Thrift Store Goodness

It wasn't that long ago that I cringed at bit at the prospect of going into a thrift or second-hand store, let alone actually buying anything from a place 'like that.' I even found second-hand bookstores to be somewhat yucky and distasteful, with that funny dusty-musty smell and all those pre-read books in there.

And, to be totally honest, I was a bit judgmental of the people who shopped in such places. But Gord had no such hang-ups or judgments and I would tag along with him, somewhat unenthusiastically, when he would go into Value Village or other no-name thrift stores or book stores, all the while thinking, "ew" and, "when can we leave?"

Well, all that has changed. It was the bookstores that first got me to come around. Given the amount of books I read, half-price books were very attractive. And once I got over the idea that second-hand was somehow second-class, I started going to more second hand book stores, and I found that they didn't all have that smell, and even if they did, well, so what? Maybe what I considered smelly was just the lack of off-gassing plastic wrappers and the absence of chemical air fresheners.

And once I got over that, it was just a small change in perspective to see all the other thrift store goodness. I had been wanting to stop using my non-stick frying pans for a while, but cast-iron pans are expensive -- except at the thrift store. Gord snagged me this lovely 10 inch cast iron pan at Value Village for 10 bucks! While he was calling me on the phone to see if I wanted it, he said that two other people eyed it and put it back down, luckily for me! After a quick scrub with baking soda, and a little re-seasoning with canola oil, this pan is a non-stick wonder! And no carcinogenic chemicals to worry about.

I had asked Gord to keep an eye out for a baking rack, and lo and behold the next time he was at Value Village he found the one in the picture, for just $1.99! It is a sturdy, well-made rack without a scratch or stain in sight. A little vinegar to clean it off, and it will outlast me, I'm sure. (Oh, and the bread? That's just for decoration, of course.)

I'm now on the lookout for more things from the thrift store, like cutlery (especially butter knives), book shelves, glass storage and canning jars, and a dark enamel roasting pan (to be used in the solar oven I plan to build/make, hopefully to make some of that delicious bread, with free energy!). Why buy these things new when they are perfectly good second hand? I save money, create less waste, and the Earth's resources are not depleted further on my behalf. That is a win-win-win situation if I've ever seen one.

What have been your best thrift-store finds?

90% Reduction - Corrected Natural Gas Usage

I sure am glad I read other people's blogs - it's keeping me on my toes! And a lesson in humility is never a bad thing.

I was visiting over at Learning to Step Lightly yesterday and in perusing her natural gas usage numbers I noticed a large error in my own calculations. I've been mistakenly touting our household as having achieved a 90% reduction in our natural gas usage, for both 2006 and 2007. I was proud of this, proud about how frugal we were in our house, even before jointing the Riot For Austerity. In fact, just the other day I turned the gas fireplace on because I was a bit chilly and thought I could comfort myself with both the warmth from the fire and the knowledge there was some 'slack' in our numbers. So what the heck eh? Turn on the fireplace.

Well, it turns out I made a miscalculation when I was converting Therms to gigaJoules, and put the decimal point in the wrong place. I thought the average North American household used 106 gJ of natural gas per month, but it turns out the average is only 10.6 gJs per month! Our 2007 average of 9.29 gJs/month is under this, but just barely! So instead of thinking we were only using 8.8% of the North American monthly average, we were in actuality using 88% of it. Time for some re-assessment here. I'll have to cloak myself in a sweater rather than in smug self-righteousness.

I'm fairly certain the rest of the numbers are I've posted in the past are correct, but if anyone notices any strange anomalies (past or future), please let me know!

At Last: 2007 Riot for Austerity numbers

Over at Learning to Step Lightly, Alexah has been diligently posting her Riot For Austerity updates on a monthly basis. In contrast, I've been procrastinating for many months, always telling myself I'll post them when I get one more month of numbers tallied up. And always hoping that the next month would lower my averages. But, this never happened and it's time to face up to the truth of the numbers for 2007.

In a nutshell, we consumed less of some things and more of others compared to 2006. I had hoped to make further reductions in every category, especially since we weren't even actively trying to reduce our consumption in some areas yet in 2006. Halfway through 2007 we joined the 'Riot' and really stepped up our efforts - at least I thought we did.

