Solar Energy

My wife Jan and I try to walk softly through life. Just our nature. Frugal, perhaps, not necessarily in terms of money, but energy consumption, carbon footprint, the environment.

We ride our bikes, walk or take public transit whenever possible. And we have a manual push mower to keep our lawn trim. We no longer water the lawn, no longer haul out our two hoses and two sprinklers on the two designated watering days per week for our street. What were we thinking?

When it comes to the sun's energy, we gulp it down extravagently. We've strung three or four clotheslines between the apple tree and our house. And try to wash on sunny windy days. It's great to see clothes hanging on a line, and in a few hours you have fresh smelling, sun-dried clothes.

And we have a solar-powered radio -- also a handcrank and powered by 120V -- that's great when we're outside gardening. It's also part of our earthquake kit.

For our week long wilderness canoe trip, I purchased a solar charger that allowed me to keep my camera charged. Nice unit in that it has a built-in battery so you can charge up the battery when the sun shines and then used the charged battery to charge up your device (camera, cellphone, ipod whatever). Bought it at my favourite store, Mountain Equipment Coop, here:
http://is.gd/8qAX


Thank you Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun. (Raffi song, I think).