make a smaller ecological footprint

Our household has now been car-free for six months. Hooray!

Hooray! My solar oven arrived! I’d been meaning to make one of those things since age 10. I am now 34. I think it’s safe to say I wasn’t going to make my own.

It arrived just in time for cloudy weather, unfortunately. But tomorrow, cloud or sun, I’ll see what that critter can do. It should still get fairly warm even in somewhat cloudy conditions.

After making the mistake of grilling with charcoal during hot, stagnant weather, I’m really happy to have this thing.

Cool—our household electrical use is down almost 9% from last December, too. I wonder how much of that is because we didn’t bother with holiday lights this year.

Baby steps, yeah—but they are steps.

Our natural gas bill came the other day, and I was happy to see that our household use of natural gas is down almost 5% from this time last year, even though it’s been colder. My husband and I got a lovely wool comforter a while back, and have been turning the heat way down at night with no discomfort at all.

I think we can do even better next year; there are a few more simple things we can do.

In total, our natural gas is down almost 25% from this time in 2003. We had some insulation installed in 2004, which was substantial, but just turning down the thermostat counts for a good bit too.