Roman the plumber

This past election season we all heard about Joe the Plumber. Well, we have our very own icon, and his name is Roman the Plumber, or Roman Bukowinski. Roman and his wife Liz, residents of Birmingham, MI, entertained us all at their home this past Saturday night by taking us on all 3 levels of their home and showing us his gray water and solar heating systems. Roman designed all of this himself, and it is a sight to see. We started at the upper level, in the kids' playroom, and were shown how the house is cooled by radiant tubes in the ceiling. In the basement, he showed how the solar collectors on his roof were integrated into his home radiant heating system. He has installed radiant plex tubes in all 3 floors in the home. Also, he explained his innovative gray water system, pictured below. It takes water from his showers and sinks and cleans it as the water moves through 3 levels of sand filtering containers. He then reuses the water to flush his toilets. (And with 4 young kids, this is a good idea!) He has received approval for this system from the City of Birmingham and is working with the State of Michigan to upgrade the standards for these types of systems. Oh, by the way, the kilt in the picture above is authentic - Roman is Scottish.

Here is a brief video from the evening:

The crash of trash

Our Tuesday group is moving on from our fall topic, energy, and has determined that we want to study the area of recycling. After a bit of discussion, however, we thought 'recycling' was probably the wrong term, and have tentatively broadened the concept to 'no waste'. So it was with great interest today that I found this article on the front page of the New York Times: Back at Junk Value, Recyclables Are Piling Up. The gist of the article is that the value of recyclables has crashed, mainly due to the economic downturn that is causing China's demand for recyclables to dry up. As a result, recyclable materials are piling up with nowhere to go, and in some cases community recycling programs are halting pickup of plastics and paper.

I had a feeling we were heading here. A couple of years ago I had read, improbably, a couple of book on garbage: Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage and Garbage Land: On The Secret Trail of Trash, and here's the message I took from both books: stop consuming so much and reuse what you have consumed. Both books felt that recycling was, at best, a band-aid, and, at worst, a way to delude people into thinking they were environmentalists. So it's interesting to see where our bandwagons for recycling have taken us.

Which brings me to today's point: Maybe we need to start becoming more mindful of what we are consuming and begin thinking about how we can reduce not only what goes into our garbage cans but also what goes into our recycling bins. The yogurt container, pictured above, is a prime example. Years ago when I was reading all of this I read that one thing yogurt eaters can do is to move from individual packs to the larger container - less waste. I took that in, but never switched because my brand was not available in the larger size. Fast forward to last week - I was in need of yogurt but the market I was in did not have small packs, only larger ones. So it forced my hand - I bought the larger size and discovered that I loved this yogurt too. And since my husband and I have been making soups this winter, we'll reuse the containers for freezing soup. I love it when things work out this way.

The 'No-Garbage' Garbage Day

Last Wednesday before heading over to exercise I did what I do every week: pull the garbage can to the curb (like above). When I lifted the can, I noticed that it was pretty light, so I looked inside. For the first time in, say, forever, it was empty. So I went back inside to gather up our garbage and discovered that there wasn't enough to even take out. Hmmmm....

We have been heading in this direction for a while. We have always recycled newspapers and things in the plastics/cans category, but in recent years we've stepped it up a bit. Now, every bit of unuseable paper (and believe me, we use it till it's unuseable) gets recycled. I even keep containers upstairs for paper and plastic recycling lest I'm tempted to take the easy route and throw them away rather than cart them downstairs. It also helps that our recycling center, SOCCRA, now allows all plastics, not just 1's and 2's.

Then we got better at keeping things that were not curb recyclable but could be taken to SOCCRA, such as batteries, paints, coated paper milk and juice cartons, plastic bags, etc. So about once a month we go to SOCCRA and get rid of what we've collected. And you'd be amazed at the number of people who are doing likewise -- it's always crowded when we're there.

The final nail in the garbage coffin was our most recent adaptation to composting. This is something that takes a while to get used to, but once you do, you simply cannot put food scraps into plastic bags any more, thinking of them fermenting in landfills when they could be useful in your garden. We have refined our composting methodology over the past year for maximum benefit (best idea: keep a nice composting bucket on your counter - you will use it).

So there you have one way of becoming a 'no-garbage' garbage day household. As you can see, it just kind of evolves. And just like me, you'll really enjoy not taking the garbage out.

