As I sit here looking out the window at all the snow, reading about how hard the Midwest is getting hit with the storms...

1) Click here: Pedal-A-Watt Stationary Bike Power Generator and page down to get to the actual text and info. Very interesting stuff... you can buy it assembled or get the plans and build your own (or both...)

Definitely looking that over, although we'd probably go with getting the plans first, and go from there.

2) Crank LED Lanterns for your camping and emergency needs. Good for if you want to save electricity when doing some basic tasks around the house too. Great for the folks with asthma!

One lantern
Another lantern
And one more

There were a couple of the Coleman ones at the family Christmas gathering that we were all messing around with - easy to crank, brighter than you might expect, and IIRC, cranking for a minute gives you an hour of light.

****
Well, didn't stay off the PC completely yesterday, just off email. Read an interesting article on dopamine and a study they did with monkeys, measuring dopamine levels while giving them juice. Seems that while dopamine levels shoot up or down when the amount of juice is increased or decreased, once the amount stabilizes between feeding times, so does the dopamine level. The article went into quite a bit of detail on how our brains work on remembering positive things and memory-related stuff... positive feedback means you'd like to do it again (food, sex, sports, internet, information, entertainments, etc.).

Problem is that a person can want too much of something. Living in a society with so many stimuli, the body weakens the dopamine receptors to damp some of it out. Then a person may want more stimulus -- kind of like a drug addict - at first it feels good, then one needs more in order to just feel normal.

Which can make diets, cutting back on things that use electricity, driving, etc., more difficult. The best intentions can be undercut by the crash from the lack of stimuli one is used to. Like being on the PC... I should have asked L to move the loom sooner, but checked out the blogs I usually check instead. I did have him move it later though, and did do quite a bit of weaving yesterday - 20" on a scarf!

***
So, weather wasn't great yesterday so I stayed indoors. Did Tai Chi (Yang 24-form), PT, walked/jogged in the apartment, read more of William James (it was right after that book that I got online), cooked, looked out the window, meditated, and started research on the next Ogham letter. Haven't heard back on the art/book project, but I want to learn more about the Ogham anyway.

fitzw made more linguini with our new pasta maker; large batch this time. I set up the drying rack and helped with hanging them up to dry.

We've only used the pasta maker once before this, a few weeks ago. They take a little while to make as the dough needs a lot of conditioning before it holds together properly. Conditioning is running the dough through the pasta maker ~25 times at a wider setting. He made a few noodles, then he tried out conditioning several pieces and letting them rest. Then he went back to the first conditioned piece and made it into noodles -- this seems to work pretty well.

Homemade noodles take time to make, and they are only good for 7-10 days. Which makes you wonder a little about the ones in the stores.... although that could just be really good commercial dehydration. Anyway, they do take time to make, but they are _incredibly good_. The texture and the taste are simply better. Richer, fuller, almost buttery smooth, even though there's no butter in them, just eggs and flour. Yum....

Going back to the dopamine thing, I'm thinking one of the reasons that changes in diet and lifestyle can be hard to keep up -- what's new needs to be sufficient to replace the old ways and old comforts. Hm, maybe it's time for me to start up some other projects again... in the winter it's more difficult for me to keep busy, since there are still things I can't do, or in weather like today, can't do right at the moment. I can still only do so much reading at a time (although I do pretty well reading aloud to L in the car), and weaving is also a limited activity. Even painting and drawing have limits... probably why I end up on the PC so much right now. And time to get back to playing cards and backgammon and such too!

One of the new habits I'm trying to develop is changing up my activities every hour or so. Each activity uses the body in a different way, tiring different sets of muscles while resting others. I have it down pretty well for summertime, but not for winter. It's actually a healthier way to live, for anyone not just me.

***
We did strength testing at PT this morning, and I did pretty well on most of them. The failures were pretty dramatic, and made me laugh because of the contrast between the successes and failures. ROM is good and continuing to improve, but I have a lot of work to do on the mid and lower traps. Learned a new stretch today and got reminded of another one that I should still be doing (probably forever, since it's for the forearms and I use them a lot).

