When I get home from work, I don't feel like doing anything, much less making my home more energy efficient. I have kept the heating/A.C. off for over a year now, and it gets real cold during the winter, and real hot during the summer. So in that regard, I have made some small steps. However, sealing of the windows and weather-stripping of the doors are in order.
Energy use reduction OUTSIDE of the home has begun: I manually push-mowed my yard on Earth Day, and that was interesting to say the least. Not only was I dreaming about my gas-powered mower the entire time, the darn thing does not cut well at all! People walking by gave me peculiar looks, like they had just stepped into a time warp. I have a much higher appreciation for the gas-powered mower now, but I felt good about not using fuel and getting a little sweat going....
I am also getting my moped serviced this weekend. The truck must be parked and not moved until completely necessary. It is too nice to not be scootin' around town! More efforts are to be made soon on the home energy reduction, but in the mean time, I am taking steps to reduce other energy consuming sources.
Your push mower will work much better if you get the blades sharpened.
ReplyDelete... and I love the image of you pushing your push mower and riding around on your moped. BTW, up here you'd be in the scooter scene :)
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteYou know the quote: Small steps lead to big results.
It sounds like you are doing the best you can do, keep on pushing :)
When we first started renting a house with a quarter acre lot a few years ago I insisted that we get a push mower to cut the grass. That first mow was a real bear because it didn't do well on tall grass, but after that it was fun, and it did feel pretty special to be doing all that work with no input or output except muscle and sweat. We were lazy though and didn't do the work of getting our blades sharpened (and they got rusty under the tarp all winter because our landlord didn't provide a shed) and so our last season there we broke down and got an electric mower with a super long extension cord. Not as good, but also not as bad as a gas mower. This experience really showed us how the systems to support certain tools or practices are non-existent, making their use pretty much impossible. Without a friendly neighborhood blade sharpener down the street, our push mower became a dinosaur.
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