A Quiet Time at Steepmeadow

Zipper enjoying the heat from the fireplace

It is cold. Darkness falls early. Snow cloaks the land. Things at Steepmeadow have slowed considerably. 

We have turned our eyes inward, and the biggest green progress has been in heating. 

The new fireplace is wildly successful. We received our energy bill for November, and we hadn't used any more gas than we used in October, or September for that matter. 

While we had to buy the smallest fireplace insert on the market, and it is only officially rated to heat 1,200 feet, we've had no trouble heating 1,600. At least until the temperature drops into the single digits. At that point, we supplement with electric space heaters.

On the downside, we seem to be burning through the two cords a little faster than we'd predicted. We're going to start balancing our burning with our furnace use a little bit in the interest of making it last.

Next year, we'll buy at least three cords of wood.

This seems to be the way with all of our attempts to green-up. The solar panels provide about 85% of our electricity, spread out across the year. The wood will probably provide about 75% of our heat this winter. My plug-in hybrid car mostly runs on electricity, but on longer trips taps into gas. As far as our food independence goes...it probably saved us about $350 in groceries over the summer. I don't want to think about return on investment there. 

In sum, partial success all around. All of this constitutes a good start and a decent amount of independence for suburbanites. 

One intractable problem is plastic. While we try to reduce our use of the stuff, it is absolutely ubiquitous. We bring our own bags to the grocery store. We try to buy glass containers if we can or cardboard containers if we can. But sometimes it feels like a losing battle.

For instance, this glass cleaner. I don't think this sticker means what they think it means. Ten points for telling the truth, but negative about 100 for their greenwashing campaign. 

It's very early to start thinking about next year. A major campaign is going to be replanting the slope where the slag from the stair project destroyed the last of the burnt-out grass last year. We want a bee lawn there. Measurements need to be taken. I think we need to aerate - possibly renting a large piece of machinery for a day, to prepare the rock-hard clay soil. Those seeds aren't cheap. 

And, come January, we will want to begin ordering new seeds for the garden. We had such limited luck with saving seeds last year, we determined that we'd purchase them for next year. 

The afternoon grows old. Today, I'm taking some of the frozen zucchini from the freezer, before it burns, and making some bread. Best get to it.