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...