Cold frame gardening

I wanted to share with you some of the cold frames we have come up this fall. The one above is a hoop frame that fits over a lasagna garden. It is made of a 2 x 4 wood frame base with heavy aluminum wire for the hoops, and a medium-weight plastic sheeting as the cover. Pockets were sewn into the plastic (using some fabric for stability) to lace the hoops through, but you can put the plastic over the hoops in many other ways.

The one below is a wood cold frame that is modeled on one the Brennans saw in Williamsburg, VA. It will be placed over a lasagna garden on a south wall. The windows were obtained from the Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit and are hinged for opening.

We are going to experiment with them this winter and see if we can get anything to grow. We hope to see full benefit from them, however, early next spring.

Voting the green way

Yesterday, along with record numbers of others, we voted in the presidential election. It was a historic election for a variety of reasons - our first African-American president, our first post-boomer president, the first real grassroots election utilizing social computing technologies - and all of that was exciting. But for us it also represented a first: the first time we biked to the polls. Amazing! But the weather was unusually warm (70) so we said why not?

In the picture you see me in post-vote mode. Part of the fun of the day was the free stuff that was offered to voters, and I was determined to take advantage of it. After voting we biked a few more miles over to Olga's, who was offering triple coupons for voters. And right nearby was the Starbucks, who offered free coffee to voters. I passed on the free Krispy Kreme doughnuts and free Ben and Jerry's ice cream - after all, there's only so much biking I can do to work off all this free stuff.

Best voting experience ever. And biking in November - priceless.

Radiant Blanket for Cold Ducts

This fall we've been working on winter energy-saving tips, and last week we decided it was time to put one of our ideas into action. We have a forced-air duct system connected to our geothermal system. Our ducts have no insulation, and so are a bit inefficient. In the summer the basement feels cold, and in the winter, quite warm, and a portion of this is due to the fact that the duct system leaks. So Tom found a product called TempShield single bubble white/foil, and hired Dunbar construction to put it up (although you can really do it yourself - just requires stapling). The process took about 1/2 day. The material cost $160, and although it's hard to measure energy savings, we're guessing that it will be in the ball park of 5%.

We'd recommend this if: 1)you run your fan all the time, or 2)your basement is cold.

A Fall Tour

You've got to admit, the picture above doesn't look very fall-ish. And it certainly doesn't look like it comes from anywhere in the midwest. But for those of us lucky enough to be born in Michigan, this scene is familiar. The photo was taken last week, a little outside of Glen Arbor, Michigan, right in the midst of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. The dunes, located on the northwestern side of the lower peninsula, are an incredible natural resource. My daughter, Maureen, and I toured throughout this area last weekend on the Pierce Stocking Drive. Pierce Stocking is the name of a lumberman who worked in Michigan's woods and had a passion for sharing the beauty of the area with others. He planned this drive, saw it open in 1967, and operated it until his death in 1976. The view you see is of Lake Michigan, and is only one of the spectacular outlooks from the drive. The drive is open until Nov. 12 - get out and see it if you can! Here are directions. There is nothing like Michigan in the fall!

Biking the Paint Creek Trail

This past Saturday you may remember as one of Michigan's finer fall days. We took advantage of the beautiful weather with a trip up the Paint Creek Trail. We left in downtown Rochester and got within a few miles of Lake Orion before turning back. If you have never taken this trail, it's worth packing up the bikes and heading over. This is a better surface than the streets - certainly better then the sidewalks - and is cooled by the surrounding greenery.

On the way back, we stopped at the Paint Creek cider mill for cider and doughnuts. The cider mill is located on the trail at Goodison, on Orion Road.

After our ride, we gathered at the park and had a picnic supper. The early evening was exquisite, and we lingered, enjoying a last moment with summer.

Sump Pump Water Use System - John Heasley

Just thought I would post my attempt at putting our sump pump water to practical use while helping to reduce the load on the municipal storm drain.

When our house was originally built the sump pump water discharged unto the lawn about ten feet from the back of the house. The pump would run frequently as the water was being circulated down through the lawn and back into the sump system. Several years ago I installed a 4” underground plastic pipe from the sump pump that discharged directly into the storm drain at the front of the house but in the back of my head this always seemed like a waste of good water.

A few years ago I purchased a plastic 275-gallon container from Clawson Tank for less than $100. This was a used tank that had been steam cleaned. Don’t know if they are still available but you could try.

