Happy Green Beings

While reading Michael Perry’s book Coop, it struck me that our goal to grow blueberry pies in our yard may require much more work than I’m willing to do for that far off benefit. No, I don’t think that genetic engineers can produce a bush that fruits whole wheat pie crusts sprinkled with sweetener and stuffed with blueberries. I prefer my ingredients from heritage versions of plants anyway. But the growing of blueberries appears to require not only clearing of our overgrown landscaping, but bed prep to boot.

I’m mostly fine with the clearing part other than the fact that it will leave far too little vegetation between myself and the road noise rising from pavement both near and not so far. The ash trees that shade the area are destined to fall prey to the emerald ash bore anyway, so they may as well become a source of firewood or full dimension lumber before infestation. That’s part of why the solar hot water panels to their North and West made sense in spite of what the solar site assessment showed. The question for me is, how can I avoid all of that bending and digging that creates good fertile ground. Thanks to recent wanderings across the pages of Mr. Perry’s most recent book, I’m reconsidering the use of chickens as weeders and tillers of soil in the form of a chicken tractor. I see a road trip to the Restore in my near future.

Now before you go and contact your animal rights persons to let them know I’ve gone bonkers, what Mr. Perry describes is a mobile cage in which young chickens do their natural foraging for worms, insects, and vegetation. Their scratching effectively tills the soil while they get a fresh plot of ground to feed from. The chickens fertilize the soil, doing what comes naturally following their consumption of worms, insects and vegetation. The entire prospect is a win-win. The tricky part is for the chickens to visit long enough to effectively do the garden prep. So, by building a chicken “tractor” cage that will keep them safe, and then sliding it along the ground into positions where garden beds are to be formed, one can avoid the tilling of soil “man”ually.

There is some risk here, since it involves the use of chickens. Somewhere, one has to come by a number of chickens for a long enough period of time to do the square footage required for the bed. Our customary dimensions are 5 feet wide so we can do most of the weeding and harvesting without trampling upon roots. But then again, there is the care of the chickens, and what you do with them once they have dug your blueberry beds…

One of the concurrent story lines in Coop involves the construction of a chicken coop during the acquisition of chicks and construction of the chicken tractor. I defer to our poultry expert, Kirk on the startup of urban chicken rearing. He’s on his second year. Send encouragement, and perhaps he’ll share some of his expertise. Now, what do they have at that Restore that could become a chicken tractor?

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Here comes Fall. That 2002 Chevy Prizm sitting in our garage was rated 41mpg highway and 36 city back when we bought it, and now has 107,000 miles on it. Following collisions with other vehicles, insurance funds paid to have it fixed, worked upon, hopefully it will be fixed for good this time so we don’t have to shop for a vehicle to replace it this year. But the Prizm was the more recent model of our two gas powered vehicles, and the one that typically sits in the garage when I take the bike to school. When that happens it is often used for shorter trips by our teenager (refer back to the third sentence.) When looking for a more nimble car to replace our older van, something that will go through snow drifts on Winter mid night midwifery calls, it seems the gas mileage plummets.

The 2000 Honda Odyssey van that we want to replace doesn’t get as many miles per gallon (rated 18/26 mpg), and we would like to improve things when moving to a smaller car with better handling characteristics. But it seems the best we can do in a wagon is 20/26 for the Subaru Outback. Wouldn’t you expect that the technology would have improved gas mileage more in a decade? There is an electric SUV promised by Phoenix Motorcars in 2008 that can be pre-ordered now, if you bypass your browser’s security. I’m not sure it is the best choice since the Amish families who live about an hour’s drive away don’t have electrical outlets to plug it into, and it is supposed to go up to 100 miles. That is close. Maybe tow a trailer with a gas powered generator? Or maybe move a bit closer to Amish territory.

It would be tempting since EESA created a tax credit for vehicles that have at least four wheels and draw propulsion using a rechargeable traction battery with at least four kilowatt hours of capacity. For 2009, the minimum credit is $2,500 and the credit tops out at $7,500 to $15,000, depending on the weight of the vehicle and the capacity of the battery. If only we could buy that vehicle this year.

I keep thinking about that Chevy Prizm, and how far 5 people can go on a couple of hundred dollars. At the time we purchased it, I figured the Toyota Prius would have to save us more than 10 miles per gallon to be worth the $10,000 more it cost back then. Even though the new Honda Insight’s 40/43 improves significantly on the Prizm’s city driving mileage, it is mainly due to regenerative braking and still sacrifices winter driving. We’re looking for efficiency and capacity in a vehicle that handles winter roads. I seem to remember that the old Volvo wagons had better mileage, but I guess they’ve become a luxury car with all of the power to go with it. Too bad so many people associate their own power with the drivetrain of their automobile.

