To support our effort to not buy new in 2008, we joined Virginia Compact on yahoogroups but it's pretty dead at the moment. Yet to see whether we can unmoribund it.

Update 1/21/08: I've attempted to post, as well as email the list owner -- so far no response.
Update 1/29/08: My first posts finally went through, and there a bit of response. A pulse in the list yet!

We joined Chantilly-Centreville Freecycle on yahoogroups, too, and it's much more active.

We did post-Christmas book shopping at McKay, the used book store.
...Update April 2008: Yay! Christina has started a job at McKay!

I'll try to keep track here over time of....

Slip-ups/exceptions
January:

• Scrapbook binder posts and extenders (Michaels) . . . $5.30
  
• replacement pump for Little Green . . . $15 incl shipping

February:

• Y-splitter VGA cable . . . $28 incl shipping
  
• 2 books from SFBC . . . $36 incl shipping

March:

• Memory sticks (2Gb - M) . . . $68 incl shipping
  
• Spray bottles (3) . . . $11 @ Walmart

April:

• 2 books from SFBC . . . $?? incl shipping
  
• Electric razor ("personal item") . . . $38 @ Target
  
• Memory sticks (2Gb - E) . . . $40 incl shipping
  
• Butterfly net . . . $34 incl shipping

May:

• Cellphone

June:

• Several books -- SFBC, Amazon, B&N -- gifts and otherwise
  
• Other gifts
  
• Garden hose

Freecycle
Offered and taken:

• Rolltop desk
  
• Lawn mower
  
• Swiffer w/pads
  
• Pet fountain
  
• AC filter
  
• Puzzles
  
• Window air conditioner
  
• Various computer cables/plugs
  
• Tabletop lamp
  
• Mirror
  
• Small desk
  
• Sprinkler
  
• Torque wrench
  
• Pair of bird prints
  
• Pair of large framed pictures
  
• Toe socks
  
• Mini bagless vacuum
  
• Elliptical trainer
  
• Skates
  
• Votive candlesticks
  
• Another torque wrench
  
• Patio table
  
• Patio chair
  

Planned to offer/re-offer:

• Glass-front hutch
  
• Microwave?
  
• Misc. tools?
  
• Computer monitor(s) -- 1/21: 1 offered, not taken
  
• Bag of twin sheets

Asked/received:

• Pegboard (x2)
  
• Atlases/dictionaries
  
• Project displays (foamcor)
  
• Freezer
  
• Sand/gravel
  
• Window screening
  
• Plastic 1-qt containers
  
• Wheelbarrow
  
• Car bicycle rack
  
• Tomato seeds
  
• Men's pants
  
• Ladies electric razor
  
• Lattice
  
• Scrap lumber
  
• Ironing board
  
• Electric kettle
  
• Adirondack chair
  
• Barrel planters
  
• Screen spline and tool
  
• Champagne flutes
  
• Wood trim

Planned to ask or find:

• Pegboard hooks
  
• Electric razor
  
• Pitchfork (promised from Maine - hm)
  
• Sheetrock
  
• Women's sweatpants
  
• Any jeans in our sizes
  
• ...

No action yet on the seedbeds -- this weekend, we hope! But we did some outdoor tidying to kick off spring. Everything is happening at once.



Weeping cherry (?) just starting to blossom.



Day lilies.



Rose plant greening.



Parsley by the front door that overwintered very happily.



Bleeding heart is blooming and the plant is barely there.



Compost heap.



Lawn patchery part deux.



The wheelbarrow we got through Freecycle.

Lovely, lovely old used wheelbarrow, free from freecycle.

Veg/herb seeds:
- spinach
- lettuce
- peas
- mint
- oregano
- basil (Genovese)
- thyme

Flower seeds:
- Liatris (bulbs, sort of) -- a kind of butterfly flower.
- zinnias
- marigolds.

I think we meant to get some kind of squash but forgot.

Seed-starting soil.

Researching graywater recovery.

We're both excited.

We hadn't been paying much mind to the compost heap, other than adding stuff to it. All the right stuff, except air and water, according to this article.

So it appears to have become anaerobic, and is breaking down too slowly. I turned it a bit with a shovel but a pitchfork will be better. Adding to the freecycle wishlist.

The other day, I went to put out the garbage. Everything that went to the curb that night was recycling: 3 large bins with glass, tin, and cardboard. There was a bit of waste in one trash bin, but not enough to warrant putting it out.

Also, I notice that Waste Management, our neighborhood trash haulers, are commercial sponsors of the national Freecycle.org.

(Originally posted at pilgrim_eye:)

...to not buy anything new in 2008.

We're still working on this one. Obviously, personal items (toothbrush, underwear) and consumables (kielbasa, hot cocoa) are exempt. But almost everything else we can think of -- appliances, home projects, utensils, clothes, tools, music, movies, etc. -- can be homemade, rented, improvised, bought used, bartered, free-cycled, or simply done without.

Computer gear and books are two areas where we treat ourselves, and bear further study.

The main reason for this (for me) is not to save money per se; it's to foster a culture (of one, or two) where every material desire is examined from the standpoint of global worth. What are the true originating costs? The true long-term costs? It's unnecessary and wasteful, not to mention out-of-balance, to fulfill trifling conveniences with new things that consumed non-renewable resources and poisoned the earth during manufacture, and that will end up in a landfill.

We traded in both the Corolla and the Honda Element on a 2008 Prius. 50 mpg, give or take. We're happy so far.

( Read more... )

A few small logs down...



...many to go.

Pictures! We want pictures!

Yeah, yeah, when I get around to it.

Mini-update:

- One tree only, as far as we know, survived (of the 10 Arbor Day seedlings we abused), but it's all the more precious to us on account of that. It's the Pin Oak, and it has a lovely green-leafed twig sprung from the root node.