I then installed 1.5” plastic PVC pipe from the sump pump to the tank and provided a shut off so when the tank is full the water is manually diverted back into the storm drain. I am thinking of adding an overflow drain that would discharge automatically onto the grass.

I started by connecting a garden hose to the tank discharge plugging the end and drilling holes in the hose. The tank is elevated above the garden and I was using gravity feed. I never was able to determine the correct hole size and they kept plugging up otherwise the system worked fine.

This year I purchased a water pump from Northern Tool for about $150. This is a Wayne 120V 1HP sprinkler buster pump item #109258-291. In addition to the pump I also purchased #507510 1”X20” suction hose and #10823 1” foot valve. Very satisfied with the pump performance using a lawn sprinkler purchased at the local hardware store.

This pump can be damaged if run dry so I am using an 115V Little Giant Pump Cut Off Switch purchased from Webb’s Water Gardens. This was about $55 item #566009 and is set to shutdown the pump when the water in the tank is just above the suction foot valve.

I am sure there is a less complicated and cheaper way of accomplishing the same system but just thought I would share what I did. Please feel free to contact me with any questions and if you have any ideas let me know.

More photos below. They are, in order, the cut-off switch, the foot valve, the pump, the top of the tank, the shut-off valve and the sprinkler. Pictured at the top of the post is the tank.

Is environmentalism turning us into cranky people?

I ask this question because I'm beginning to feel a little cranky lately, and think it could be tied to this quest for more environmentally-friendly living. Here's what happened last week. Tom and I took a bike ride over Labor Day weekend to the mall because we both needed new shoes for the fall. Unfortunately for our sales clerk, she had to run into the back room quite a number of times before we found exactly what we were looking for. So before we began checking out, I noticed that her lips were beginning to purse into that eternally-patient look reserved for customers like us. So I really wanted to make the transaction part easy for her. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. She started taking our info for the computer, but Tom asked that we not provide any contact information lest we arrive on their mailing list. Lips pursed a bit more. As she made attempts to get our shoes into a bag, we asked for no bag, that we would take them home in our own bag. This didn't make her any happier. Are we turning into obnoxious customers who want everything just the way they want it - aka cranky people?

Further evidence: Biking on the way home, already feeling guilty about tanking a sales person, we came across a driveway where a car was inching its way forward, ready to make a right turn. The driver, of course, was on his cell phone, and so Tom began calling out to let him know we were passing. Well, he had to call out to the point of an outright shout, and still no response from the driver. We found a way to pass behind him, at which point he finally noticed us, and we gave him the Brennan glare. Pay attention! Yes indeed, we're cranky.

This same week, I was at a Starbucks ordering my standard nonfat latte, and you would think this would be a happy moment for me. Not so. When I put in my order, I noticed that the water in the sink was running full blast rinsing out a blender cannister. No problem there, but the entire time I was waiting for my coffee, the water kept running. Full blast. For someone who has been working at water conservation so intensely over the past year, this was akin to Chinese water torture. I couldn't think about anything but all that water pouring into the sink. And I knew I couldn't just tell the teenager in charge to turn off the water. I just had to watch it. But my happy coffee moment was ruined.

So there you have it - environmentally-induced cranks. I just have to shake my head and wonder how I got here.

A cool roof

This past June we (the Brennans) decided to do something about the heat that causes our second story to heat up so much in the summer. Often we have experienced a 10-degree difference between our upper and lower levels, which makes for uncomfortable sleeping and causes us to use the air conditioner. Tom did a bit of research and found something interesting: radiant barriers for the attic. A radiant barrier for an attic is simply a tarp-like material made of a modified form of aluminum foil that reflects the heat back up and out of the house. It seemed so simple in concept...we had to try it!

There are a couple of ways you can install this layer, and Tom chose to use the technique where the foil is placed over the insulation. So we ordered about 250 feet of Super R Supreme Material from a company called Innovative Insulation Inc and hired Dunbar Construction to install it. The material cost $150 plus shipping.

The results have really been amazing. We have not felt that temp differential while climbing the stairs in the late afternoon and evening. We have been completely comfortable at night. So we give this simple change a big thumbs up!

For additional detail and more pictures, see our Cool Roofs page.

