Archive for the ‘Conservation’ Category

Rain Barrels

23 May 2010

I made four rain barrels this weekend. I bought 4 second-hand 55-gallon white plastic drums, washed them out (they had car wash soap in them originally), cut off the tops, and installed a sill cock in each. Flipping over the cut-off tops made a good top for them. When they’re flipped over, they have a concave surface. I drilled four 1 3/8″ holes in the tops to let the water in and just directed the downspouts onto the inverted top. Put one or two big rocks on top to hold down the lid (and the barrel until they get some water in them).

I have three of them in place. I had to either figure out how to handle overflow, or move them away from the house so overflow wouldn’t matter. One of the objects is still to get water away from the house.

I still like the idea of having an open one — makes it easier to clean out my coffee ground collection buckets — so I made an overflow from one of them into the 32-gallon trash can I’ve been using to catch rainwater.

Here are pictures of two of them:

Sweet corn, sunflowers, collards (first and second rows), kale, swiss chard are all up. Planted second row of sweet corn in west bed.

It was about 90 degrees F today — very summery for May. Tomorrow’s supposed to be similar.

Posted in Conservation, Gardening, Water | Leave a Comment »

10,000 Foot View

30 April 2010

Think of the oil spill in the Gulf from a 10,000 foot view. Think of the pathetic humans shouting and scuttling about, trying to control what they’ve released. Think of the life damaged and dieing, all for human greed and hubris, all so we may live our rich little lives of luxurious banality.

One can’t help but feel that we’re getting desperate now, caught between our need for the energy to sustain our lifestyle and the harm that getting and using that energy causes the world. “Oh shit, but we can’t stop….”

Posted in Conservation, Peak Oil | Leave a Comment »

Electricity

11 March 2009

We’re trying to reduce our electricity usage for several reasons:

  • It costs money and we’re learning frugality
  • It won’t be as cheap or reliable in the future, so we’re learning to do without it before we have to do without it
  • We want to use no more than our global share; we want equity of resource use with the world. It’s just right.
  • More electricity used means more coal used which means more mercury in our water and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Wisconsin produces about 60% of its electricity from coal-burning power plants).

What we’ve done to reduce electricity use:

  • We’re burning wood instead of using the furnace (the fan on the furnace uses quite a bit of  electricity)
  • We put a blanket on our water heater (we had already turned down the temperature on our water heater for child safety)
  • We’re trying to use less hot water by:
    • Washing hands in cold water
    • Rinsing washed dishes in cool water
    • Taking shorter, cooler showers. This is the toughest one for me in the Winter.
  • We put power strips on the television, stereo, battery chargers, shut them off at night and turn them on when they’re next needed.
  • Aggressively turn out lights

We started making this effort last fall. For October through December, we received one bill, which averaged 521 kWh/month. January was 549 kWh and February was 613 kWh. I was happy with 521 kWh, but we don’t know why it’s going up since then.

What we plan to do:

  • This Spring we’ll be moving our freezer from the garage to the basement. The garage gets hot in the summer, the basement doesn’t. Of course, the basement is also warmer than the garage in the Winter, but I think there will be a net savings. I also want to consider gradually phasing out the freezer by doing more canning. There are also much more efficient models than the one we have now.
  • Minimize A/C use
  • Put a timer on the water heater. Could shut it completely off for at least 6 hours a day.
  • Make a solar shower for summertime use in the back yard.

Posted in Conservation, Electricity, Energy | Leave a Comment »