Today, I have some ground beef (grass-fed) defrosted and also some of the tomato puree from this past summer's garden. We'll be having a lovely homemade marinara and linguini for dinner tonight.... Yum!!

I was asked why I left out heating and cooling in my post yesterday. The post was already pretty long, and I did cover some of that in my point on insulation. But for the curious, we don't have our heat set as low as Sharon A and many others. It's usually set at 64F, although it tends to be warmer in here, at least during the day because of the southern exposure along the length of one side of the house. I have a 20-year-old cat and I'm not about to freeze her little feet off. As it is, she lives next to the radiators most of the time right now, with occasional bits of exercise thrown in on sunnier days (or after snuggling with one of us). When Roz was a little younger we could have it at 62F. Shades are up during the day for some passive solar, and down at night -- even the flimsy shades make a difference.

In hot weather, if it's cool enough at night we have windows open to let out accumulated heat, then close them next day when the temp hits around 74-76F. Shades are drawn, of course. In the valley we used a couple of fans to move air around the house. No central AC. The AC only got used on days when the air quality was really bad, because I have asthma. One of the reasons we moved up to the hills is that the air is better up here, and also drier in the summer, at least in comparison to the valley. The hope is that I won't need AC here, with the lower humidity and low chance of smog.

Unfortunately insulation can't do anything about pollution, but it is still useful in stabilizing house temperature, for those trying to cut down on energy used on heating/cooling, and is a long-term permanent fix, depending on how you're insulating (some of mine is mutable, since I do things like changing out winter clothing for summer clothing being stored against the walls).

***
Moving of stuff out of the sugarhouse continues, a little bit at a time. Cut out some sheep and rat bodies, need to cut more today, and get them lined up for sewing. Need to find a painting or two I wanted to work on. More reading to do too, if only a little bit.

***
Found this quote over at Doonesbury:

"I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."
-- Mike Huckabee

Really, Mike? And what else would you like to do to screw with the Constitution? I have an idea... move somewhere else! Grrrr

***
Time's up, gotta get off the PC. Have a great day everyone!

WMECO's Connection to Mountain Top Mining

So, was poking around on Sierra Club after I'd been reading all the stuff in the news about coal plants, and ended up at the above site, where I could find out if the electric company our service comes from has any connections to mountain top mining companies. Unfortunately, yes. In Holyoke our city had its own dam (with a fully functional fish elevator too), so we were pretty happy, but now.... could be worse I suppose.... Mass Electric (as opposed to Western Mass Electro/WMECO) is connected to _three_ coal mines. Still, it's pretty ugly what strip mining has done to these places. The main company at fault is Massey, which has just settled on the claims -- $20 million in penalties, and $10 million for development and installation of preventive/cleaning measures. The largest penalty awarded yet, and yet it could have been a lot more, especially had they not settled. OTOH, the company has plenty of other suits and court cases still pending.... I hope they get hit up for a lot more $$, because what they've done to the environment and all the communities in WV, Virginia, and some other states is simply hideous.

Folks can plug in their zip codes and find out about their power companies, at the above site.

I'll be writing to my reps, etc. tomorrow.... and now have even more motivation to cut down on electricity use. We're trying to anyway, but I can't stand the thought of contributing more to what's happened in West Virginia -- regardless of who is responsible for taking care of the talings, toxins, etc. If we all didn't use so much electricity, the coal industry couldn't use it as a reason for trying to build new coal plants all over the country.

Currently the coal industry provides a bit over 50% of electricity in the U.S. The Bush Admin types are predicting it'll go up to 60% down the line. Coal also 'provides' 2 billion tons of CO2, or about 1/3 of the CO2 output for the U.S.

Of course there is the battle between several environmental groups, as well as communities, to try to stop building of new coal plants. Some people object to 'indiscriminately' objecting to coal plants, whether or not the plant plans have any sort of scrubbing equipment included. Some plans have been scrapped either because of community or even state-wide protest, others because the proposers realized that it would simply cost too much to build the plant.

It's too simple of course, to say "Well, let's all just cut our electrical use by 50%!". Too simple because some individuals are already using 50% or less than what the average American uses, so you wouldn't see a huge savings on demand there. If most people here who fit the average profile were willing to cut their use by 50%, that would certainly have an effect. Of course if the rich folks cut their use by 90%, some of them would still be above average use -- but it would help a lot! But some places really can't cut back a whole lot -- hospitals for instance, or schools during school hours.

