal unless you count the savings on your water bill over the life of your mortgage. Even then …

There is a more cost-effective way: Desert-scaping, the more basic, natural, version of the rockscaping so popular in Sun City.

Think of it as the advice given to so many a young girl: Take what you've been given naturally and work with it.

Desert landscaping uses water-stingy native plants and rocks to create striking displays.

You see it popping up around Southwest County and if you drive through Arizona and New Mexico and other arid states you see it everywhere.

And darned if it doesn't look right at home. Imagine that.

There would be homeowners associations with which to contend and, of course, like too many girls these days, adding on trumps nature.

Still, what a concept.

Phil Strickland is a resident of Temecula and a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: philipestrickland@yahoo.com.