- The compost heap is lovely and large and has had several visits from a large turtle who lives in the woods. He/she especially likes cantaloupe.

- With the departure of the boys to college, adjustments to our diet, and Emly's school schedule, household soft-drink intake is dramatically down, along with recyclable waste output.

- I got around to buying the tools that may mean the most to us after the collapse: a large bow saw, an axe, and a maul. In a few weeks I plan to bang together a sawhorse out of 2x4's and cut and split the pine logs I salvaged after the spring storm.

- It's official (actually, it was long since official): The tomatoes were a dead loss this year. We'll need different deck-garden crops, or more aggressive squirrel deterrence. (More aggressive than a chittering cat and a silent basenji peering out from behind a closed window.)

- Speaking of cantaloupe -- who says?? September 22, 2007, 11 a.m.

Planted the 10 trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation -- finally -- after storing them too long in the fridge. They are in the ground and we've mulched them and we're watering them, and it may be a little time before we know if they have survived. They came color-coded (the 'trunks' had been spray-painted), and while we were digging and planting we had 'misplaced' the color key (it was on the front of the fridge), so we jotted down a record of the colors as we saw them, to relate to the key when it might turn up. One of the little twiglike saplings had no discernible color, so we jotted "no discernible color." Sure enough, at the bottom of the key, we found listed "American Redbud -- No paint."

The compost seems to be doing well. By the end of the season I'll probably have to extend the sidewalls upward another 4 inches.

We've been enjoying fresh basil, parsley, thyme, and oregano A LOT.

And this, copied from squirrelsonmarshandjohnsdeck.blognuts.com:

"Dey tipped nutty feed'n'seed into dat wood bin ting wiv da lid, 'n'dang if it were jest a bit empty when Zach'n'Viv did dey's "dere's green fruit, dig?" 'n'we snipped 'em, 'n'et 'em on da top of da rail. Dose bipeds ain't gett'n no red ripes, dat's certain.

Listening to: Alvin and the Chipmunks."

is it better to burn gas to drive to the store to buy merchandise, or to order merchandise delivered to your home?

The first harvests from our garden(s).



 

These people are on A right track: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/19/tomorrow.town.ap/index.html

(From a Dow commercial insert in Nat'l Geographic -- that can't be good :-)

• A shower can use 25 to 50 gallons of water
  
• To grow an acre of cotton takes 800,000 gallons of water
  
• Leaving the water running while brushing your teeth can waste up to 5 gallons
  
• It takes 35 gallons of water to grow, irrigate, process, and cook 1 serving of rice
  
• A faucet that drips 60 times in one minute would waste over 6 gallons of water a day; that's 2,400 gallons a year
  
• Automatic dishwashers use about 15 gallons a load
  
• The average full-tub bath takes 36 gallons
  
• It takes 65 gallons of water to process 1 glass of milk Really?
  
• 39,000 gallons of water are used to manufacture a new car
  
• One flush of a toilet uses as much water as the average person in the developing world uses in a whole day. Which sort of raises the whole question of what we mean by "developing."

I don't know if traditional fireplaces are carbon-efficient (note to self: research), but they're cost-efficient if the fuel is free.



After last month's big storm, two large pine trees were down in the complex's common area, and to my surprise (I'm from New England) the cleanup crews just threw the cut logs into the underbrush. So I've been carrying them up, one at a time, and in the fall I'll cut and split them.

It's not sustainable -- all the trees in that narrow strip of woods would only provide heat for a few houses for a single winter -- but it does feel self-sufficient.
 

The heating-cooling machine in the basement is definitely broken (it is apparently something like 20 years old -- longer than its life expectancy). Thursday it shall be replaced by the landlords, or rather, their 'guy,' who can sometimes sell them a better appliance with cosmetic damage for the same price as the basic unit. But I digress.

They asked if we would pay a little extra (if and when we buy this place) for a programmable thermostat. Well, just the day before we'd been looking at the Low Impact Living Calculator, and it recommends just such a thing, with between 1-3% annual savings of electricity, water, and CO2, generating a payback period of between 8-10 months (depending on thermostat cost and size of house).

So even though it sounded like a boondoggle gadget, we said yes.
 

 

Within hours of each other, we saw (first) the beautiful wren that has built and is apparently still tending the nest on the grill (right), and then saw a beautiful black snake on the side porch, its fat midsection attesting to a recent meal of... mice, we guessed, or a vole, perhaps a frog.

Perhaps, we mused, even a bird, or eggs from a nest....

Oh crap!
 

The largest bags of rice and dry beans in the regular aisles were about 1-2 lbs. But in the international aisle, the same products were available in 5-10 lb quantities. Are the Latino and Asian communities just smarter?

So a 5 lb bag of dry beans probably makes as many cooked servings as 10 13-oz tins (taking into account dry weight vs. packed in fluid). Maybe more.

That's this much waste (one large plastic bag, compacted):



...versus this much waste (albeit recyclable):

         
         

Next would be to buy the food in reusable or biodegradable containers.

Baby steps.  (Do you see the theme?)  We commandeered a bunch of saved glass jars, and bought a few larger canisters, to support buying grains and pasta in bulk.  Plus, the textures and colors are pleasing to the touch and to the eye.

We love to garden -- for the freshness, the smell, the sweat, the taste, the self-sufficiency -- and we're starting, again, small. The land here, and sub-development regulations, don't lend themselves to much more -- and the available space is either steep, shaded, poor soil, or heavily treed. We can build up to bigger things -- raised beds, perhaps, or a solarium; for now, it's pots on the deck, and we're VERY happy.

• Two kinds of tomato (one plant each)
  
• Oregano
  
• Basil
  
• Parsley (from seed)
  
• Thyme

We also got two roses for out front.