Greetings gentle readers, and welcome back to October! It’s hard to grasp that sunny days in the upper 50s and night time lows above freezing have anything at all to do with January. Cob here, not really complaining about the weather, but feeling unsure about what it will mean for the maple sugaring season! Maple sugaring here in NEMO is a bit different from what I experienced in Upstate New York. NY always experienced a deep freeze from mid-December through late-February, and when the weather broke the sap would flow heavily for a solid 2-3 weeks before the trees broke out in bud. The occasional warm day didn’t put a dent in the duration or quality of the season. My concern for the season here this year is that all this warm weather will shorten the spring sap run, and reduce the sugar content as well. We shall see. I’m not even taking a guess at what this mild winter means for the summer growing season!
Regardless of the havoc this weather may play with the sap run, or even the gardens come spring, it has been an un-looked for boon with regards to our ongoing construction project. The mild temperatures has allowed one of my reclaimed materials sources (Carlisle in Newark) to continue stripping under-siding from several demolition projects. These board will find a second life as my exterior siding…and the house is becoming noticeably less drafty as the boards go up. Apart from the siding, most of our work has turned indoors (drywall goes up this week) and I’ve been spending more time trolling Ebay for lighting fixtures and testing several varieties of LED light bulbs.
The advantages of LED lights are many…miniscule power consumption and long life are chiefest, but they have a wide variability in terms of brightness and color (cool vs. warm). Dynalux bulbs seem to be enjoying some popularity around here, and they look very much like traditional light bulbs in that they radiate light in all directions. Their color warmth is mid-range, and they’re somewhat dim (about 40 watt equivalent). My favorite thus far is the EarthLED ZetaLux. It offers a very warm bright light (a 70 watt equivalent) yet sips only 7 watts of power. They are rated for 9 years of use and cost only 0.84 per year assuming $0.11/kWh. Their only downside is that they are directional…they radiate light in a 180 degree radius…making them ideal for downward facing ceiling fixtures, or upward facing torchier-style lamps, but not much else. The search for an ideal bulb continues.
Hopefully the interior construction will be finished, and I’ll be moved back in before it’s time to start digging in the garden again. The seed and tree catalogs continue to arrive (by the bushel it seems), and many times the quiet of a room will be broken by someone’s involuntary “oooohhh” of interest or delight when they come across something especially promising or delicious sounding. I’m actually feeling a little bit guilty that I’ve barely cracked the covers of my catalogs…but preparing for community meetings at retreat, pulling together budgets for next year, attending the kids school events, and so forth, have simply taken too much time. Hopefully I’ll have a quiet weekend or two in the near future, before the time comes to begin seedlings and starts!
This past week has seen a lot of similar activity from other rabbits…interior painting in La Casa de Cultura is finished and they’ve moved on to staining the woodwork and trim, a number of folks are upgrading their power systems courtesy of the extra equipment and batteries now available from those who have connected to our new internal power grid, many people have been meeting and working on proposals to bring to the group at our annual retreat in February, and of course we’ve all been enjoying each others company as folks return from their holiday travels, play games (including Ultimate Frisbee), and participate in the occasional movie night, yoga session, sing-along, or dance.
In many ways, the new year seems like an artificial marker in our ongoing lives…since so many of our activities, behaviors, and patterns of thought remain the same throughout the years. But it is useful to take a moment, and purposefully look at what we’ve been doing and what we hope to do, for ourselves, for each other, for our children, for society, and for the earth. And this (relatively) quiet space between the end of the past year, and the planning for the new, is as good a time as any. So as you are testing your new year resolutions, or the next time you re-write your do-to list, think about each item. Why is it there? How does it serve you? What impact does it have on those around you? What impact does it have on you? Does it actually belong on your stop-doing list? Use this space, this pause between breaths, and consider what sustainable living means for you.
‘Til next week,
Cheers!