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Since our computer began playing possum early last Spring, we’ve been searching for green alternatives to nursing along the old desktop or just giving in and buying a whole new system. Compounding the problem has been the wife’s departure for a month of clinical training taking her laptop with her. By nature, laptops and netbooks consume less power because they are partly rated on battery life. You could search and find any number of options there if you like. But they also tend to be expensive for the technology you receive, you pretty much have to buy the whole package, and when you are done, throw away a whole package. So with a mind toward reducing, I’ld begun talking to my eldest son (the resident tech wiz) as he handed down equipment and software to get us through the summer. During our discussions he told me about an exciting new product that would come out before August.

So, most of the summer, we were waiting for the availability of the $200 Zotac Ion ITX A Mini motherboard. We ordered one and it came in last week. Now as far as motherboards go, it is relatively expensive for an Atom based system. Atom is the brand of processor in most netbook computers. It doesn’t come with an integrated screen or keyboard. But we had the full sized versions from our desktop which I prefer. We still need to add DDR2 memory, a mountable mini itx case sans power supply, and a hard drive which all comes to about $150. Yes, we considered a netbook for $350, but we would be stuck with a 10″ screen and poor internet video capabilities. No, we won’t be able to surf at Starbucks on battery power. But then again, we could unplug the brick and pick up the monitor with pc attached and go somewhere that has wifi and an outlet. What came in the package runs on very little power, and has awesome video capability. It is recommended for use as a home theater personal computer. The motherboard includes the graphics circuitry, and the package includes an external 90 Watt power supply (the brick) similar to what you would use to charge your laptop battery. It even has Wifi on board, and 6 USB ports. The case we found is small enough to mount on the back of our LCD screen, and can be purchased with the mounting hardware for very little extra.

Now, there are lots of mini motherboards, so what makes this unit so special? Due to the integrated Ion 9300 graphics circuitry, this tiny motherboard can stream video from the internet, which it does it without taking up much space, fits in a small cabinet, won’t require liquid cooling or lots of fans (heat = inefficiency in electronics), and it may even run most video games without so much as a fan. In fact, it resembles a video game system in size. You may want to use the fan that is included, which quietly pulls air across the heat sink. But the fact that it isn’t required means this unit is very efficient in terms of energy use, and without the fan, the only noise comes from the hard drive.

I didn’t do any checking on Zotac’s reputation as a manufacturer in terms of it’s environmental record. It also takes a bit of DIY to assemble even a mini computer, but you would be surprised how little. We’re going without an optical drive attached once it is set up with linux. If you are like me, you have working computer parts you hate to throw in a landfill, and you may prefer to minimize the footprint on your desktop. Since everybody is posting digital video these days, the Zotac Ion ITX Mini A may be a pretty good option.

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The 30 day pass is handy, and encourages me to keep a car parked when I go to work. I keep experimenting with places to get on or off the bus. My latest route cuts my commute down to an hour from the original route I was taking. The funny thing is, I don’t think that the route is that much farther to ride. But the crux issue for us, like most families, is getting kids to their evening extracurricular activities. That’s why most families keep a second car. With kids scheduled tight around dinner time, it has been difficult to keep at least one car parked at all times.

I’ve been thinking about how to get beyond the 2 bikes per bus limit. First, I’m going to try to get our tag-along trailer approved as a carry on. If that doesn’t work, I plan to lock our old tag along bike attachment near the bus stop serving a frequent destination. When we dismount from the bus with an extra child along, we could unlock it and attach it to one of our bikes, and haul him along. That means one young child could ride to the first bus stop and lock up his bike there, and then still be able to ride to our destinations served by that bus stop.

The one thing I need is for a couple of the Valley Transit bus routes to be extended to the other side of our interstate highway so that I can safely get my kids to the soccer/baseball parks when they play and practice a couple of times per week. It just isn’t safe for them to ride their bikes on the high traffic roads that cross that barrier.

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Since I began going to work without a car again, I’ve been able to do it with a bike and the bus system in comfort and without any major concerns. I even made a couple of bus commuting rookie mistakes without any significant loss of time thanks to a friendly bus driver’s advice. Planning for the commute took time, and going completely car-light will undoubtedly require a changed mindset, but using public transit is now far simpler in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley.