Here are the comparisons. The first number listed is the North American Monthly Average (NAMA) for a 2-person household, where applicable.

Electricity (lighting, cooking)

• NAMA: 916 kWh
• Our 2006 average: 316.7 kWH which equals 34.6% of the NAMA
• Our 2007 average: 327.58 kWh which equals 35.8 of the NAMA. We subscribe to Bullfrog Power, which is 100% wind power. According to Riot rules, we get a 4:1 credit for wind power, so we do actually meet the 90% reduction target in this category. But it would be nice to reduce the actual kWhs, nonetheless.
  

Natural Gas (heating, hot water)

• NAMA: 106 gJ
• Our 2006 average: 8.93 gJ which equals 8.4% of the NAMA - 90% reduction goal met
• Our 2007 average: 9.29 gJ which equals 8.8% of the NAMA - 90% reduction still met, but it's close.

Water

• NAMA: 6000 gallons
  
• Our 2006 average: 1600 gallons which equals 26.7% of the NAMA
• Our 2007 average: 1416.67 gallons which equals 23.6% of the NAMA - a bit lower, so this is good. Using the shower/tap grey water for flushing the toilet seems to be helping.

Garbage

• NAMA: 270 lbs
  
• Our 2006 average: 15.125 lbs which equals 5.6% of the NAMA - 90% reduction goal met
• Our 2007 average: 67.41 lbs, which equals 25% of the NAMA - this is a big jump but I know why it went up so much: we took some things to the landfill for some people who would otherwise have had to pay to put in in their city landfill. The good news is that we salvaged quite a lot of what had been originally slated for the landfill and we are using that stuff ourselves around the house and yard/garden.
  

Vehicle Fuel

• NAMA: 316 litres
• Our 2006 average: 308.58 litres which equals 97.7% of the NAMA. This is our Achilles heel - we live in the country and drive to the city for work. One vehicle is a diesel and logs about 600 kms per week. The other vehicle is gasoline powered and logs about 250 - 300 kms a week.
  
• Our 2007 average: I only have the figures for my diesel car so far, and we seem to be headed for about the same level of consumption as 2006. The good news is that the second vehicle is now a smaller car instead of a pick up truck, presumably with better mileage, so our 2008 numbers should be lower. But until we move closer to work, or find some way to work fewer days a week, this number will remain too high.
  

Consumer Goods

• NAMA: $1667 (US or CDN, they're at par with each other these days)
• Our 2006 average: $1019.51 which equals 61.2% of the NAMA
• Our 2007 average: $1010.63 which equals 60.6% of the NAMA - virtually identical. We have started changing what we spend money on more so than how much we spend, as we slowly acquire things like gardening tools, some hand-crank lamps, some good kitchen knives and other things on our list of things to prepare for a self-sustaining lifestyle. This number could well go up, as we invest in rain-collecting equipment, and maybe dig a well.
  

Food

• I didn't keep very good track of our proportion of bulk, locally grown, organic foods vs. long-distance/non-organic food consumption, but I do know the former increased, since we had a little garden in 2007 and went to the farmer's market almost every week for fresh produce. I doubt I'll keep good numbers on this actually, we're just steadily working on eating more and more locally as time goes by.

So there it is - we've done alright in some areas and not great in others, although we are at least below average in every category. And I'll try and post these numbers monthly from now on!

A day in the life....

A number of the people associated with the Riot for Austerity have been writing posts outlining the course of their typical day. I haven't really thought of putting my two cents worth in, because my efforts seem so paltry compared to so many of the Riot bloggers who have thought of, and done, almost everything to reduce their impact every day. But as this year comes to a close, I realized that our household has made quite a few changes over the past several months, and maybe it would be useful, at least to me, to make note of the things we're doing at this point, and how a weekend day looks. So here goes:

Sunday, December 30th

~8:30 am: wake up later than usual (we were out visiting fairly late with family last night) and tip toe downstairs to make tea and feed the guinea pigs. The automatic thermostat still has the temperature set for 17C, so it's a bit chilly. Take tea back upstairs to bed, and read a couple chapters in Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart" by the light of my FreePlay hand crank lantern, while Gord still sleeps. Fall back asleep myself - oops.