A gray water system in Birmingham

Yesterday a group of us met at the home of Roman Bukowinski in Birmingham to see his gray water system. Roman is a civil engineer and master plumber who moved here 6 years ago from Scotland. He owns a company called Tartan Plumbing, and is building this home in Birmingham that he hopes will become LEED certified. He spent 2 hours showing us some of its features.

In the basement we saw his elaborate gray water system, pictured. He had seen a similar system that cost thousands of dollars, but decided to save money and build his own. The system consists of 3 tiers of bins. The top tier is fed waste water from his showers and sinks. It gets filtered through sand and then is fed down to he next level, where it passes through another layer of sand, and finally through to the bottom layer. He has the system rigged so that the resultant clear water is sent to the toilets, then to holding tanks, and finally outside to water the lawn (through skinny tubes placed under the lawn) and the gardens. He also uses solar tubes (yes, tubes, not panels) on the roof to heat up the water. It really is an amazing feat of engineering. The house is currently under construction, and we want to return to see all of this in action.

Here is Roman describing a bit of his motivation for this project, a little about his radiant heat system, and an explanation of the sand filtering in his gray water system. It's worth seeing, if only to hear his wonderful Scottish burr.

All Creatures Great and Small

One of the changes I've made this summer is more frequent use of my clothesline (it extends from the garage wall to a nearby tree). It has helped that the weather has been so cooperative, but even on cloudy days I've been drying, for the most part, outside. I acquired an old metal table from my girls a month ago - one that my mother used to use to fold her clothes - and Tom put it outside for me so I had a place to fold and didn't have to bend down so much.


The other day I went outside and dumped a big pile of wet clothes on the table so I could hang them up, and I found this nice grasshopper in the middle of the table, apparently unperturbed by the wet mass next to him because he never moved. At first I thought he might be dead, but I bent down to introduce myself and his little antennae twitched. Hmm. Anyway, I continued making conversation and folding piles all around him, and the little bugger (sorry) simply stayed put.

I took a close-up of him in case any of you think I might be mistaken as to his species - I'm not an insect person. Let me know, because I believe in truth in blogs.

By the way, he did eventually leave after I did - no more of the stimulating conversation, I suppose. But isn't it nice to be able to do laundry on a beautiful day surrounded by flowers and friendly insects?

Failure

Alas, not all goes as smoothly as my previous post. We are on our 3rd year of a chemical-free lawn, and all is not well. We have weeds everywhere, including large sections of crabgrass and clover. Bummer. But we have no one to blame but ourselves. After receiving instruction from Dale at Uncle Luke's on an organic lawn program, we developed our own modified program which I'll call benign neglect. Over the past 3 years, we have put down only a couple of applications of corn gluten and a couple of chicken manure. And it worked for the last couple of years - the lawn looked beautiful.

Last summer, however, we experienced a drought, and here's where I think we went wrong. First, in order to conserve water, we watered only minimally. This produced the right conditions (dry lawn with bare patches) for weeds to grow. Second, we didn't follow the organic lawn program, so the weeds pretty much made themselves at home.

So now I have called in the Mounties - Mike at Mike's Tree Surgeons - and we are doing an intervention. He will need to use chemicals to restore the lawn up through next summer, and then we'll go on his organic program and see if we have better results. He also told us to water more frequently through August to build the lawn back up again. The majority of these weeds are in the front lawn, so he also suggested we put a tree in and develop a garden bed, so as to shade the lawn and minimize space we'll have to use chemicals. We'll put one in this fall.

I'm writing this because I think it's important that people realize that some things will work and some may not. Please remember that I'm not suggesting that an organic lawn care program won't work, but I can assure you that benign neglect will not be your answer.

Native gardening

A couple of years ago we began covering half of our back lawn with leaves and wood chips and planting a woodlands area with mostly native Michigan species. This year we have seen the fruits of our labors. It has been a show all summer, and we have never watered once. Now, I'll admit that it has been a pretty wet year, but even so, or annuals still need watering. But not our native area! I can honestly say it has been maintenance-free. I know I can say that because I hold a special attraction for mosquitos, so I don't even go out to weed after early July.

The picture below shows the border between my 'traditional' perennial bed on the left and the rain garden on the right. I don't know if you can see it from the photo, but the rain garden plants are about 2-3 feet taller than the traditional ones. Our milkweed plants must be 7 ft this year. We're loving the rain!