Valley Transit has joined the ranks of Google Maps Transit. You go on Google Maps, put in your starting and destination address just like you do for a car trip, and select public transit from the drop-down menu. You can get directions, a map, and an itinerary including transfers and fare prices for many transit systems around the world. How awesome is that for planning a vacation and skipping the car rental? (Click the link above to see a demonstration of how it works.) What is great for a bike commuter is that it makes it easy to try out various bus stops. Honestly, the rack and ride option speeds things up substantially if you explore boarding options and are willing to ride a bit farther. If I take the first option offered by Google Maps from my home to my workplace, nearly door to door service is over 2 hours by bus alone. By riding to points farther from my home and workplace, I have that same trip down to less than an hour each way.

I had spent a lot of time second guessing myself and learning the bus schedule. But once they completed the process of joining Google Maps, trips on Valley Transit have become quick and easy to plan. I hope that ridership goes up as a result because funding for all transit systems is going down. They need more riders to fill their trips and help to fund the system. It makes it possible for them to continue serving those who depend upon the system as their only means of transportation.

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I’m on the brink of a car-lite transition. By selling a car, we would be better off financially by about $4,000 right away according to the blue book, and then enjoy steady savings when it comes to gas, maintenance, and parking. We aren’t all convinced of the practicality though. How about going car lite without selling a car right away? That’s the test, and our goal is to start next week. For $56, Valley Transit issues a 30 day ride card, and I’m buying it with gas money. It only takes 16 days of round trip commutes to become cheaper than the single ride fair costs at $1.80 per trip. That’s a pretty good bargain if I stay committed and keep the car key hanging on a hook. The great thing is, I won’t care as much about gas prices.

We don’t have the best funded transit system in the nation here in Appleton, WI, but we do have bus coverage. This took a fair amount of looking at bus schedules and routes to figure out. I’ve requested the information packet that the transit center offers commuters. I plan to ride my bike 1 mile on residential streets, catch a bus that carries me to the transit center in 5 minutes, and transfer to the bus that takes me 10 miles to the town where I teach. There, I’ll be pulling my bike off the bus 25 minutes later and ride another 20 minutes to work. A bit tight for preparing a first hour class, but at least I’m not sitting in traffic while class starts. All told, pretty close to an hour to travel what I could cover on my bike in 45 to 50 minutes if the roads weren’t icy. But hey, it has taken me over 45 minutes to drive with traffic backed up on the HWY 441 bridge cutting deeply into the gas mileage. It took about 80 minutes to commute by bike through the snow, so a dependable hour commute will be sweet and provide some added reading time!

But what if I have to go in to work early? I can ride 2.5 miles and catch the first bus that runs between towns and be at school early enough for a staff meeting or host a make-up swim session for a group of students. This time of year, I’m pretty sure the racks will be free on the bus. The return trip may have a bigger say in what I actually do on a given day due to other obligations. It is disappointing that another bus isn’t running the Neenah route so that a departure happened every half hour. Here, they alternate bus routes with schedules offset by a half hour, and there is another trip from my work town that goes to Appleton’s West side, but both routes leave at the same times:(  It just links with another route that takes me into the transit center a half hour later. That means, if I miss the bus, then the bike and I will complete the trip in less time than it takes to wait for the next one. Now, it’s time to adjust the fenders so they clear the studded tires I ordered for my bike…

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We’ve used the special shampoo everyday.  We used the hair oil a couple of times at the beginning.  And I used the hair tonic when we were in a bit of a hurry and needed to get the combing done rather quickly.  I just spritzed it on the hair so that it was wet and easier to comb through.  The good thing about the tonic is that it can be left in, since it’s just water and the essential oil mix.  I’m hoping it will serve as a deterrent if we come into contact with others who have critters.

We’ve been pretty clean each time we’ve combed during this last week of craziness.  I would say that we probably had the infestation pretty much under control by the end of the 4th day.  But we still wanted to be sure.  The second week, we went to a once a day combing, even though all the advice out there says you should comb twice a day for two weeks.

This is going to be my protocol if we should be visited by these critters again:

1. use the above-mentioned hair oil twice in the first 24 hours
2. wash that oil out with the above-mentioned shampoo
3. comb (if you leave conditioner in, or at least use a conditioner after the shampoo it makes this easier)
4. each morning of the first week, spritz with the above-mentioned hair tonic and comb
5. each evening, wash with the shampoo and comb
6. comb twice per day the first week
7. comb once per day the second week, using the shampoo each day
8. I don’t honestly know if I think all the laundering was worth it.  But we did have a houseful of clean bedding and clothing, so maybe just for that it was a good thing.

So, 60% of people who have lice don’t know it.  Lice are only itchy and bothersome, not really a disease.  Many of the treatments out there are quite toxic and can have devastating consequences.  To me, buying a pesticide containing shampoo is about the equivalent of using nuclear weapons when a bit of diplomacy will do.  I’m not going to go so far as to say I’m grateful that we had lice, but it’s really been an eye-opening and educational experience.  And we did have a lot of family together time–talking and reading books–while we were doing all that combing.