~9:00 am: auto thermostat clicks up to 18C for the day. (It goes up earlier on weekdays.)

~10:00 am: Gord lights the woodstove - still lots of embers left from yesterday so it's easy to light today, with a good updraft. (On very cold days there can be a downdraft instead, making lighting the fire VERY difficult, not to mention smoky.)

~11:00: I finally drag myself out of bed (I am not cut out for late nights anymore) and head to the shower. Use the toilet first, and flush using greywater from yesterday's shower, stored in the bucket in the tub. Replace bucket under faucet to catch the water as it warms up. Turn on the shower and hop in. Even though we have CFL bulbs in the light fixture, I leave the bathroom light off, with the door open to let in some light and let out the humidity. My 'navy shower' takes about 5-7 gallons of water, thanks to the toggle switch on the shower head, letting me turn off the flow while I lather up, shampoo, etc. The toggle switch also lets me adjust the flow of the water, so even when it's on, I usually have it set to about half or three quarters the maximum flow. Today I let the water run out of the tub. I justify this by saying that the tub needs to dry out every couple of days so I don't get too much soap scum/slime build-up in there.

~11:20 am: I don't have to do my hair or make-up today because I'm not going anywhere - hooray! Just put on some organic moisturizer on my face and a bit of mousse in my hair (so I don't look like a boy) and I'm good to go.

~11:45 am: start cooking some delicious and local Sunny Boy cereal for breakfast.

~11:50 am: add wood to the woodstove. Our wood is 'free' from aspen trees that the neighbours cut down to clear a spot to build their house. We also burn deadfall from our ~2 acre woodlot, but currently the 'free' wood is more easily accessible, and already cut.

~12:00 noon: eat "breakfast" - or is it brunch by now? My jaw has been sore from all the raw veggies I've been eating lately, so it's a soft porridge breakfast this morning. Note to self: veggies are delicious, but your jaw has to last a while yet so eat fewer raw veggies all at once (especially carrots). I leave the cereal in the pot I cooked it in - no point in dirtying another dish.

~12:30 pm: add more wood to the woodstove, and throw on a batch of used guinea pig bedding (a.k.a. wood pellets) as well. We get good use out of these pellets: the guinea pigs poop and pee in it and then we burn it in the winter, or use it as mulch for walking paths through the woodlot the rest of the year.

~12:45 pm: start a batch of soup stock, and load up the bread maker with ingredients for bread. Relatively local ingredients include potatoes from the Scotford Hutterite Colony, Windsor salt, Roger's sugar beet sugar and Sunny Boy organic flour. (I have cooked the soupstock on the woodstove in the past, but today I am a bit lazy and do it on the ordinary stove instead.)

~1:15 pm: go outside with Gord to shovel snow, refill the bird feeders, take out the compost, shake the snow off the littlest trees so their branches don't break. Take more wood inside - three boxes full, that should do for the rest of today. Gord leaves another wheelbarrow full just outside the basement window to take in tomorrow. We will have to split another pickup truck load of wood soon.

~2:15 pm: more wood and pellets; stir and taste the soup stock - add more herbs.

~2:20 pm: rescue the bread dough from the paddles which have come loose inside the breadmaker and are now well incorporated into the dough. Weird. Put the paddles and dough back in their proper spots and hope for the best.

~2:30 pm: cut up the remaining potatoes and some celery to make cream of potato soup when the stock's ready. I put all the onions in the soup stock itself, so celery and potatoes will have to do for the soup itself.

~3:05 pm: take the laundry out of the washing machine that Gord put in earlier. Hang it to dry on the drying rack downstairs near (but not too near) the toasty warm woodstove. Throw another log or two into the woodstove.

~3:15 pm: pee. Greywater flush. Just pour about 1 1/2 gallons of water from the collection bucket into the toilet bowl and down she goes. Works best if you pour the greywater right down the centre of the toilet bowl from about the same level that the water in the tank would be.

~3:30 pm: have a nice cup of tea with home made oatmeal cookie.

~4:00 pm: start the cream of potato soup using the homemade veggie soup stock. The potatoes were all growing wierd shoots from their eyes, so it was time to use them up. Scare Gord with the alien-looking potatoes before removing shoots. Gord humors me by making a face and laughing. Note to self: figure out a better place to store potatoes.