Although, if all hospitals, schools, police and fire stations (all necessary services) were to be upgraded in their insulation, electrical wiring, and other energy-saving measures, that would still make a measurable difference.

Not that I expect all that to happen, of course. But, in theory, we could almost entirely eliminate the need for coal plants... in the mean time, L and I will work on using less electricity, I've re-joined Sierra Club to help out with them raising funds to country the coal industry's lobbyists, writing my congress people, etc.

Sierra Club spent $1 million on stopping/slowing them down last year, and hopes to spend $10 million this year -- this is in response to the coal industry's $15 million last year and projected $35 million this year. You know, if they put that money into re-vamping and cleaning up the 600 plants already in existence..... sigh.

***
Meantime, there's an experiment in a few months that will be happening in southeast Washington state, to drill three narrow wells down 3,000 - 4,000 feet down into the basalt, where they're going to try putting in liquid CO2. The scientists believe that even if any of it made it out of where they're going to put it (if there's a crack in the basalt), it won't get very far (about the length of a football field, I think the article said).

The combination of the depth/pressure and the basalt should keep the liquid CO2 there long enough that it solidifies into lime rock. And it would do it as a natural process. There would still be the cost of capturing/liquifying/transporting the stuff, but if this storage system works, they're going to recommend it for places like the Southeast, which have the deep down basalt and very few storage options, to build containment units such as this right next to the power plants.

Yes, yet another post today....

The Massachusetts Senate is currently discussing something called the Green Communities Act, which is supposed to support greener energies, etc. Some members of the senate are trying to get coal gasification added in as a project that the state would promote/support -- without any mention of carbon capture or sequestration. One 80-year-old plant in Somerset has apparently been brought up as part of the discussion. I don't have information on whether this plant, like the one near Mt. Tom, has worked on installing scrubbers and other cleaning equipment or not, but from what I can tell, that doesn't seem to be the case (not that the local one is perfect, but they've worked very hard at reducing their carbon emissions over the years).

Don't know if it'll do any good, but I've written to the governor and to my Senator (Stan Rosenberg) to express my opinion.

One of the reasons we moved up into the hills is because the air quality is better here. But if we keep upping the pollution levels, there won't be a place on Earth where people with breathing issues will be safe. Many plants die from the toxic air that already exists in some places around here (just ask lady_jade_01 about their vegetable garden from this past summer).

I've just about had it with government in general, but Stan Rosenberg has generally been a stand-up guy over the years, so I'm not ready to write him off yet. Maybe some other Massachusetts folks who read my LJ feel the same way about their senators and/or the governor.

If you'd like to write to your state senator, you can get contact information here:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/memmenus.htm

If you'd like to write the governor, you can do that here:
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov3utilities&sid=Agov3&U=Agov3_contact_us
(page down to where there's a blank email form you can fill in)

1) We're getting both snow and icey stuff today. Something we've discovered is that leaving some snow on the ground is a good thing if you're expecting freezing rain or other slippery things -- easier to remove afterward, than trying to remove ice from the sidewalk or driveway. Most northern folks may already know this, but just in case....

2) Came up with another way to insulate the walls, if you can't put holes of any kind in your walls, but have some spare poles/boards (or friends who do). I posted that over at lady_jade_01's blog this morning. Addition to my post to her blog -- if you have baseboard radiators, make sure fabric/blankets are at least 1 foot above them -- fire hazard.

3) Cheap humidifiers -- wet/damp (wet but not dripping wet) towel hanging on the four-poster's frame (powder-coated metal). It's dry in the north in winter time, and I have asthma plus my father's fair northern skin -- my Chinese mom seems to have fewer issues with low humidity, but I only got my ability to tan from her. Or a wet towel in the bathroom and leave the door open (we always leave it open after we shower too). Or hang it on a sturdy hanger and find someplace to put the hanger -- our doors are all wood, so we can't hang anything on them that will come into contact with the wood. Or even jumbled up in a bowl, because the water will evaporate more quickly from fabric than just a plain bowl of water -- wicking action.