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It’s getting easier now, we have this combing routine down pretty well.  We did miss one combing on the morning of the 4th day when I got called to a birth.  When we combed that night, we thought we’d find lots, but we really didn’t.

The boys in our house consented, even asked, to have their hair cut.  All the websites say that cutting the hair is not necessary, and especially not to shame a child by cutting the hair extremely.  But my Eastern European practical genes are saying that this would be so much easier with a shorter cut.  So the boys got a tasteful trim that has made the combing less painful and tedious.  I did think briefly of that scene in The Education of Little Tree when the people at the Indian school shave the boy’s head and spritz him all over with heaven-only-knows-what.

This hair, however, has been long for some time, and the fine toothed comb is a painful process with curly locks.  We trimmed a little bit off the ends, but the combing still takes quite a long time.

long hair, sectioned off for the combing

The combing procedure is to section off the hair, comb through the section and then pin it up so that you know you combed that part.

I’m willing to do this work, though it’s tiring, and it means that a lot of things haven’t gotten done for the holidays.  But when I read stories like this, I know that the time is well spent.

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After the thrill of having the school nurse declare us nit free, I made the mistake of thinking we could back off a little bit.  So, yesterday evening we delayed the combing procedure a little longer than we should, and then discovered a few more nits than we had seen in the morning.  Ok, kiddos, everybody gets oiled up again.  Maybe the oil should be a nightly thing for a while.

spikey do with mama made oil

I also decided that the hair tonic (the water with the essential oils) would be a leave-in product.  So, the new procedure is this:

1. at night apply the oil, allow it to remain on the hair at least 1 hour.
2. shampoo with the doctored up shampoo to get the oil out.
3. comb
4. in the morning, at least wet the hair or shampoo if needed (in case all the oil didn’t come out the night before)
5. comb
6. spray with hair tonic and leave in.

This morning, the situation looked pretty good for most of us.  Some still had a few little empty egg casings in our hair, but we’ll be doing a good combing tonight.

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Well, we got a clean bill of health from the school nurse this morning.  She seemed rather amazed that she found no live lice, and not a nit on my kids.  We’re not out of the woods, yet.  The recommendation is using the nit comb on each person twice per day for a total of 14 days.   I’m feeling hopeful and up to the challenge today, whereas 48 hours ago I was practically despondent.

So, the plan is to use the oil treatment again this weekend, and then next week.  And we will wash with the shampoo once per day for the next two weeks.  Hopefully, this combined with the combing will do the trick.

This has really changed some things in our home, at least temporarily.  And it’s striking me that many of these things are choices that we made long ago in the interest of greenness, and being frugal.

1. Bath towels have become a single use item, and then they get washed.  I realize that this is the way many people handle towels, but we have always had folks use their towels for at least a couple of times before washing.  It saves water, energy, and time.  Each person in the house has their own collection of towels (a different color for each person), so that’s helping out in the “keep it to yourself” philosophy we’ve had to adopt with the lice in the house.
2. A lot more showers and shampoos have been happening.  Normally, only a few of us shower every single day.  The littles (who have sensitive skin and are prone to eczema) usually only bathe about once or twice a week.  I’m usually an every other day person myself, as I also have dry, eczema-prone skin.  We’ve used a lot of hot water in the last two days, and have even run out of the hot stuff a time or two.  This is pretty incredible since we have 100 gallons of water in reserve with the solar hot water system. I realize that perhaps people will think that this minimal bathing routine is what got us into this mess in the first place, but honestly, it’s served us well for 17 years, so I can’t think that one event of lice should change our mind that it’s an ok practice.
3. We keep the heat in our house fairly low most of the time with a programmable thermostat, and snuggle up together under throw blankets when we read together or watch TV.  With all of the blankets and throw pillows requiring laundering, and the prospect of re-infecting each other, all this togetherness has been at least temporarily discontinued.  I was sad yesterday to hear my 6 year old ask if it was ok to hug each other.  Even he is seeing his family as a potential source of nits.

A lot of time, I hear comments from people that they might like to live a little greener, but it so expensive to do so.  I think this feeling comes primarily from magazines featuring some celebrity’s eco-friendly home that cost millions, and is all tricked out with the latest and greatest, and some really obscure items to boot.  But really, many of the choices we make in the interest of being green have helped us to save money.  If we save money on everyday things like energy and water usage, we have a little more money to spend on other “green” choices that do cost a little more, like organic food or theraputic essential oils to treat our head lice.  And, I have to say that snuggling under the throw blankets is a habit that has lots of other benefits besides energy saving, and it’s a hard habit to break!

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