Wall-E and the watch

Can I tell you a story from my honeymoon? I promise, it will relate to Wall-E and the watch. 30 years ago, right about this time of the year, my husband and I were motoring down to Florida for our honeymoon. He had just purchased his first new car - a Dodge Omni - and he decided that he wanted to see what kind of mileage he could get if he left the air conditioning off. Which was fine until we entered the 'hot' states of Georgia and Florida. No pleading from his new wife could dissuade him from testing his new vehicle. Why, oh, why, I thought, did I marry an engineer? And a stubborn Irish one at that.

Fast-forward 30 years. Improbably as it may seem after that story, we are still married. The Dodge Omni and the mileage experiment are gone, but, in its place, is a new project: adapting to a greener lifestyle. It may not surprise you that he is going full guns, and I am limping along, sometimes begrudgingly. I don't mind experiments and changes, but if they impact my lifestyle, not so much. So I'm hoping I sound like the typical consumer, and you can relate.

Anyway, here's where the watch comes in. I have had the same $39 Fossil watch for many, many years. The leather band has broken twice (worn through), and both times when I suggest that I can just throw it away and get a new one, Tom has said, 'No problem! We can take it to the watch repair shop and get the band replaced.' Which we have done. Now, however, I have noticed that the little number 9 on my watch has dislodged and is resting next to the '12'. Uh-oh! Time for a replacement! When I made the mistake of mentioning this to the stubborn engineer, he of course said, 'No problem...' and you know the rest. This time, though, I thought he had gone too far. We are not impoverished! We can afford a new $39 Fossil watch!

Then we went to see Wall-E, a movie about the a trash-compacting robot alone on a desolate earth (except for one cockroach) in the year 2700. Humans have been evacuated to a temporary space station, because the earth is covered with trash and the skies are so polluted they cannot sustain life. Watching the movie, I thought of all the landfills I have passed that are the size of small mountains. I though of the phrase: There is no 'away.' And I thought that the movie may not be all that presumptuous in its premise.

So we're heading to the watch repair shop - again. The dump doesn't need another piece of electronics, and maybe the watch repair man could use the business. The engineer was right again. But just don't push me too far.

Gasoline crack of history

It recently occurred to me that my husband and I have been sharing a car for the past 2 months. It also occurred to me that it hasn't been much of a problem. When our son came home from college this spring, we told him he could use our second car for work, and we would borrow it from him when it was needed. And, aside from moving our daughters into a new place, we haven't had to borrow it. I find that kind of interesting. We have discussed going down to one car before - after all, we are 'retired' (in the loosest sense of that term). But it has never been seriously considered. Now I'm beginning to think about it.

How are we getting by with one car? Bikes and buses. If we can bike anywhere, we usually do. Today Tom biked a couple of miles to Big Beaver, where he picked up a bus heading downtown (to United Way in Detroit). He puts his bike on the front of the bus and uses it while downtown. I biked to exercise and back. We have been doing this for a couple of years now, and now it just seems natural to get out and bike places -- and we're always looking for another way to get in some exercise.

This past week we also celebrated our 30th anniversary, and instead of taking another long-distance trip (last year we went to Wales), we decided to stay local and do things we enjoy. Who knew it would be so much fun to tour the DIA, have tea at Greenfield Village's Cotswold Cottage, see Manhattan Transfer at the Power Center in Ann Arbor, or enjoy a beautiful morning eating breakfast outdoors at Zola's? We agreed that it was just as much fun as traveling, and without some of the hassle. We do enjoy seeing new places and visiting different countries, but we were surprised at how much fun a local vacation was.

So with all this lifestyle adaptation we are just beginning, I read something yesterday that really struck me. I was finishing up the book, Second Nature - A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan (really excellent by the way), and I came across this quote by a man named J.L. Hudson (no, not our J.L. Hudson): "We have only a brief moment in history when fossil fuels will continue to allow us rapid worldwide travel. Let us use this time wisely." He refers to a quote from a man named William Burroughs: "Migrants of ape in gasoline crack of history." Is this true? Do we live in a 'gasoline crack of history'? Is life as we know it quite fleeting, and will the age of easy global exploration one day be a thing of the past? It reminded me of a discussion we heard while on the above-mentioned trip to Wales, all about peak oil. Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum production is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. No one really know when peak oil will be reached - some say it has already come - but the main point was that if we want to do research on other sources of energy, doing it before peak oil, when we are still flush with money, makes sense.

