Going Green Part 1

Since we've been concentrating alot on this topic at our house I thought I'd highlight some of our more interesting efforts. I won't even pretend that we are doing all we can. We still drive our gas guzzling cars and are a bit wasteful with our trash (although we do recycle some). Some of our efforts are more driven by money savings but I think it's good to make an effort no matter what the reasoning. Oh, and Mike has a little bit of that self-sufficient apocalyptic think going on lately...

First off we have our well and water pump. This 30 foot deep well serves our sprinkler system. We run the sprinklers for 30 minutes daily with no city water. We also have a couple of faucets that run off of it. The pump turns on when you ask it to only (so it does use electricity but not much). In most areas of the country this may not be an option but it's perfect here where our water table is high. (Have I mentioned our house in 5 ft above sea level.)

Next we have our rain barrel. This is a recent purchase prompted by our plants and other landscaping needs that aren't hooked up to the well. We bought this from Gardener's Supply for less than $200. It is attached to a piece of raingutter that drains about 1/4 of our roof. With the Miami rain it fills up in one good rainstorm. I've been using it constantly to water strawberry beds, herbs, peppers, rinsing outside messes and washing the dogs. Now that we know how effective it is we are planning to get a couple more for prime spots in the yard.

Our inside the house water saver is our tankless hot water heater. We love this thing... We obtained this about 2 years ago and have been enjoying it since. It cost $850 to have installed which included removing our hot water heater tank. There are several reasons to get one of these. They save space (that box in the middle is about the size of a sheet of paper). They are healthier because no bacteria is living in them, when not in use it's empty. You don't have to shut it off when you leave town because it only uses energy when you are running hot water. Also, there is an endless supply of hot water. And of course it saves on your electric bill. We have been saving about $40-45 each month.

Soon I'll do posts on our other toys and efforts but they were too long for just one post :)

Camping in Tennessee

This week we decided we needed a break. On Sunday night after I finished work we drove to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. On the day we arrived we went through Gatlinburg. I'd never been there and didn't realize how touristy it was. It's like a mini version of Orlando. In case you're wondering what that means it's like downtown Jackson Hole but bigger and with theme parks. After finding our campground we decided to take a nice little hike. We chose something not too long because we had the dogs with us and Vasco is getting old and Tibo is not much of a hiking type of dog. We ended up going on a 6.5 mile loop of old growth forest. Vasco was exhausted by the end and Tibo was limping from a raw spot from his harness (I discovered the scab a couple days later, oops.) But not bad for an 11 year old German Shepherd and a little dog who had back surgery.

Monday night it rained so we decided that was enough sleeping in the tent. Did I mention it's a 2 person tent and we had all 4 of us in there? After packing up that morning we decided to head down into the national forests in Georgia. We ended up taking a road in the middle of nowhere that led to a lake in the Chattahoochee National Forest. There was only 4 other groups of people there and it was just beautiful. It was a great chance to relax. That night we drove down to Macon, Georgia and stayed in a hotel there.

On Wednesday we continued driving through Georgia and decided to go see the coast. We stopped for lunch and a park break in Savannah. We took a drive down the streets with the old houses on them. The houses were every type of fancy architecture there is and were so neat. The streets had a median with trees as well as the sides of the street so it was a corridor of oak trees with moss hanging from them. It was really nice.

As we continued down the coast we stopped at St Mary's, Georgia. It's the second oldest town in the US (keep reading for the first). It was very small but pleasant with a nice oceanside park that we took a stroll in. We were to late in the day but they had a ferry that goes to Cumberland Island where they have wild horses.

After St Mary's we got on to A1A in Jacksonville, Florida. A1A goes along the coast and is the last road next to all the beaches. The beach houses were really fun to look at. The was no one else on the road (it had been raining and it was dusk) so we took a leaisurely drive enjoying all the types and colors of houses. When we reached St Augustine, Florida (the oldest town in the US) we stopped at a hotel and found dinner.

Early Thursday morning we went to Castillo de San Marcos which is the old Spanish fort at St Augustine. The fort was constructed in 1672. It was really interesting and had a lot of thought and detail that went into each piece of it. This fort was never taken and only switched hands with treaties. For that length of history I think that is just amazing! St Augustine was first colonized by the Spanish in 1565. They built city walls and gates and a lot of the old structures still exist. It was interesting to drive down the narrow streets and think how long ago that was. I still think the Spanish had a very sneaky plan. They sold Spanish Florida to the US with the plan to just take it over again later for free :) Anyone that doesn't think this is true can just visit for a couple days :) After seeing St Augustine we drove back home and collapsed into our own comfortable bed. You never appreciate your own bed as much as after a vacation.

New to Blogging

You finally talked me into it Mary! I'm not very good with computers so it may be a while before I have everything up and running how I want it but you have to start somewhere, right?

So where do I start...

Mike and I live in sunny Miami. I've been here since 2003 and Mike was born here (although mostly grew up in California). We've been together since 2004 and married since 2006. We have no kids (yet) but 2 very spoiled dogs. Vasco is an 11 year old German Sherherd. He was a schutzhund dog (police dog sport) and national champion. He currently enjoys his retirement and extra dog biscuits. Tibo is an 8 year old Tibetan Spaniel, also called a fuzzy goldfish on crack. If you've ever met him you understand that statement. He has too much energy for one being.

We bought our house new in 2005 and have been making lots of improvements since. I have a 20x30 ft vegetable garden that I grow beans, peas, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, beets, carrots and herbs in. Mike built by hand a pergola in the side yard and a screened patio out back. We have a concrete boat slab (no boat yet but hopefully soon) and redid the front tilework. If I can get all the pictures to work you can see the landscaping that we did. Hurricane Wilma 2 1/2 years ago was a mixed blessing in that it took out all our trees and made it necessary to rip out our whole front yard. It's been a lot of hard work but we're very proud of our little home.