Another one is plants -- I both water _and_ mist mine. Misting being an area of effect thing, the livingroom gets a misting as well. Hm, may be time to start misting the curtains -- hey, if they're machine washable there's no reason you can't get them damp between cleanings.

Another good one, if you have the old-style radiators, is to put bowls of water on them. The cats may drink from one or two, but....

Another one: make tea -- get extra moisture in the air from heating the water (and a little extra heat in your space too).

4) Another insulation tip. If you can't cover the windows, roll up towels and lay them in at the base of the frames -- any draft kept out is money saved. Doorstoppers are good too, although we've found they're most useful if you're staying in for a while and at night. Really can't put them in place when there's a lot of traffic or you're all out on errands/working/at school.

If you live in a _really drafty place, consider putting any spare summer clothing, sheets, towels, etc. along the bottom of any wall exposed to outside air -- this includes the wall that lets onto the shared hallway, for those folks living in apartments. You can even use winter clothing and winter bed sheets this way, at least part of the time -- just bag things before putting them on the floor against the wall.

5) Stews and soups are starting to look better, aren't they? Heat for the room while you're making them, wonderful smells to enjoy, and longer-lasting warmth inside after eating them :)

6) Layers of clothing are good of course, because whether for monetary reasons or environmental reasons, many of us in colder climes are trying to not use as much fuel as before. Hats and fingerless gloves are great. Although I don't usually wear a hat myself. I've found that if I keep my feet/legs warm, in addition to a sweater or two, that counts for a lot. So, wool socks, fleece slippers/shoes/boots, or instead of the really warm footwear -- legwarmers. I have some leftover from my old dancing days, and one new pair I got last year -- when I'm cold I bring them up over my knees, and then later in the day I can push them down to around the ankle/lower calf area.

7) Lap blankets for whenever you're sitting still. And wrap your feet in one end of it.

8) Exercise. 20-30 minutes of walking around, indoors or out, and you'll be warmer. Hey, I lost 1.6 pounds this week just walking things from one place in the apartment to another, even with taking lots of breaks to rest. My exercise has been more like 10-15 minutes at a time, but a couple times per hour (some of my sorting doesn't require walking). Also, I've found that while sometimes my doziness is from being tired from my recovery time, sometimes it's because I'm getting winter-lethargic. So I walk up and down the hall, find some little chore to do, and it wakes me up -- which has also saved me some snacking (one of the other ways I stay awake, but not necessarily the healthiest).

This last one, exercise, is probably one of the least popular ones, but it's a very important one. Many folks tend to not exercise in the winter except for going out to shovel, clean off the car, etc. Not exercising even a little bit during the rest of winter time is a great way to ask for increased chances of injury and heart attack. Also a good way to gain weight, especially with all the holiday parties many people attend.

Beautiful and sunny here today, so today is a laundry day!

There's a pic of some laundry I did last week ( here: )

I like how it moves in the wind. I still hang the personals indoors, as I'm not partial to sharing _that_ much of our personal lives with our neighbors, although t-shirts and medieval underwear isn't a big deal.

Here's a couple of pics of our blossoming Liberty apple, which is by the entrance to the studiolo, where we weave: ( apple pics )

I haven't seen any honey bees yet, but the bumbles, carpenter bees, sweat bees, and some hornets are all out, so the apple has been getting plenty of visitors. The Granny apple is behind the Liberty in blooming, but should be getting visitors soon.

And a picture of some of our jonquils, nearby one of the new blueberry bushes, and in front of the newly-greening russian sage ( here: )

Yesterday I planted Echinacea seeds. I've been debating what to plant and when, because next week the nights are supposed to be in the mid-upper 40s F. But I think if I plant things and mulch them, it should be okay. Hoping to put in potatoes today, perhaps in the late afternoon.

Weaving is progressing. I haven't measured the woven section, but I think I have a couple of yards done. I put in a short session this morning, but have a lot of boxing and moving of things to do today.