So anyway, all of this is swimming around in my mind when I hopped off my bike this morning and entered the community center to exercise. I almost passed an elderly woman who looked at me and spoke in a thick accent, saying: "Good for you." I wasn't quite sure what to say, but soon it occurred to me that she might have seen me get off my bike, so I said thank you. Then she said: "If everyone did what you're doing, we wouldn't have so so much pollution in the air. I used to ride everywhere, but here they don't want me to." Given her age and the fact that our city isn't the most bike-friendly, I understand what she was saying. But what a shame. I have a feeling that if she were to be born 100 years later, she might receive a different message.

Using that rain barrel water

With all the rain we've been having lately, I'm assuming all those rain barrels we sent out from the Rain Barrel BBQ are full to the brim and providing you with all the water you need. This week I took advantage of the heat and washed my car and my bike with rain barrel water. As you can see from the picture, I washed the car on the lawn so the excess water would drain into the ground and not into the sewer system (where it would have to be processed). Here's how I do it: I dump 2 buckets on the car to do an initial rinse, fill a bucket with soapy water, wash, and dump 2 more buckets for the final rinse.

This is my third season with a rain barrel, and I can see my mind set shifting a bit. At first, I wasn't too sure I liked the idea of lugging buckets of water over to my plants, bird baths, cars, etc. It seemed like more work. But I did it because I was not tapping into our house water system and that felt good.

Now, however, 3 years in, I'm finding that lugging buckets is no big deal. Of course, I've learned to make sure the buckets aren't too big, and if I have to make more trips, what's the hurry anyway? This year, it also occurred to me that when I use rain water I don't have to disentangle my hose and haul it around the yard. I never liked that either. The water is also pleasantly warm, not chilly like hose water -- much nicer when washing the car. I'm also grateful for my rain barrel when rinsing out my compost buckets. I feed the residue to my plants.

So, like everything, this is a process. I'm sure many of you have come up with unique ways to use your water that wouldn't have occurred to me. I'll post them with pictures if you'd like to share your ideas.

Michigania Bulb Project

How many GLGI-ers does it take to change 2,000 light bulbs over the course of 2 days at Camp Michigania? Looks like about 8 -- Denny and Dorothy Voss, Tom and Helen Bradley, Don and Mitzi Carter and Tom and Peggy Brennan (actually, Peggy counted for only 1/2 a person cause she came up with a bad back and had limited range). So 7 1/2. Plus the invaluable help of Shannon O'Laughlin, of Michigania's staff, and 2 recruits from the batch of kids up there - Anna and Michell.

We actually changed about 1,850 bulbs, but we're not going to split hairs -- it was quite a job! We quickly developed a system: For each building, we assigned 2 bulb removers, 2 putter-inners (should be a better word for that), a trouble shooter for those tricky bulbs (read:corrosion), someone on the outdoor bulbs, quality control (checked to see if they all worked), and organizers on both ends (someone opening boxes and sending them in, and someone on the other end recycling old bulbs and packaging). Sometimes it looked like a goat rodeo, but for the most part we operated like a well-oiled machine. Not only well-oiled, but well-fed.

For those who have not followed this project, a little background: The purpose was to change the entire camp from incandescent bulbs to CFL's, which are 10x more efficient. Over the life of the bulbs, the camp will save over a million tons of carbon and over $100,000 in electricity costs. The picture below shows the boxes of bulbs that greeted us upon arrival.

We did a little video in one cabin...

Hypermiling Challenge

OK, at today's Tuesday meeting we talked about an article Mitzi brought in on hypermiling, which is a technique for improving gas mileage utilizing specific driving techniques. Hypermilers are people who exceed EPA fuel efficiency standards with their cars by using these techniques. Here are some:
* Do not use quick accelerations or brake heavily
* Do not idle excessively
* Do not drive at higher speeds
* Cold weather and frequent short trips reduce fuel economy, since your engine doesn't operate efficiently until it is warmed up. Drive to your furthest destination first and then as you are heading home, stop at the closer destinations in order from furthest to closest as the car is warmed up for longer portions of your drive.
* Remove Cargo or cargo racks
* Minimize running mechanical and electrical accessories (source: Beating the EPA: The Whys and How to Hypermile])

We own a Prius with a screen that gives us real-time fuel efficiency, so we have automatically adopted some of these techniques because we can see the results on the screen. But the interesting thing about hypermiling is that it applies to ALL cars, not just hybrids. All of us can see significant mileage increases if we adopt a few of these guidelines.


