The weather has been lovely this past week, with continuing lovely for three more days. Maybe another week. Calling for rain on Friday, but you never know, the forecast seems to change all the time. Except right now. It is decidedly lovely. The sunrises and sunsets have been spectacular. I saw a beautiful shawl I would like to knit in yesterday's sunrise. Maybe I should learn to handpaint yarn, like some uber-cool people I know. I am wearing a sweater that my mum created over 25 years ago. She carded teal & undyed white roving, then knitted it into a sea of moving colour. It might as well be handpainted yarn! The Seven Siblings are pretty lucky to be swaddled in such knitted garments.
I am currently knitting away at some Christmas goodies, and seeing how my kids don't read this blog, I could tell you what's on the needles. But that would be presumptuous. Last year, I gave Renee a dark-coloured cowl with matching wrist-lets. Perhaps I designed the cowl to be a bit too deep set, as you couldn't see her face when she tried it on. When her colleages at work saw her approaching, there was a low "Ooh, here comes Death!"
So, yes, The Good Life! Lots of sun means lots of electricity, which means we can use our bread-maker. I love the bread-maker! Uses less power than an oven, no dough-bowl to clean up. Heck, I don't even wash the measuring cups, I dust them out then put them away. Lots of sun means a warm house with no wood fire. So I fill up my solar heated shower bag and wash my hair. Takes less than a half hour to dry it in the sun. Lots of sun helps with many things, especially our moods. And lettuce! Jim is growing some Grand Rapids leaf lettuce in a big old planter we scooped from the dump.
They say that little things amuse little minds, and I guess They are right. I am a simple person, or at least I hope I am. I live on a very, very small amount of money, especially when our annual paycheck starts to run thin in November, but that makes life simple too. We see just as many chickadees as anyone else. Even more when Robbie flushes them out to play a game of tag.
This simple life started when we, Jim and I, decided to maintain the lifestyle of cruising sailors that we began three years ago. Three years with no fridge, no mortgage and no credit debt. God has seen fit to keep us healthy, although I just recuperated from the dreaded H1N1 virus, I did OK. I'll have you know that the ale Jim brews keeps at a decent 66 degrees while being aged in our Secret Beer Locker (under the bed, sitting on the cement floor), and Chardonnay tastes great at this temperature as well! The only thing I miss is having ice cream in the house. But if that's the only thing, then having a reduced carbon footprint is most certainly worth it.
For those interested in how the wind-generator is doing, it seems to work just fine, although we thought we had stronger prevailing breezes that what we are actually getting. My advice is to get/borrow a wind speed measuring device and measure your prevailing breeze. The package instructions say that it will start generate power at 6 moiles/hour, but we have found that it is closer to 10. Also, we installed lighter guage wire that what was called for, so that could be impairing the output. Anyone got 50 feet of wire greater than 10/3?
