Conserving Resources - Life with Renewable Energy

This post is part of the Green Mom’s Carnival which is hosted this month by Micaela at Mindful Momma. Check it out!

Our home (indeed, all homes at Dancing Rabbit) is entirely off-grid. We have solar panels and a wind turbine; the power comes in and is stored in eight huge batteries. It is all a bit like voodoo to me – all I know is that we keep track of our power level and live accordingly.

Our solar panels (the ones on the pole are for our house, the ones on our house are for the Mercantile, which was built second, and not in a good position for roof panels). Below, up in the tippy top between the two oak trees is our wind turbine.

My life is filled with dramatic contrasts. Sometimes, when it is rainy and cloudy, our energy system gets low on power. We curtail our power usage – make press pot coffee instead of using an electric pot, choose not to watch TV (which actually isn’t hooked up to anything – we watch Netflix movies, mostly), perhaps hang out on the couch together in the evening and read by a single lamp. It may sound parsimonious, but it is one half of our ecological life. The other half is filled with days of bright sunny skies and blustery winds. On these days just about anything goes. Waffles for breakfast, cookies baked in the electric convection oven, the electric dehydrator churning out dried tomatoes all day long, because the power keeps coming and coming and coming. Our batteries are full, and we use as many “diversion” (or “dump”) loads as possible. If we do not use this power, we have no way to store it. It just dissipates, goes away, pffffft. So we divert.

The next photos are for the geeks among us:

Deep cell batteries that hold our power...(3 of 8 shown)

The "key of life" which tells us how much power is in our batteries (right now we're at 85% of capacity)

More tech-weenie voodoo renewable power system gizmos (the tech stuff is CLEARLY not my strong point. If you'd like some REAL info contact me and I'll get you in touch with "my people.")

Those 5-gallon buckets you see in my oh-so-glamorous yard (below)? They are collecting water that the sump pump in the Mercantile basement has collected, and will be used to water the garden. Why waste the water when it can be put to good use? Indeed.

(About 25 tomato plants, 15 pepper plants, two gone-to-seed asparagus beds, a gob of basil, tarragon, parsley and oregano, and what looks to be a chair farm. (The horizontal panel just to the right of our front door is a solar water heater; that's a whole 'nother post...)

In the winter, when we heat our house with a wood burning stove (Jotul brand) we conserve energy in a different way. As Kurt always says (good-naturedly) as he chops firewood and brings load after load of it into the house, “firewood warms you twice – when you chop it and when you burn it!” But to keep our firewood usage to a minimum, we take care to cover our windows at night. Not to keep prying eyes away, but to keep the warmth in and the cold air out. Some of our windows are double-pane beauties from Marvin, others are single-panes reclaimed from building demolition. Both benefit from being covered in cold weather). Our window coverings are roman shades made of Warm Window fabric, a multi-layered fabric that creates a vapor and draft barrier. In the daytime we raise the shades to let the sun in and warm us and our floor to take advantage of any passive solar gain we might receive.

Food is another way we try to conserve. I love having a garden in my front yard. I grew up in the post WWII suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area. In our housing tract (built in 1956) there were four house designs, but all looked pretty much alike. And every house was surrounded with lawn. We rarely used it; most socializing was done in back yards. It was, I now realize, a buffer, a moat, a defensive area from the outside. I suppose this is exactly why I love the Edible Estates concept. Watch these two short videos for inspiration – you’ll be glad you did!

This one in a home garden, in the middle of suburbia:


And this one in a commercial garden, which points out the remarkable contrast between "lawn" and a real green space:


We can/preserve a lot of food for the winter. I have not yet reconciled the energy usage that it takes to preserve, say, a quart of tomatoes. I’ve “canned” on both wood-burning and propane stoves, and it takes a lot of fuel to heat the water to boiling and then for the jars to sit in the boiling water bath that will keep us all from dying of botulism this winter. I continue to research additional ways of food preservation. Lately many (many!) Rabbits have been embracing the joys of fermentation. Fans of Sandor Katz’s book Wild Fermentation are fermenting kraut, kimchee, yogurt, and many other foodstuffs all over DR, most of which is not heat-processed. The food we cannot eat goes into our compost. I love compost. It enables me to throw out scraps and uneaten food and view it all as nutrients for our future gardens. No more guilt!