So here's the challenge our group will be taking on this weekend. Some of us will be driving up north to work on the Michigania Bulb Project, and some will be driving to Illinois. We have all agreed to drive 60 MPH on the way there and 70 MPH on the way back and compare mileage. We're going to relax and take our time, and see what we come up with.

Rain Barrel BBQ 2008

A few pictures from Saturday's Rain Barrel BBQ in the Green Garage.

The group at work.


A young driller.


Suzanne with her new barrel.

Preparing Rain Barrels

A few pictures from Friday, May 16 -- getting the rain barrels ready for Saturday's Rain Barrel BBQ.

Homemade Compost

We started collecting our food scraps about 1 1/2 years ago. We threw all of our fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, tea and coffee leaves and sometimes a paper towel or two into our compost bin in the backyard. Sometimes we put in discarded plant material (but not weeds), leaves and grass. We never stirred it, mixed it, or did anything else to it like you are supposed to if you are a master composter. In fact, as the winter progressed and our bin got fuller and fuller, I was beginning to wonder if we might need to get with the program and do it the right way. I just wasn't seeing any evidence of the black gold we were supposed to harvest.

So I was surprised and relieved when Tom took down the sides of the bin, dug beneath the top layers, and pulled out some lovely compost (do the words 'lovely' and 'compost' go together?). The picture above shows the compost beneath the current top layers, and the picture below shows it on its way down to our lasagna gardens.

Now that I know that this works - particularly when using the dump-and-leave technique - I am re-energized and re-committed to our food scrap recycling process. It's nice to know we aren't dumping our food and plant waste into our water system, but instead are using it in our yard. I love it when it all comes together like this!

Building Lasagna Gardens at Marygrove

On Tuesday, April 28th, a group of us met with a group of volunteers from Marygrove College in Detroit to help them build the frame for their first lasagna garden. A lasagna garden is a raised bed garden full of layers of organic matter that grow huge vegetables with little watering or weeding (for more details see our Lasagna gardening page). Marygrove is currently clearing out dead ash trees, so there was an abundant supply of wood. The wood was cut to fit a 4 X 6 garden. We stacked the logs on top of each other and put stakes in the ground to hold the logs in place. We'll return in a couple of weeks to fill the garden and help plant the plants. Martha is jumping over the finished garden, below.

For a video showing the pounding of the final stake (and to hear Delphine's fine singing voice), see below...

Vacationing without a car 2

Our goal in Washington DC was to locate close to public transportation, and Tom found a great hotel right across the street from the subway. DC has a wonderful subway system, and we had no problem using it to get our luggage to the hotel, and then on our daily adventures. I had a flashback to our time on the subways in Tokyo.

In Williamsburg we stayed at Kingsmill, a resort about 4 miles from Colonial Williamsburg. Tom had found a bike rental place ahead of time, so on our first full day there we hopped on the Kingsmill shuttle, and they dropped us off to pick up our bikes. You might notice from the picture that my bike was rigged with a piece of cardboard on the back (no fender - I wanted mud protection) and a nice little basket in the front. The owner of the shop was happy to accommodate my requests. It was wonderful biking to and from our destination, and we really got a great cardiovascular workout from a couple of strategically placed hills.

I will say that we, as bikers in Colonial Williamsburg (and Kingsmill), were definitely an oddity. We did see a few other people biking, but it was unusual. That surprised me. The place is huge and it's nice to traverse it by bike.

One thing that posed a challenge for us: eating. Since we were there for a week, we wanted to buy groceries, and not eat out all the time. Kingsmill did not have a grocery nearby, and we did not encounter one on our 4-mile rides to Williamsburg. So we fired up the computer and made use of Google maps...and found a store about a mile out on the other side of the colonial area - no problem on a bike.

So my main message about a carless vacation is that it's a lot of fun, but it requires flexibility and a bit of work. We're scheduled to do the same thing again next year. We've already inked it in.

