Category Archives: Environment

Not So Selfish

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I watched our neighbor this morning drive along the road and pick up all the cans and bottles that my children and I gathered and placed by the roadside yesterday.  I had mixed feelings about this:

1. I was excited that someone else would take the time to clean up.  We were planning to head out shortly to pick all of those up.  The children, in fact, were looking forward to it.  But someone else beat us to that.  I don’t know if they were happy we had gotten things started, or upset that we had dug the ugliness from hiding under the winter’s layers.  I hope the former.

2. I was disappointed because the children really were excited to follow up on our previous day’s project.  When I told them what was happening, and they looked out the window to see for themselves, they were disappointed as well.  But I told them we could head up the road in the other direction and they got fired up again.

Today’s haul was a lot bigger.  We walked a lot farther, for one, but there were just a lot more items to collect.  We could not carry them all there were so many, so we left another batch to be picked up by someone.  My wife walked the kids up the road while I went for a run.  I met them on my way back and she ran herself.  I carried most of the load for most of the way.  The children wanted to carry everything they collected–they each had a bag–but the bags got too heavy for the longish walk.

We picked up three dozen beverage containers and left about ten to collect later.  Over 50 empty containers.  That is just way too many.  That was in a not-quite-a-mile stretch of road.  The nutty thing is how many I saw while I was running, farther up the road–at least as many.  The idea of that many containers getting tossed makes me squinch up my forehead.

I have tossed empties out the window myself.  I am not proud to admit that.  It happened only once, when I was a teenager.  There were a few of us in a Chevy Suburban drinking beer in the back on a long drive.  The driver was clean and we were being responsible–just a couple apiece over a couple of hours.  But we were underage.  We were afraid we would get pulled over by the police for some reason, I don’t remember why, so we tossed the “evidence” to the roadside.

The thing is, that memory still haunts me.  It wasn’t my idea and I was not the one to do the tossing, but i rue my abetting that act.  I don’t even have the consolation that we were pulled over.  I try to make it up now.  I imagine who tossed these glass bottles and aluminum cans and create my own stories.  I am proud that my children are so excited to clean things up.  They do not creat such stories.  They trust my answer to their question of who would toss their trash out the window.  Sometimes it is a mistake, I tell them, and sometimes people do things we would not do ourselves.  They have entered the world of trying to understand the array of human motivations.

I can’t imagine they will ever solve that mystery.  No one ever has.  But I hope they pursue it their whole lives.  It is a mystery that offers many questions worth asking.  Those questions make the mystery worthwhile.  As a parent, I will do what I can to engage them in the mysteries of the world.  I hope all of them are not as dirty as this on

Getting Muddy and Gathering Trash

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Those were the two highlights of the day.  My wife went skiing for most of the day.   I stayed home with the children.  We stayed inside for a bit to let them get their craziness and creative play out.  Then we had lunch of tortillas and cucumbers.  Then we headed outside.

We took a walk down the road.  We spent a good deal of time exploring the ditch that runs along our road.  The town road crew has spent lots of time over the past couple of years clearing and improving road drainage in town.  Last year they got by our way.  The ditch is filled with ice, which is covered in sand and dirt, which is mostly just under the surface of the flowing melting snow.  I was cautious about letting the children walk on it at first but it was solid and we hopped back and forth all down the road.

We also picked up trash which consisted mainly of discarded beer cans and bottles.  There were many.  The children had fun both spotting them (“I see one under that bush!” “That one is buried in the sand!”) and fishing them from their various hiding places.  We couldn’t carry them all so we set up stations of them along the roadside.  We wouldn’t have been able to carry them back either so we left them to pick up later, cairns of aluminum and glass for drivers to wonder about.

We cut across the field to get back home.  It was rutted and frozen and muddy and wet.  Not all in the same place, of course, but we found some mixed terrain.  By the time we made it back, the children were wet and muddy.  “My feet are chilly,” explained the boy child.  His boots were soaked through.  Plus, he hadn’t bothered to wear socks.  Despite this, they stayed outside for a while before heading in to clean up.

They played outside together for a good chunk of time after they did get cleaned up.  Then they had to clean up again.  They each went through three sets of clothes today, not including the pajamas they wore this morning.  They got wet and muddy more than once.