A group of us demonstrating our cooperative vehicle skills last winter for an issue of Communities Magazine

Another aspect of resource conservation that we embrace here at Dancing Rabbit is our vehicle use. We share two VW Jettas and a big ol’ Ford truck between about 45 adults. Each Sunday we meet and figure out who is going where, in which vehicle. We all do errands for one another; for example today Kurt and I are going to Quincy to pick up Maikwe at the train station. We’re using the trip as an excuse to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary, and so in addition to a romantic dinner we’ll stop by the plumbing, electric and reclaimed building materials supply stores. (Ah, romance…). We’ll also be stopping by our friend Dan Kelly’s Blue Heron Orchard to pick up apples for Bobolink Food Coop, the Carleton Family and ourselves, plus other assorted items (party supplies for Tereza’s birthday on Thursday, feta cheese for Sharon, etc.). By not owning our own vehicles, and by sharing trips and errand-running we save ourselves lots of money and hopefully, save on fuel.

That’s it for now – thanks for reading!

I Love Books

I love books. No secret there. When I meet someone I can't help but ask what they're reading. Often it is something that I have read, or want to read, or have heard of, and there is instantly a connection. If, however, the person says "oh, I'm not reading anything" or, even worse "oh, I just don't have time to read," well, that's pretty much the end of THAT converstation. Call me shallow, but I really enjoy crazy, loopy book people.

Because books, well, they just take me places. It's amazing the places I've been without ever leaving the comfort of my couch. I learn so much (and some of it I even remember!). But best of all are the nuggets, which I dog-ear and later type into my "Quotes From Books" folder in my computer. It is the only section of my computer that is actually organized. Hmmmm...I'm sure Dr. Freud would have something to say about THAT.


My bookish friend Suzanne introduced me to Goodreads. I haven't spent much time there, but am loving what I've seen. It's made for book obsessives. I'm always looking for the next great read, and seem to have found my people. If you'd like to be friends on Goodreads let me know - it could be fun!


Listing the books I've read prompted me to go back and read some of my quotes, and so I'm posting a few here. They are from The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I promise I'll write more about Ecovillage Life tomorrow. But then, reading IS a big part of my life here...

Next to Shakespeare I love Thoreau best. Mrs. Henry made us read portions of Walden Pond, and afterward I’d had fantasies of going to a private garden where T. Ray would never find me. I started appreciating Mother Nature, what she’d done with the world. In my mind she looked like Eleanor Roosevelt.
Pg. 57

…I looked again at the honey jars, at the amber lights swimming inside them, and made myself breathe slowly.

I realized for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it.
Pg. 63

The first week at August’s was a consolation, a pure relief. The world will give you that once in a while, a brief time-out; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.
Pg. 83

If the heat goes over 104 degrees in South Carolina, you have to go to bed. It is practically the law. Some people might see it as shiftless behavior, but really, when we’re lying down from the heat, we’re giving our minds time to browse around for new ideas, wondering at the true aim of life, and generally letting things pop into our heads that need to. In the sixth grade there was a boy in my class who had a steel plate in his skull and was always complaining how test answers could never get through to him. Our teacher would say, “Give me a break.”


In a way, though, the boy was right. Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long. But that’s just my opinion.
Pg 170

You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind. From now on when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I planned to say, Amnesiac.
Pg. 249

Everybody Dance Now!

A smile for Sunday morning...



The couple at :52 reminds me eerily of what Kurt and I look like dancing...

A Day in the Glamorous Life of an Eco-preneur

"Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace." ~ E.B. White (this from a man who writes about talking pigs, rats and spiders...)

6:00 a.m. Wake up, decide it’s too early, take a nap

8:00 a.m. Really wake up, jump out of bed, try to find that pile of clean underwear (no closets in our house yet, everything of mine just gets piled up, higher and higher, until it falls over. Kurt, however, is much tidier.) Wonder for the ten-millionth time why we are starting a business instead of finishing our house. Hmmmm.

8:15 – 9:00 a.m. – Downstairs in the kitchen grind coffee beans, heat up water, and make coffee with a cone drip filter (not enough power to run the electric coffee maker). Be glad that today is supposed to be sunny and know that our batteries will be full again soon. Rearrange the two days worth of dirty dishes piled all over the kitchen, move the box holding 25 lbs of ripe tomatoes off the kitchen table and onto a footstool in the living room, make breakfast (organic oats, raisins, apple pieces, sunflower seeds), serve and eat.

9:00 a.m. Talk with Meadow who stops by. Be reminded that this is one of the reasons I love living here. Clear the table, ignore the piles of dirty dishes, kiss Kurt good-bye as he finishes up a Suduko puzzle over his coffee. Grab the Mercantile checkbook, head upstairs to my desk (Milkweed Mercantile International World Headquarters). Write a check to a Pam of Purrfect Play for more fabulous organic catnip toys and one to Amy Radford for web-store work. Open email, get distracted. See that Sandor Katz has confirmed the Fermentation Seminar he’ll be presenting at the Mercantile in March, email him back and ask a few questions. Delete spammer comments from blogs. Try to figure out a more efficient way to do this. Check Facebook.