Vacationing without a car

Tom and I recently returned from another trip without a car, and we really loved it. We wanted to get to Williamsburg, VA, and decided to take the Amtrak train. The whole thing is a process, certainly not as easy as driving, but train travel has its rewards. Here's how we did it: First, we found out that we would have a short stopover in Washington DC, so we decided to take advantage of it, and we simply extended the layover to a few days of sightseeing. So the trip became a 2-city vacation. And who can resist a trip to the capitol?

The next obstacle: we found out that we had to board the train in Toledo....at midnight (boarding it in Detroit would take us to DC via Chicago). No problem - we were up for an adventure. We took a bus from Ann Arbor and arrived at the terminal in Toledo to discover that the train was an hour late, so we boarded at 1 AM. We were in a sleeper, which meant we had a tiny room - and let me emphasize the word tiny - and it was a goat rodeo figuring out how to undress and get into our little bunks. But we managed - sleep was a powerful incentive. We actually slept pretty well. Do you have any memories of your mother rocking you to sleep? Not quite like that, but you are rocking.

Now let me tell you some wonderful things about train travel. The next morning we woke up, showered (!) and headed for breakfast in the dining car. We shared a table with a nice couple traveling out to their daughter's wedding. Yes, people actually seem to like each other on trains, as opposed to how we barely tolerate each other on planes. The atmosphere is so relaxed, mainly due to the fact that on a train the one thing you have a lot of, in addition to leg room, is time. So we shared a leisurely breakfast and then went back to our little room to find the beds had disappeared and in their place were 2 comfy chairs with pillows. Due to some very admirable engineering, the bottom bunk transformed in the daytime to chairs, and we saw that the top bunk had been sort of pushed up and attached to the ceiling. So, given the fact that we had had an abbreviated night, we fell asleep and awoke just in time for lunch. We arrived at Washington DC's Union Station refreshed and full. When was the last time that happened to you while traveling by plane or car?

This is getting long....the next post will describe how we got around once we arrived in DC and Williamsburg.

Lasagna Season Extension

Spring is finally arrived, and gardeners all around Michigan are waiting for the soil to warm and dry up, so they can start planting. But look: raised beds (aka Lasagna Gardens) warm quickly and while they keep moisture, they won't be soggy. So, with the help of a little plastic tunnel, I already started my cool season veggies...

This neat raised bed is waiting for some seedlings. It is nice enough to be in the front of the house, ... but it has been my compost pile during the winter. Lasagna Gardening wonders!

--[[User:Erica|erica]] 09:53, 14 Apr 2008 (EDT)

Kill-A-Watt

Our Tuesday group has been studying energy for a while now. We first looked at worldwide energy use, then carbon, then light bulbs, and now we are settled on energy in the home. Our goal: a 10% reduction in our energy bills (gas and electric) by next year at this time. First, we looked at how energy use is distributed in our homes, and we examined our gas and electric bills. We started with the chart above, from Energy Star.


Now we're trying to figure out how much energy we use in the various appliances in our homes, such as our refrigerators, computers, washing machines, etc. Our group has 2 Kill-A-Watts, above, which we are passing around and using all around our homes. You plug it into your wall socket, plug your device in, and it will tell you how many watts the device is using. The results can be surprising, as you can see in this video.

Another rain barrel class

On Saturday, March 1, we conducted another rain barrel presentation, this time at the Clinton-Macomb Public Library. We didn't build a barrel at this one, only talked about them and brought one along so everyone could see it. It was a small but very interested group, and the size made for great discussions.

On another topic, I ran across this cartoon today while reading the No Impact Man blog, and thought you would all appreciate it. Credit for the cartoon goes to Eric Lewis of Cartoon Bank.

Green Garage has guests (already!)

We all know that the Green Garage is not yet fit for human occupancy, but from Feb. 20-23 we hosted a biosand filter class for about 20 people. Our friends, John and Eileen Heasley, work with the Troy Rotary Club to provide Biosand Water Filters to people in need of clean water around the world. They wanted to host a biosand filter training class but could not find a building that fulfilled the requirements of meeting place AND physical workshop with water access. Our place fits both criteria, and so, even though the building is still in its rustic state, these intrepid warriors met for 5 days, braving loud blowers from the heaters, cold floors and a pretty primitive bathroom. But these are folks who are willing to travel to 3rd-world countries to teach people how to develop their own clean water, so they were the right group for the setting. And we couldn't have been happier to see real people using the building...an enticing vision of things to come.