Last summer I bought a pair of tall rubber boots.  They were one of the best purchases I have ever made.  Those things can take me anywhere and I am confident going.  Hike across a wet muddy field?  No probs, babe.  Step in a ditch of meltwater?  Easy.  Hike to meet the bus in the rain?  You bet.  Those puppies served me well today.

Tomorrow I will need to head down the road and collect those bottles and cans.  I hate seeing all that garbage on my road.  What gives with someone who will toss their empties for someone else to clean up?  That’s crap, if you ask me.  Heck, even if you don’t ask me, it’s still crap.  In any case it will give me a good excuse to take the kids for another walk.  Maybe we can see if the spiders are still crawling all over the grass by the big culvert.  And if they don’t want to come with me, it will feel good to gather the refuse and see that it makes it to the recycling bin.

Somebody’s got to take care of the empties.  If the end user won’t do it, that selfish butt, I will take it on myself.

Your Uneventful Town Meeting

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Things started pretty much on time.  I was there on time but lingered outside for a few.  I found a seat as the moderator was reading the warning for the meeting.  I didn’t miss anything I already knew.

The first two articles were to be voted on the following day at the town hall.  The first was the school budget, the second was a vote to remove the position of town auditor.  We are supposed to have three auditors but no one has run for it since 2004.  Not a critical position, apparently.  Or a desired one.

I was curious about what discussion might ensue regarding the budget.  There was some discussion about salary increases for town employees.  The budget called for a 5% increase in all salaries and a few people expressed concern that this was too high.  It does seen high.  Who gets 5% when most people have a freeze on their salaries?  The general budget passed anyway.

Other discussion points were why we need a new dumptruck after only ten years (they get worked hard and repairs begin to outpace the value of just paying for a new one), why the police budget included funds for a new car when it did the last two years as well (it is a regular part of that budget to plan for a new purchase every other year) and the wind turbine at the library.  This last started producing power last year but the electric line in that budget goes up every year.  “Is this thing getting us anything?” someone asked.  It provides 10% of the library’s power even as more use of the library means more electricity use.  That was installed at no cost to the town, so it is all essentially a gain.

The biggest discussion item was a petitioned article to vote to close the Yankee Nuclear Power Plant when it is scheduled to close in 2012.  There were some strong feelings on both sides, including discussion of how to replace the power that the state would lose and how much electricity costs might rise without the plant.  Ultimately it got a yes voice vote.  Many other towns voted on the same article and passed it.  I voted yes on this one.  What would we say if there were an accident down the line with this oldest (in the world) of active power plants?  This sure is bad to have all this radioactivity all over the place, but it sure was worth it to save a few cents per kilowatt hour?

And that was about it.  We voted to support local charities and the land trust and to set aside funds for conservation.  And it was good to see at least a sampling of fellow Hinesburgers.  Not enough people were there, of course, given the town’s population, but at the auditorium at Champlain Valley Union High School was mostly full.  It didn’t run all that late but, nonetheless, the voice vote to adjourn was the loudest of all.cy

Plastic Crap

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I have way too much plastic crap.  It is all around me.  This computer is mostly plastic.  I eat off plastic.  I wear plastic.  I drive around in a vehicle made largely of plastic.  I am swimming in plastic.  I mean this, at least occasionally, literally.  Have you ever been to one of those kid play spaces where one can wade through a sea of multi-colored plastic balls?  I have.  It was a nice swim.  And it was lots of plastic.

Seriously.  Look around.  Plastic is everywhere.  And we take it for granted.  If you do a little reading about plastic and if you start noticing, it gets a little scary.  Think about this:  Except for a minuscule amount that has been incinerated, every bit of plastic ever created still exists.  It doesn’t go away.  It doesn’t biodegrade.  It doesn’t go back to the earth.  It sits around and clutters up the place.

Here is something you should know.  In the North Pacific Ocean there is a patch of water that spins slowly around so that everything floating in it eventually comes together.  It is called the North Pacific subtropical gyre, and it contains more plastic than any other place on earth.  It covers the surface of the ocean in an area about twice the size of Texas.  For those of you not familiar with United States geography, Texas is a state and it is, as the locals like to brag, really really big.

