Punxatawney Phooey

I don’t know what the groundhog saw yesterday — my life is so busy, I forgot to check! Still, it does feel that Spring may be in the air in the Pacific Northwest. At least it was for today. Sunny, warm enough to be outside without a hat…

The hyacinths under the medlar are already sending up shoots, as are the bright pink tulips by the front door. The irises have nice tall lanceolate growth, and the fruit trees are beginning to bud out. I went outside today in fact, and pruned a little bit on my plum tree. Will take pics of the branches I brought in to force when it happens. A few days from now…

There are trailing blackberries beginning to take over a couple areas of the yard, and himalayan blackberries in places they have never been before. I will be itching to get out in the yard with the children on warm and dry days now… they can pull in an hour what would take me all day.

On a slightly different thread:

Our planet continues to debate the reality of global warming and what governments should do about it. Well…

Two weeks ago I noticed that we have passed 60,000 kWh on our electric meter — remember this house was put on the land for us in 1999, so all that power we have used is really just ours. Makes you think… how much power even our family uses. Of course, for some of those years we were homeschooling, and during the winter if I don’t have bright lights in the house I can’t function; both of those added to the use of power at home. But those points aside, I am trying to think of ways to conserve just a little more. In fact, today I decided to NOT have the TV on in the background while I worked. We’ll see if it makes even a dent.

The pluses for our family’s power consumption are that we don’t have airconditioning, and despite very warm temperatures sometimes, our house usually stays comfortable. The forced air heat for cool seasons is not as completely warming as radiant heat, but for now we stay comfortable enough, especially if we put on a sweater in the winter. with global warming becoming an increasing concern, I am conflicted about using propane for heat, cooking and hot water… but since part of our power also comes from a small coal plant to the south, propane does seem a cleaner heat source (I used to think all our power came from the dams, which have their own set of problems of course).

We live too far from town to reasonably car pool, and there is no bus service (on which I have commented/ranted more than once). I cannot ride a bike at the moment, but Tom and the children often do, to the little store or to my parents and to friends’ houses. It works out. We do “bundle” our trips into town as much as possible, and try to keep the cars in tune so they get the best possible mileage. And since trips into town usually entail some shopping, we try to bring reusable bags/containers and buy things with minimal packaging. But convenience does win out, more now that I am in school, and often enough to get my conscience a little bothered.

A plus to saving energy and materials is that we spend just a little less, and eat a little more healthily. Though we are not scraping bottom, our margin right now is much less than I like. And we are trying to model good world citizenship for the children. Every little bit helps!

Back to the original thread: Spring will be here soon. My garden needs work to be ready. I need work to be ready. Spring is a time of new beginnings. We can make fresh starts, try again to be what we dream of. We won’t be perfect, but how nice that we can be better!