Cheerful Curmudgeon

I’ve got over 7,300 square feet of grass outside my house. Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure!

Yesterday, I picked up a bag of Concern Weed Prevention Plus from Worm’s Way in Olivette, MO. I did that because, almost a year ago, our lawn care company stopped showing up to care for our lawn. (Conveniently, they also stopped sending bills.) In between the vanishing gardener’s last visit and yesterday’s purchase, the lawn did it’s natural lawn-ish thing and I mowed as usual. We had a few more weeds by autumn but the sky did not fall and the world did not end.

Some time in late fall, I listened to a podcast on natural lawn care, featuring Paul Tukey, author of The Organic Lawn Care Manual. I liked what I heard. Tukey’s ideas jibe nicely with my ideas of how the world ought to run; little things like a lawn ought to be able to pretty much take care of itself, without the regular addition of lots of synthetic chemicals. As far as I know, darned close to 100% of the grasslands in the world got that way without man’s help. When I drive through Yellowstone and enjoy the pastures, I am quite sure that no one spread weed ‘n’ feed on them.

Tukey’s point is that you can have a gorgeous lawn by nurturing the natural eco-system in the soil. If you do that, you don’t need all of the synthetic fertilizers and pesticides because nature is really good at taking care of itself pretty much all the time. Our lawns require all the artificial chemicals because the artificial pesticides have killed off not just the pests but pretty much all of the insects and bacteria and fungi which used to live in the soil. Grass is just one part of a complex environment; it can’t live in bare dirt alone. So the choices are either artificially support the grass or rebuild the eco-system of which grass is just one component. Tukey went on to explain that, in the long run, natural lawn care is actually less expensive because the lawn needs fewer dollars of stuff dumped onto it, less watering, and less mowing. In that context, natural lawn care made a bushel of sense to me.

I borrowed a copy of The Organic Lawn Care Manual from the library and read it. Then I bought my own copy to keep. I read bunches of stuff from the University of Missouri Extension web site on natural lawn care. I learned about the benefits of soil samples and compost tea and corn gluten and clover and a dozen other goodies. I was all psyched up and ready to work magic on my lawn. There was just one problem: it was December. So I waited. My favorite pass-time. Not.

The weather finally did start to warm up, as it is wont to do, and that brought me to Worm’s Way, our local organic gardening store (and source of great beer making supplies, too). I stopped in yesterday, largely for information, and was tickled to see piles of both organic pre-emergent herbicide and organic lawn fertilizer. The clerk helpfully told me that the herbicide would treat 1,700 square feet and the fertilizer would treat 2,500 square feet. I’ve got a small-ish lawn so I bought a bag of each. I guessed that would do it for me.

Before I dumped the bag of herbicide in the drop spreader which has been mouldering on a top shelf of the garage for years, I did a little more reading. Just how was I supposed to know how to set the spreader and how much stuff I would need? The answer, doh!, was to start by measuring the yard, then set the spreader for a lighter setting than the herbicide’s instructions called for, and keep criss-crossing the yard until the appropriate amount of stuff had been distributed. That seemed much easier than trying to get the spreader set exactly right so that I would exactly run out of stuff exactly as I finished walking the yard exactly one time.

Candy and I measured our lot: 120′ x 100′ = 12,000 square feet. Whoa. That was a much bigger number  than I expected.

Then we subtracted the spaces which are not grass:

• Driveway: 1,000 sq. ft.
• Garage & porch: 861 sq. ft.
• House: 2,275 sq. ft.
• Etc.

When all was said and done, I learned that we have 7,384 sq. ft. of lawn. Believe it or not, in all the years that I have lived in homes surrounded by lawns, in all the years that I have owned lawns, this is the first time that I have known how much lawn I have to care for.

We went back to Worm’s Way. Between yesterday and today, all but three of the bags of Weed Prevention Plus had evaporated. Fortunately, I needed exactly three more bags so I bought them, hauled them home, and spread the contents on the lawn.

This post is long enough so I’ll stop for today. Look for more installments on natural lawn care as the adventure continues.

Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 21)

You will receive word today that you are eligible to win a million dollars in prizes. It will be from a magazine trying to get you to subscribe, and you’re just dumb enough to think you’ve got a chance to win. You’re a really slow learner.

July 12, 1974

I am at a grocery store in Israel, picking up a few things. At the cash register, no one bags my stuff. No one even offers me a bag. I am outraged to learn that, were I to want a bag, I would have to pay for it. Paying for bags, I am told, encourages people to reuse the bags instead of throwing them away.

July 13, 1974

Reuse grocery bags to save a few cents? I guess it makes a little sense. But I’m glad that we don’t have to do that in the United States.

August 24, 1974

I’m back in the US and have completely forgotten about the bags.

February 12, 1983

My local Safeway grocery store asks me whether I want paper or plastic bags. I choose plastic, feel virtuous, and think (briefly) about the Israeli grocery store, nine years earlier.