And then there is this:  this gyre is one of five.  There are four others.  They are filled with bottle caps and chairs and bags and toy dolls and flip flops and logs of Styrofoam.  All the plastic that gets tossed aside somewhere without being buried eventually makes it to the ocean.  It floats about and floats about.  It never goes away.  Some of it breaks down into smaller pieces but it never loses its molecular structure.  The plastic bag that you used one time to carry a plastic bottle of lotion (that you also used one time) flies out your window and will be around for hundreds of years.  At least.

One woman decided she would try to keep things in check.  She decided to try to reduce her plastic use so that as little plastic as possible was added to her life.  She keeps a blog that I have been reading, and I recommend it.  It is inspiring.  It has made me keenly aware of my own plastic consumption and waste.  She calls it Fake Plastic Fish and its tag line is this:  Fake Plastic Fish… they’re cute, and if we don’t solve our plastic problem, they could be the only kind we have left.

If you want to read a fascinating, albeit disturbing, article about plastic, check out Our Oceans are Turning Into Plastic… Are We? It is a thorough read that should get you thinking.  If you are a thinking person, that is.

I now try even harder to keep plastic out of my house.  I have been an advocate of reducing plastic use for a long time, but these days I have been ever more aware of how much it is a spawn of the deh-vill, as my friend Skip would say.  Look around.  I bet you see plastic everywhere you turn.  My guess is that anyone reading this has plastic on his or her body at this moment.  Fleece?  Watch?  Hair clip?  Buttons?  I dare you to tell me you have no plastic on your body.

Again, I have way too much plastic crap.  All these toys and markers hanging around the house don’t help.  I don’t want to revert back to 150 years ago, when plastic did not exist yet.  Plastic has made a huge difference in all our lives.  Think of medicine and food safety, for a couple examples.  But, since only a small percentage of plastic gets recycled, even that which gets dumped into the blue bins to be recycled, I ask you this:  Is that mocha frappuccino you had recently really worth it?  That plastic cup was molded, packed, shipped, unpacked, pulled from a plastic sleeve, filled with that cold frothy drink and served to you.  You enjoyed it for half an hour, if you are a slow sipper, and that cup’s plastic will outlast your great grandchildren’s great grandchildren.

Makes you want to get a good (stainless steel) travel mug, doesn’t it?

Final Solar Class

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I attended the last of three classes at Champlain Valley Union High School last night for a short course on solar photovoltaic installation.  Overall the whole thing was worthwhile.  I know much more than I did before the class.  I am ready to make it happen.  Oh, but that huge price tag.  Ouch.

Would it pay off?  If you look at just the financial pay back it is hard to judge just how long it would take to break even.  It is easy to do the math with some assumptions.  If you keep the cost of electricity static, it would take maybe 20 years to balance the initial investment with monthly savings.  That is a long time.  If the cost were a little lower, then maybe it would be a no brainer.  But the cake is big.

If we invested in a solar system it might cost as much as $40,000 to install a system that would generate all the power we use now, before any incentives.  A system might cost less, given some other assumptions, and we might invest in a smaller system.  There are lots of variables.  Even a $20,ooo price tag would be huge, however.  If we figure in interest, since we would have to finance a system, the cost grows.  It is the right thing to do, but it is hard to swallow such a huge investment, especially when it means saving maybe 60 bucks a month.

We just started the refinancing process.  We will save more than $60/month  just by getting a lower interest rate on our mortage (4.5%!) but that is a bigger loan.  The scale thing just makes such a big difference.  If incentives were high enough that we could reduce the initial cost and the time to breaking even, I would be ready to make it happen.  We just can’t afford to do it right now.

I will keep my finger on the pulse of what might change with alternative energy (What’s up with “alternative” for wind and solar, anyway?  Shouldn’t coal be considered alternative?).  Until the cost goes down, or we get a big influx of cash, however, it ain’t happenin’.  I could use a little of that stimulus over my way.

Must…Stop…Working…

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I had the day off today.  It’s President’s Day.  I get it off, paid.  Why work on a day like that?  But I did.  Not much, but I did.  I needed to send a bunch of appointment reminders on Friday but I didn’t have time to do it.  So then I should have done it Saturday.  Or Sunday.  And then it was Monday.  I had to get it done this morning.

