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!