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. It is sunny and a perfect day for laundry. Fill a laundry basket with dirty laundry, grab 6 quarters and head to the Community Building. Put a load of laundry in – notice that we’re almost out of laundry soap; time to order more (my responsibility since Kurt and I own the washer). Remember that there is DR laundry hanging on our clothesline (from yesterday’s Community Clean – it was our team's turn, which includes not only cleaning the building but washing the community towels/cleaning rags which have accumulated in the past week) which will have to be taken down before mine can go up. Back to the house, back upstairs. Check online for new orders on the Mercantile website. We have two since last night. Yay! Try to add the new email addresses to our Constant Contact mailing list: Constant Contact is not available. Argh. Go back downstairs, print out packing slips (on Kurt’s computer, which is connected to the printer) and dash to the Mercantile to get merchandise to fill the orders. While I’m there run upstairs to check on the progress that Meadow and Sparky are making. Trade jokes, forbid them to call the Rachel Carson room (which is being painted a very sophisticated shade of gray) the “Elephant Room.” Know that it is futile, and that they will always call it the Elephant Room. Go back downstairs in the Mercantile to the store, appreciate how pretty it is. Collect merchandise for the two orders, grab appropriately-sized boxes and head back to the house (where the packing materials are still stored in our bedroom) to pack up the orders. Can’t find the tape gun, go back to the Mercantile and get another one. While I’m there fill and carry a bucket of planer shavings for our composting toilet back to the house, since we’re out. Tape up the previously flattened boxes, carefully wrap merchandise with recycled tissue paper and reclaimed bubble wrap (from all of the incoming packages here at DR). Go online, print mailing labels, affix to boxes. Find stamps for the envelopes containing checks; take the whole mess out to the mailbox. Enjoy the warm fall sun and the gorgeous blue sky. Stop by the clothesline, take down the DR laundry, fold and take it to the Community Building. Pick up my laundry, which is washed and waiting in the washer. Turn off the power strip for the washer, load up wet laundry, haul it back to the house, hang it up. Reflect on how great the sheets are going to smell tonight when we’re sleeping on them. Realize that it is noon, and time for lunch. Curse. Feel overwhelmed, and think evil thoughts about how Larry Ellison and other male business figures never had to make their own lunches, or wash their own dishes. Eventually get over it.

Larry Ellison wants to wash my dishes. Just as soon as he's finished sailing...

12:00 – 12:30 p.m. Make lunch for me and Kurt - fabulous chicken sandwiches with leftovers from last night’s dinner, garden cukes with spring roll sauce, fresh sliced tomatoes. Notice that we’re almost out of bread. Remember that Alyson, from whom we buy bread each week has a broken bone in her hand and will not be making bread this week. I either have to go to town and buy (mediocre) bread, or make some of my own. Larry Ellison never had to make his own bread, either.

1:00.-1:15 p.m. Continue to ignore the dirty dishes. Worry that if I die suddenly the police will gossip about how dirty my house is. Go back upstairs and Google the top ten American CEOs are (big surprise: my BFF Larry). Find the answer on the Forbes website, along with this quote: "Finding a way to live the simple life today is man's most complicated task. ~Henry A. Courtney Decide that Henry may have known what he was talking about.

1:15 – 2:20 p.m. Go to Mercantile and finally finish taking the "starting" inventory that should have been done four weeks ago. Feel proud. Brag to Kurt about all of my inventory-related accomplishments.

2:20 – 3:30 p.m. Wash the dishes. And then wash more dishes. Larry Ellison, Larry Smellishon.

3:30 – 4:30 p.m. Wash, core and cut up 25 lbs of tomatoes. Listen to NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me while working. Cook them for a long time. Flip through Sierra, Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines. Wonder why all of the models look dead. Wonder what trends I can possibly find that will be applicable to the Milkweed Mercantile.

4:30 – 5:00 p.m. Take Baloo and walk to the mailbox, pick up the mail. Stop and chat with folks.

5:00-6:00 p.m. Try to think of something to eat for dinner. Decide on pesto pasta. Go outside and pick two cups of fresh basil leaves. Come in, put pasta water on, and make pesto. Slice onions, zucchini and garlic; sauté. Add chopped tomatoes, top with mozzarella, and put a lid on the pan so the cheese melts. Be seriously impressed at how good this made-up dish is. Slice and toast a few pieces of Alyson’s sourdough wheat bread. Sit and read the WSJ for a few minutes.