November 16, 2004

Our landfills are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The trees in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The ponds in our parks are filling up with plastic grocery bags. The news is full of stories about plastic grocery bags. The Israeli grocery bag concept creeps back into my consciousness (temporarily).

April 23, 2009

US House of Representatives Democrats introduce a bill “aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and curbing toxic pollution by… imposing a 5-cent tax on single-use plastic bags….” (New York Times, New bottle deposit, bag tax bills touted for combating pollution). The Israeli grocery store, from 35 years ago, comes back to mind. I am a really slow learner.

We need fewer plastic bags and fewer paper bags. We need another tax like we need holes in our heads. Here’s a better idea:

Next time you go to the store and you have your groceries put into your reusable canvas bags, ask to speak to the manager. Tell him that you want to pay less for your groceries because the store didn’t have to give any bags to you.

Why should you pay for bags which you don’t use?

This article in Slashdot about the electronic trash that we create hit home. I cannot think of a good way to paraphrase it so here is the whole thing:

Every day, Americans toss out more than 350,000 cell phones and 130,000 computers, making electronic waste the fastest-growing part of the US garbage stream. A lot of the world’s e-waste is exported to Guiyu, China, where peasants heat circuit boards over coal fires to recover lead (a 15″ computer monitor can pack up to 7 lbs. of Pb), while others use acid to burn off bits of gold. Guiyu’s willingness to deal with lead, mercury and other toxic materials generates $75 million a year for the village, but as a result. Guiyu is slowly poisoning itself with the highest level of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. The village experiences elevated rates of miscarriages, and its children suffer from an extremely high rate of lead poisoning. TIME suggests checking out recycling brokers and accredited e-stewards the next time you’re ready to toss a gizmo.

If you are one of my readers who lives in the St. Louis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; or Columbia, SC then I recommend you get in touch with your local EPC office. They demanufacture waste electronics down to recyclable components and they do it safely, right here in the US.

Regardless of where you live, check with your local city and county government. More and more of them are setting up electronic recycling centers. For instance, the St. Charles, MO county will recycle electronics for any resident. There is a nominal cost but paying a few dollars beats the heck out of wondering who’s back yard your old CRT will be dumped in.

Infoworld published 10 power-saving myths debunked. I admit that I assumed this myth was true.

Myth No. 7: Notebook batteries just wear out. There’s not much you can do to make them last longer.
Fact: Many laptops with nickel-cadmium batteries come with a battery-reconditioning utility that drains the battery fully, then brings it back to a full charge. Laptops with lithium-ion batteries aren’t afflicted with the same memory problem as those powered by NiCad batteries. However, unlike NiCad batteries, lithium batteries prefer to be only partially discharged: Running them all the way down will shorten their life span. The calibration utility for lithium batteries actually just re-calibrates the capacity measurement to reflect the loss of capacity over time; it doesn’t affect actual battery life. Battery life for either type of battery can be prolonged greatly by removing the battery when the unit is plugged into AC power. This approach is recommended if your laptop supports it and power outages are infrequent in your area.

Since my last laptop battery cost well over $100, I will certainly be pulling the battery out of the machine when it is on AC power. Since most cell phones use lithium-ion batteries, I presume that the advice about not letting them run all the way down applies to cell phones as well as to laptops.

It’s Earth Day so celebrate.

Go and get yourself a glass of clear, cool, refreshing water.

Sip and savor the cool wetness as it trickles back along your tongue.

Do your teeth feel cold, too?

Take a deep gulp.

Ahhhhh. That satisfies, doesn’t it?

Now celebrate again because you didn’t pay $0.79 for that privilege; it was free.

Now celebrate again because you didn’t toss a plastic bottle into the trash.

Now celebrate again because the glass of water you drank did not require three more glasses of water to produce and bottle.

Now celebrate again because the glass of water came to you without the use of diesel fuel to drive a truck.

What if you could save money and do good by just changing a lightbulb? You can.

Compact fluorescents emit the same light as classic incandescents but use 75% or 80% less electricity.

What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads.

That is from How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to Change the World? One. And You’re Looking At It. on FastCompany.com.

We have several of these compact flourescent lightbulbs (CFL) in our house and they… well… they just work: no fuss, no muss. Honestly, sitting here in my chair and typing this, I cannot remember where we put them.

Next time you are at the store, buy one of these things. It’s a no brainer. The bulb will cost you less than $3 and the electricity savings will pay for it in about five months. Take it home and stick it in a light socket. Then forget about it for several years. The next time one of your regular lightbulbs burns out, try to remember where you put the CFL. Then consider whether you want to put an old-fashioned lightbulb back in, or switch another light to a CFL.

The whooping crane has been in serious trouble for a long, long time. The situation is so dire that several groups of people, including the Whooping Crane Eastern Parntership, have taken to hand raising them and teaching them to migrate by leading them with ultralight aircraft. Yes… you read that right. These folks fly ultralight airplanes to teach the birds how to migrate.