I sent the reminders by email so of course I noticed, when I opened my email program, that I had a couple of messages that needed immediate responses.  One was from a student who has a looming deadline.  Another was from a parent I should have called on Thursday.  Crap.  So I answered those before sending the messages I needed to send.

I have a series of workshops tomorrow and, due to the aforementioned busy Friday, I did not plan for them completely.  I had to find out exactly when I need to be there and to confirm the agenda.  So that meant more work today.  Not much, but more.  I can’t get away.  That is part of the deal with my job, I guess.  I have a flexible schedule but I often can’t just leave it at the office.  My office is at home.

I did get out and about today.  I was in search of a pot lid.  It is from a Williams Sonoma pot that we got a dozen years ago.  My wife pulled the lid from over some boiling water and dipped it under the faucet flowing with cold water.  It was a glass lid, but it shattered when she did that.  She was distracted.  For a while we just went without a lid but for the past year I have been half-heartedly searching for a replacement.  When I called the company they told me I need to go to a store so someone could look at it.

At the store they told me that no replacements are available.  No lids from current pot designs will fit and they literally cannot get me a lid to an old pot.  They don’t make them, they don’t stock them, they can’t get me one.  No can do.  I was a little dumbstruck.  I asked if this was part of a conspiracy to simply get me to buy a whole new pot.  I got no verbal response to that question.

So I will hunt for one online and elsewhere.  I must be able to find one somewhere.  I know I can find a lid of some kind that fits.  I could get a universal lid that would work in a pinch, but I want another glass one that fits.  My wife promises not to put it under cold water again, unless the lid is already cold.  So my search is on again and I am more determined than ever.  I will show Williams Sonoma that a lid can be found, despite their buy-it-don’t-fix-it policies.

I will start that search right away.  As soon as I fill the bird feeders again.  And wash those dishes.  And close my email program.

Solar Class Take Two

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I went to the second of three classes last night to learn about photovoltaic power, presented by Gary Beckwith of the Solar Bus.  I learned a few things.  I feel that I have a good basic understanding of solar power but there have been lots of holes in my understanding.  Those holes are getting filled in.

Here is one thing I learned.  I had the idea that a grid tied system meant you would generate your own energy and what you did not use would be sent back to the grid, and you would get paid for that power.  If the power goes out, you still have power.  Not so.  With a grid-tied system, if the grid goes down, so does your system, so no power, even if the sun is shining.  This makes sense from a safety perspective.  If the power goes out and someone is working on the power lines, they might get shocked if your system is sending power out.

You can set up a battery back-up system, but this needs to part of the plan from the start.  Modifications are not simple.  An off-grid system relies on batteries.  Any electricity goes into the batteries and you always draw from the batteries.  With a “hybrid” system, electricity comes from the panels themselves and the system only draws from the batteries if the grid is down.  Phew.  Who knew things were so complicated?

I also learned that Vermont’s incentives for installing solar power only apply to grid-tied systems.  A self-contained system won’t qualify for any tax credits.  And not only does the system have to have the ability to feed power back to the grid, but it needs to be installed by only qualified installers.   No DIY of you want to get a tax credit.  Maybe that will change.  It seems silly not to offer tax credits to any system that reduces fossil fuel use.

If we made some efficiency changes a system for our house might cost $20,000 before any tax credits.  We talked last night about how long it might take to make that back.  Who knows, really?  It would depend on lots of variables, but we are talking twenty years before the energy would be pretty much “free.”  Of course, we wouldn’t do it just for financial reasons, but it would be nice if the cost were a little lower.

Gary thinks that even if we made no changes in technology, the cost of solar systems could be cut in half just with increased production and economies of scale.  But not enough people are creating demand because the systems cost too much.  A Catch-22.  I would love to see increased tax (or other) incentives for installation of alternative energy systems.  Then perhaps we really could make the investment.

I would love to install a system that integrates a wind generator and solar panels so we could generate energy most of the time.  I’ll see what our last class has to offer.  Already, I have enough information to think about solar energy in a more informed way.  One of these days, we will take the plunge and make it happen for us.  When “one of these days” might be, well, that remains undetermined.  Until then, I will continue to try to just use less energy.  That won’t cost anything.