Found this guy through the noimpactman.com blog. I'm taking a break from reading the heavier stuff at energybulletin.net as it takes me a long time to read just half the stuff there. At noimpactman's site I scanned through a couple of his older posts that he was featuring -- one was on 'junk mail tree killers' -- he had a handy link to an optout site for opting out of credit card and insurance offers, so I went for that. Just the 5 year option, because that's electronic so you can do it right then and there. There's also info for where to mail a letter for permanent optout (has to be in writing). But five years will do, since likely we won't be living at this house by then. So since we'll just have to do it again for the next place, might as well save the paper and postage.

Anyway, here's the URL for the guy I found through noimpactman:
http://littlebloginthebigwoods.blogspot.com/

He's been living off the grid for 30 years!

Mind you, having read through the brief description of the place and how he does things (side bar on the right hand side of the screen), I don't think I'd do everything the way he's doing them -- also, Ashfield, MA is not wherever he is in PA. Different options available, etc. And he did finally get a phone.

But he does have some sound ideas, and it's nice to hear about someone who's done this sort of thing for quite a while, not just as an experiment. He's got a fun way of expressing things too, and a sound view of things. Here's a few bits I liked, because they express his views and character:

1) Lots of folks somehow get the idea that since we live in a log cabin, without grid electricity, etc, somehow we DISAPPROVE of the rest of the world. And them. No, we don't.

The world is what it is. We are what we are. You should be what you want to be.

It's really that simple, but there are a bunch of folks who will never believe you mean it- because they, themselves do not approve of that kind of personal freedom. They believe you should be free to do what they tell you is the right thing.

Let them eat compost.

2) A couple of the comments from eco-nazis were outraged that NoImpactMan was using a (GASP) ... computer!!

Oh, horrors.

Look, you nazi morons, THIS WORLD - this one, right here- is the one we have to live in. There are computers all over the place, and they are never going away. They are, in fact, with a little care, a terrifically powerful tool. I own a chainsaw, too.

So- read my "green practices" on the sidebar here. I'm off the grid. Limited power. And I do (how can you tell?) use computers. Plural. They are all notebooks- because- guess what? they use less power than desktops. And their batteries are filled up each day by... sunlight.

And one of my favs for today:
3) Greenies are human too- and quite capable of hearing only what we want to. "Hey, I've got this figured out, quit bugging me about it!"

I am a scientist by training. One of the basic tenets is - never quit doubting; never quit thinking; never quit looking; even when you're 95% sure you know an answer.

Are you struggling with questions about how to live green? Should I give up my toilet paper? Should I sell my car?

My very first advice - take a deep breath, and slow down. You don't have to make these decisions instantly - in fact it will probably be far better if you don't.

Think about it. Close your eyes, and see yourself 5 years from now- doing or not doing. If you think, "maybe I could..." then- give it a try. Often you can get family members to go along if you do set a time limit on the experiment, like the Yw/oTP folks are doing. "Look, we'll try this for 2 months and then talk about it, ok?"

All the pieces have to fit together. And it just takes time to get there.

A family living in Manhattan is doing a year long effort to have as little impact on the environment as possible. The husband/father is writing about the effort and learning process. They are currently four months into the year.

There's an article about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/garden/22impact.html?_r=1

His blog is here:
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/

Not sure I could do all that they're doing, certainly not as quickly. And I wouldn't be able to get to most SCA events either. Although I've thought about that from time to time.... what it would be like to have to get to Pennsic on foot, horseback, or horse-drawn wagon...

An interesting read, and I plan on checking out the blog, as I expect there's some useful bit of information there.

amykb mentioned using glass, which reminded me that my mom had us kids all making candles at Massasoit Street one year (old home in Noho). We had bunches of old candle stubs and stuff; she must have bought wicking, since we didn't make it and I know we didn't use regular string. Anyway, we used glasses from the cupboard, and I think after they hardened we put them in the fridge or freezer to break the seal between the wax and the glass. That would be a way to have some pillar candles without buying molds or worrying about storing the molds between times.

The juice cup ones came out of the glass the easiest; I think the slightly tapered shape helped. They were more stable than regular pillar candles too.