~4:15 pm: the bread is looking good and rising like it should. It should be edible after all.

~4:30 pm: surf the web. Check assorted blogs. Point out one of Sharon's posts to Gord which he reads.

~5:00 pm: add more wood to the woodstove. Sit in front of the woodstove for a while, enjoying the warmth and coziness.

~5:30 pm: Write and post previous blog entry while Gord has a nap.

~6:20 pm: Breadmaker beeps - bread is done. Mmm...mmm. Add last bit of cream and some milk to soup and blend. Warm soup bowls in the breadmaker since it's still hot in there.

~6:30 pm: Serve and eat dinner: home made soup and home made bread - yum!

~7:00 pm: Wash numerous pots and pans with my Dr. Bronners soap. Make lunch to take to work tomorrow : bread, potato soup, veggies (no carrots!), and some store-bought cookies because I am now out of home made ones.

~7:30 pm: start writing this blog entry.

~9:00 pm: clean out guinea pig cage -- spent pellets into a bucket to take downstairs to burn in the woodstove, stale water from the pigs' water bottles used to water house plants.

The day will end with a bit of time spent reading my Pema Chodron book by the light of my crank-powered lantern, having a cup of chai with Gord, banking the woodstove for the night so there are good embers left for tomorrow morning, and flushing the toilets with water from the tank for a change, last thing before bed. At 11 pm the thermostat clicks back down to 17C. It used to be lower at night, but not any more.

I really like Sundays like this. Ones that contain some satisfying indoor and outdoor tasks, and some enjoyable time for tea and watching the fire. We still have a long way to go in meeting the 90% reduction goals of the Riot for Austerity, but over the past year we've taken our consumption down in all areas, mostly in electricity, water and natural gas use. Our average is about 60% less that that of the typical North American household. We still have a long ways to go, especially in our gasoline/diesel consumption. That won't change much unless we move closer to work, but we do normally have one car-free day per week, sometimes two.

If Sharon from Casaubon's Book is right, 2008 will be a year of challenges and some surprises. But every day brings our household a little closer to being ready for these, and being content with the simple pleasures of things like home made soup and bread.

Our soup and bread were eaten before a picture could be taken so I've borrowed this guy's picture instead.

A couple edits added on January 1st -- things I hadn't remembered at the time.

We are Bullfrog Powered!

I received email notification today that as of this month, our house will be considered "Bullfrog Powered." Bullfrog Power is a Canadian company based in Ontario that recently started offering services in Alberta. Here is how Bullfrog explains how it works:

When you sign up with Bullfrog Power, you don’t need to switch electricity suppliers. Your electricity supplier tells us exactly how much power your home consumes. We then inject green electricity onto the grid on your behalf to match the amount of power you use. You continue to pay your local supplier for your basic electricity service, and receive a separate bill from Bullfrog for the greening of your power supply. And because you continue drawing power from the grid in the same way, there is no change in service reliability. It’s that simple.

Bullfrog uses the extra 2 cents per kilowatt hour we pay to ensure that an equivalent amount of Alberta-generated wind-powered energy is injected into the power grid on our behalf. The email they sent me today says this will cost us an extra $7.22 per month, based on our electricity consumption over the past 12 months. More wind power generation means less coal-fired power, which the Bullfrog People tell me will result in our household reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by this much per year:

• CO2: 1.24 tonnes
• NO: 2.08 kilograms
• SO2: 3.16 kilograms
  

This also reduces our consumption number for the 90% reduction project, since according to the project organizers, "Hydro and Wind are deemed to have a 4 to 1 payback over other methods - you get 4 times as many." According to our power company we used an average of 360.981 kWh per month over the previous 12 months. Since we get a 4:1 credit for wind power, this is the equivalent of 90.25 kWh per month. By the 90% rules we are permitted 91.6 kWh per month, which means we have slightly exceeded the 90% reduction target! The best part is, I know we can go even lower once we convert more bulbs to CFLs and keep our TV turned off.

I invite any Albertans or Ontarians reading this to check out Bullfrog Power for themselves and consider spending the extra 2 cents per kWh. You can probably offset the extra cost by taking some conservation measures, and do even more good that way!