Solar Class

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I went to part one of a three part evening class tonight, an Access class at Champlain Valley Union High School.  It was presented by Gary Becker of the Solar Bus.  The idea is to get some information about photovoltaics.  Everyone there has some desire to use the sun for electricity generation, including me.  This first class was pretty basic.  We got some general ideas about how things work.  It got me more curious.

Some key points:

Enough sunlight hits the earth every minute to supply all the electricty demand of everyone in the world for a year.

The United States could generate all of its electricity demand from solar power from an area about 45 miles square.

Vermont could generate all of its electricity demand from solar power from an area about 4.2 miles square.

Questions I need answered:

How much electricity would a 1-kilowatt system produce?  What would I need?  And what would it cost?

Those are questions for the next class, when we will get more into the details of how systems work.  We’ll see if I get my 40 bucks worth.

Deep Enough Snow

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Snow After a Storm

Snow After a Storm

This morning we woke to the effects of yesterday’s storm.  We have several inches of snow on the ground.  It was deep and fluffy.  The sun rose to a clear sky and the world was aglow.  The low light slanted against the whitened firs, that air was still, our feet crunched as we walked.

When I was in high school I headed from my home in Connecticut to rural Vermont for a semester.  That was on this date a whole passel of years ago.  The experience had such an impact on me that not only did I end up living in Vermont, but I remember the day I started that semester.

I arrived with my parents in Vershire on a day much like this one.  The snow was deep, the world was quiet.  It was beautiful.  After my parents got a chance to see the place and get oriented, and to offer me a solid goodbye, I began my four months in a new place–a school on a working farm.

I dug it.  I learned a lot about myself.  I made good friends.  I came to love the world.  I still do.  And I came to ask lots of questions.  I still do that as well.

I mentioned the place, the Mountain School, to a couple of students with whom I now work.  I told them they might think about applying.  It would do them some good.  I suppose it isn’t for everyone, living in a small community and working hard and being pushed to learn, but, frankly, I think more of that would do all of us some good.

Getting Crap Done

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That was the theme of the day.  I was up earlier than I wanted this morning.  Our kids get crabby when they have to get up at 7:00 to get ready for the day.  Today they had the chance to sleep in.  They both were ready to get up at 6:15.  What gives?  So I was up early enough to stir the coals and get the fire going without matches.  Or even kindling.

Saturday has become bill paying day.  I get some satisfaction out of taking care of my debts.  I would prefer not to have so many.  I am working on that one.  Have you seen refinance rates lately?  Crazy low.  Should we wait to see of they get even lower?  If we do it now, we win.  If we do it later, maybe we win more.  Gamble gamble.  Anyway, I paid some bills.  Online and through the mail.  I like online payments.  Less waste, quicker, no stamps required.  But the plow guy doesn’t take online payments.

I baked bread again as well.  It was fair.  Maybe I’m not letting it rise enough.  It was cold today.  It think the thermometer rose to 15 but it was -4 when we rose this morning and stayed in the single digits for hours.  We went for a snowshoe, the four of us, around the front field.  The sun shone without wind so the ten degree air was fine.  We had toast when we got back inside, although the slices were not as tall as I would have liked.

Our compost bin is pretty frozen solid.  It is a tall peak of icy food bits.  Orange peels and pear cores spill through the grate.  C’est la vie, right?  Things will thaw at some point, although we are predicted to have a high temperature of five on Wednesday.  That is the high.  That should kill off some of those wooly adelgids and other invasive species.  Not to mention a few deer ticks.  The disease-carrying blood-sucking bastards.  I added some height to it this afternoon.

Any minute now we have friends on the way.  They plan to drop  off their children and take a night off.  A little sleepover for the tykes.  They should have a fine time.  Hopefully they will keep the strife to a minimum.  If they get too wound, we will plunk them in front of a video with a big bowl of popcorn.  I’m not too proud to say it.  We deprive them of television enough that it will be a treat anyway.  I have a dish of mac and cheese ready to pop in the oven.  That should be a hit, along with butter-soaked fresh bread.  Maybe they will even eat some carrots.

The temperature will get below zero again tonight.  I need to keep the stove stoked.  We’ll keep it warm inside while the vermin freeze to death outside.  I took a bucket of ashes out earlier.  They melted a little snow and they froze into a gray goopy mass.  It was like art.  Only not.  I will make some more art tomorrow.  You watch me.