HOME ENERGY USE:
OIL:
We just ran through the last of the oil we prepaid last fall and likely there will be one or two more deliveries before summer. fitzw and I were wondering last night how soon other people had run through their prepaid oil, considering we're relatively frugal. The office oil is shut off at night now (and the door closed of course), to further minimize fossil fuel use. I'm determined to use even less next year somehow, without freezing to death. Plus we have the older kitty to consider. We'll be building some of those solar panels from builditsolar.com this year....

I'd like to both save us money and save oil for future use. Since it does seem like alternative fuels are not what they're cracked up to be -- most of them are more trouble than they're worth, and since it's taking a while for most everyday folks to be able to afford the fancy solar panels, wind power, etc., the only responsible thing to do is to not use so much of our resources.

ELECTRIC:
Btw, now that we've had the passive energy users (microwave, tv, dvd player, stereo) on power strips for over a month, the latest electric bill is even lower! And of course being more mindful of not leaving lights on all over the place, which we've been working on for sometime... plus watching less tv, I suspect, and turning off computers at night... Our usage for this past month was 361 KWH --- one year ago it was 640 KWH! Woohoo! And I actually like having the stereo and stuff on the powerstrip -- easier than trying to get at the outlets to unplug them, which is quite difficult in some places in our house. Plus, I like having control over the power, not wondering if they're sucking extra energy during peak hours or something (important during a heat wave or when storms have downed a lot of lines and stations are overworked).

INDEPENDENCE and FOOD:
That's why I'm getting more into making some of our own clothing, and cooking from scratch -- hence the need to broaden my cooking horizons, for more variety. And for clothing, at my height I usually have to alter stuff anyway, so why not just make the whole thing?

When you buy premade meals, you get whatever they put in it. Granted, you can shop carefully and choose better prepared foods, but sometimes they just don't have what you want -- or need, if you have dietary concerns. If we do the cooking, we _know_ what's in our food. Even now, when we're still using more premade foods than I'd like, I think we're both feeling better, healthier. It's been a slow road the past year, but some things we stuck to really well, like having yogurt, oatmeal, cheese & eggs, or occasionally ham & eggs, for breakfast. Lunch has been the iffiest part, because sometimes fitzw really wants to get out of the house, so we'll go out to lunch. Now we're starting to have lunch here, then go out and do errands or go for a walk, to get away from things. Dinner has improved since I stopped working at the chiropractors office. And, I'm actually starting to get more interested in cooking again.

And a lot of this is happening for two reasons: 1) we want to be more environmentally responsible, and 2) we want to save money, pay down debts, and move to Ashfield.

You'll note that "health" wasn't listed as one of the reasons. We tried that, but it didn't have the staying power of the other two. It has been a nice side benefit of the other two -- walking or biking instead of driving, for instance.

Now, I'm not going to go crazy and raise 100% of our food. Just isn't going to happen. BUT -- again, I like the idea of knowing what's in my food. So, if I grow it, I know it doesn't have pesticides all over it. And if I get food from the farmers market, unless it's marked 'organic', I can't guarantee it's pesticide-free, but there's a good chance that it's still less than on veggies or fruit from a conglomerate farm, and around here, it isn't too hard to get organic, really. My father-in-law has a nice truck garden, not organic in that he doesn't buy organic seeds, but he doesn't spray it either (altho' apparently he dusts potatoes, but he hasn't grown those in a long time). So, lots of good places to get good food.

Confession: My mom got me started in gardening when I was a kid. Loved digging and planting, hated weeding. Then I discovered mulch :)

This year we'll be growing lettuces, tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots, maybe potatoes. Squash, zucchini, and cucumber we can get from the farm. Maybe beets, but I'm undecided. We already have onions and various herbs in the ground.

My first two choices for home grown veggies? Tomatoes and Lettuce. Why? Because they're easy, they're good in salads, sandwiches, and straight off the plant. I try to grow both large tomatoes (esp. for sandwiches and cooking), and grape or sweet cherry. For lettuce, having a bunch of different kinds is good. I took a class with bunnyjadwiga last spring in VT and it was terrific! There's nothing better than being able to grab some leaves and tomatoes from the yard, maybe a few sprigs of herbs too, and throw together your own personal salad.

Mmmm. Independence.