6:25 p.m. Plate up dinner and take it over to the Community Building for community dinner (on Monday nights we all get together to eat; on Thursdays we all have a potluck). Sit with Kurt, Ali, Rachel, Sharon, Sparky, April and Ziggy. Talk about books (Sharon is reading something really long and wonderful but I cannot remember the name; Rachel just finished Bonk by Mary Roach). Then talk about things we really don’t like. Rachel doesn’t like blood & guts, Ziggy is offended by casseroles, I really dislike fermented foods (miso = ick!), Sharon gets the heebies around pears, April detests grapefruit. More stimulating conversation ensues.

8:00 p.m. get too cold to stay outside chatting and come home. Ignore the dirty dishes, put away the leftover pasta. Sit on the couch and read for a bit. Relax.

9:30 p.m. Take Baloo out for the last time. Admire the moon, the stars, the clean fresh air. Listen to the crickets and peepers for a few minutes. Go inside and go to bed, read for awhile, then go to sleep. Dream and prepare to do it all again tomorrow!

Wonderful Food in San Francisco

Are you going to San Francisco? Forget about wearing flowers in your hair - that is so, well, yesterday. What you simply MUST do is stop by Olea.

A marvelous little restaurant on the corner of California and Larkin, Olea is run by Gabe Amaya and Glen Bolosan. Long before Olea opened, I got to know both Gabe and Glen when I worked with Gabe briefly at a not-to-be-named SF Ferry Building restaurant. I fell in love with their humor, their charm, and their unfailing adoration of good food, beautifully prepared.

San Francisco Magazine had this to say:

In his tiny open kitchen, chef Gabriel Amaya performs as an anti-showman, eschewing grand productions for endearing little numbers: farmers' market-driven dishes that are slightly more ambitious than what you'ld try at home. On a recent evening, rose-stewed manila clams gave off the smoky heat of bacon, green garlic and Peruvian peppers. Paper-thin flat-bread, freshly bronzed in the fire, arrived undressed, its flattering toppings (ricotta, roasted pear, sauteed bitter greens) offered on the side.

Amaya clearly has imagination--witness roast duck drizzled with orange-and-star anise honey--but simple demonstrations, like a beautifully done burger with housemade aioli, will convince you that it's all about you, not him. The service is spot-on, and the strains of Edith Piaf in the small, spare space enhance the restaurant's sweetness. In an age when very little seems to be undiscovered, Olea makes you feel like you're stumbled on a find.

So stop into Olea, and prepare to be delighted. Tell them Alline sent you.

A Week of BLTs, and the Gardener Has a Duh Moment

Kurt and I have been working our way through fresh tomatoes with a daily BLT for lunch. We've been wondering just how long we'll have to go before we become tired of them. Each day we bite into the salty bacon, juicy tomato, crispy lettuce slathered in mayo and grin. We then say to each other "nope, not yet!"

Them yeller ones on the right, ma'am, are quite done.

In other news, I realized that the reason some of my tomatoes were not getting red is because they are YELLOW tomatoes. Sheesh. Who let me be a gardener?

Have a great weekend - may it be filled with BLTs, ripe tomatoes and brilliant sunshine!

Drying Herbs in the Humid Midwest (the Lazy Alline Way)

As a native Californian I continue to be puzzled by humidity here in the Midwest. As green fuzz grows on my counter tops and when just-baked crunchy cookies left out to cool overnight become mush by morning, I am reminded again and again that I live in a truly damp climate.

I am becoming resigned to humidity; I pretend that it is what gives me my dewey complexion and keeps me looking youthful. But I have to learn the lesson again and again and again.

Take drying herbs for example. In any NORMAL climate one can simply tie the herbs in a bunch and hang them up to air dry. Not so here. First they become limp, then just turn black. Not exactly the appetizing condiment I was going for.

In desperation I turned to my oven's pilot light. No, not in a Sylvia Plath sort of way. I'm using it for my herbs, not for my head.

By layering fresh herbs and clean tea-towels on a baking sheet and placing them in the oven for a day or two, the herbs dry beautifully.

Drying herbs on tea towels: tarragon, parsley and oregano.

I find that muslin or woven towels work better than terry cloth. And I have to put a note on the oven to remind myself to remove the baking sheet before pre-heating the oven for actual baking. Take each leaf off of the stem and lay them individually on the towel (that is on the baking sheet). When each layer is filled, cover with another towel layer and repeat the process. I did not need to change the towels at all - the moisture seemed to be sucked up into the atmosphere.

I just dried oregano, tarragon, basil and parsley in this way. After two days they were bone dry, and I was able to put them into little herb jars happily labeled "2009." I'm especially excited for this winter, when I can pull out a jar of my own fresh herbs and gloat.