90% Reduction: 2006 Baseline

Well, here it is. When you click on this link you will see our baseline consumption for 2006. I had hoped to be able to publish this directly here, but so far I can't make that work. So the link will have to suffice in the meantime.

I was able to update our garbage numbers today, when Gord went to the landfill to empty our two garbage cans. He has to make a garbage run about every two months, and today he went in to the landfill office to ask about our garbage numbers for 2006. People coming to the landfill have to go over a scale with their vehicle as they enter and exit the landfill, so the landfill people can tell how much garbage each vehicle leaves behind. Each household in our county is allowed to dump, get this, 8000 Kgs (17 600 lbs) of garbage per year! The scary part is that the Landfill Lady said that some people have already exceeded their limit for the year, and it's only July.

When I got home Gord was grinning when he asked me to guess how many kilos of garbage we dumped last year, so I figured it was either really good or really bad. It turned out to be really good! For all of 2006, we added just 75 kilos, or 165 lbs, of garbage into the landfill. This puts us really low on the garbage scale, generating just 5% of the North American average of 4.5 pounds of garbage, per person, per day! I have added 10% to that on the spreadsheet, to allow for the garbage we throw away when we are out or at other people's houses. We intend to reduce this as well, but don't really have any good way of measuring that.

I love lists and graphs and spreadsheets and such, so it is not surprising to me that I really enjoyed working up this spreadsheet. I've got an expanded version on the go to track our 2007 usage, and what we hope will be further reductions. We are doing quite well in the areas of natural gas and garbage reduction, but we have a long way to go when it comes to vehicle fuel consumption. And there are certainly gains to be made in terms of our electricity and water use and our consumer goods purchases. And our eating habits certainly have to change as well.

Here goes....

This month we are officially starting two challenges:

1) The Eat Local Challenge, organized by Crunchy Chicken, and;

2) the Riot for Austerity/90% Carbon Emission Reduction challenge, organized by Miranda at
Simple Living and Sharon at Causabons Book.

Crunchy is encouraging people to eat as much local (i.e., within their 100 mile 'foodshed') food as possible for the month of July. It is a project designed for success, because each participant can choose just how involved they want to be in doing the 'locavore' thing for themselves. We have set some fairly modest goals for ourselves this month:

• To find out where our local farmers are located
  
• To buy as much produce as possible from these farmers either at their farms near us or at the Farmer's Market(s)
• To learn more about growing our own food, and keep good care of our little 4X4 garden.
• What ever fresh produce we do buy from the grocery store will be grown in Canada or the USA only.
• To check where every food product we buy comes from, and when we have a choice (which is most of the time) to buy the one that is produced closer to home.

We have been doing some of this already over the past couple shopping trips, and it has been quite the eye-opener to see how far our food has to be shipped to get to us. More about that another day.

The second challenge is a year-long project that the Austerity Rioters already began on June 1st. Here is how Miranda and Sharon outline the project:

The goal that Miranda, Sharon and other participants have set for themselves is to cut their emissions by 90% of what the average person in the US consumes - the approximate amount people in the rich world need to reduce by in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming. The eventual goal is to reach the 94% that George Monbiot calculates would represent a fair share of the world’s emissions for Americans, but we’re starting slow ;-).

George Monbiot is the author of the book, "Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning." I haven't read this book yet, but the essential premise is that the developed world has to drastically cut its emissions to prevent greenhouse gasses from reaching the tipping point after which we can't stop global warming anymore no matter what we do. Those of us in the US, Canada and Australia must cut our emissions by 90%; those in the E.U, by about 85%.

Here are the seven key areas of consumption in which we must make reductions:

1. Gasoline/Diesel
2. Electricity
3. Heating/Cooking energy
   
4. Garbage
5. Water
6. Consumer Goods
7. Food

The full set of "rules" are available here at the Simple Living blog.

This is a huge challenge, no doubt about it. I don't know if we can do it without radically changing our lifestyle. But we would like to try. It would be good to see just how low we can go by only making moderate changes. Then maybe if we have to make drastic changes one day [insert ominous music here], maybe they won't seem so drastic anymore.

I'm working on a spreadsheet that outlines our consumption in these 7 areas, and once I get it finished I will post it here, that is if I can figure out how to post a spreadsheet on a blog.