Guess what: it worked. First Wild Whooping Crane Chicks Hatch in the Midwest in 100 Years.

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, has an interesting editorial in the Washington Post titled Going Nuclear. He begins,

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust…. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

Moore’s essay is important for two reasons. Obviously, he has something to say about nuclear energy and he has some valid points.

More importantly, he demonstrates that continuing to re-evaluate our opinions and changing our minds are beneficial activities. He also shows us that publicly admitting that we were wrong is a positive thing, not a humiliation.

These are easy things to suggest but can be hard to do in real life. My own opinions tend to calcify into pronouncements-from-on-high over time. Once that happens, not only do I fully expect you and everyone else to kow tow to my superior knowledge, but I begin to believe in my own infallibility. After taking that step, the last thing I want to do is stand up in front of my friends and eat humble pie.

Today I am standing in front of the mirror, looking deep into my own eyes, and saying, “If Patrick Moore can do it around nuclear energy and in the Washington Post, I can do it, too. After all, I’m only human. I admit that many of my opinions are wrong and that I can still learn. I can even do it in public view.”

This is a big mirror. Won’t you join me?

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I have always liked the looks of the Mazda RX-8 but lamented the lack of a convertible roof. Now I have another reason to like the car. One of these days, I might have to buy one. FOXNews.com: Mazda Plans Dual-Fuel Car in Japan

Mazda said the RX-8 Hydrogen RE, based on its popular RX-8 sports car, gets around these problems [poor availability of hydrogen fueling stations] by running on gasoline in the absence of a hydrogen fuelling station, and using existing engine parts and production facilities to lower costs.

If only we could stop using fossil fuels, polution levels would plummet, colicky babies would be cured, my Husky dog would shed less, and world peace would prevail. Hydrogen, solar power and electricity offer tantalizing alternatives to gasoline, natural gas, and coal. There are lots of problems with switching to hydrogen, including the cost of producing it, the difficulties in storing and transporting it, the safety issues, and the almost complete lack of infrastructure for dealing with it. Solar power seems perpetually bogged down in poor efficiency. Electricity comes with its own set of problems, largely involving the weight and bulk of the batteries, as well as the cost (both economic and ecologic) of manufacturing the batteries.

For a long time, we burned non-renewable fuels for pretty much all of our energy needs while heartily wishing that we could switch to something better. Alternative fuels are now quietly entering mainstream use and it is easy to miss the transition. The trick has been to use the alternative fuel to supplement the traditional fuel, rather than to replace it wholesale.

If you doubt that we will ever get away from petroleum products or you wonder what you can do about it, here are three stories which might lift your heart a bit.

First, Wired News reports that Truckers Choose Hydrogen Power

Hundreds of semitrailer trucks zipping along North American highways are now powered in part by hydrogen. These 18-wheelers make hydrogen as they go, eliminating the need for high-pressure, cryogenic storage tanks or hydrogen filling stations, which, by the way, don’t yet exist. These truckers aren’t just do-gooders. They like Canadian Hydrogen Energy’s Hydrogen Fuel Injection, or HFI, system because it lets them save fuel, get more horsepower and, as a bonus, cause less pollution.

The HFI system uses electricity to generate hydrogen from distilled water. The hydrogen boosts the efficiency of the diesel engine while reducing polution and operating costs.

Second, Wired News also reports on Huge Solar Plants Bloom in Desert.

Stirling Energy Systems is planning to build two separate solar farms, one with the capacity to generate 500 megawatts of electricity in the Mojave Desert near Victorville, California, for SoCal Edison, and a 300-megawatt plant in the Imperial Valley, near Calexico, California, for SDG&E….

…traditional coal or gas plants typically generate 500 to 1,000 megawatts, and that current solar farms are much smaller — generally in the 35- to 80-megawatt range. At the end of 2004, the United States had only 397 megawatts of solar-energy capacity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.

The switch to solar power is happening on a commercial level, not through traditional photovoltaic cells but by resurecting the 200 year old Stirling engine and technology we all used as children: using a magnifying glass (or mirror, in this case) to focus sunlight to generate heat. The result is about 30% efficient, three times what photovoltaic systems achieve.

Last, we are all aware of the hybrid automobiles now commonly available. They do not make economic sense, as demonstrated by OmniNerd in his article Is a Hybrid Worth It?, but they do make ecologic sense.

Gas-electric hybrids are the most fuel-efficient passenger cars on the road and ecologically there isn’t a more viable option. Until something big changes, though, the industry-high efficiency can’t economically offset the steep sticker price.

The hybrid cars are not huge losers, dollar-wise, and they are a green option available to many of us.

I do have hope for the ecology of our planet, though we may still be surrounded by crying infants and mounds of Husky fur. Achieving world peace is left as an exercise for the reader.