The push for a greater effort towards reduced if not zero household waste has become a part of  the continued dialogue about sustainable living in urban areas.  Even if there is less trash to contend with, the question remains: Where do we put it all?  For some municipalities, the answer has been to implement all-inclusive programs that offer a range of features from curbside pickup to scheduled disposal of specific items that can be problematic for everyone concerned if simply disposed of in the dustbin and then ultimately landing in a landfill.

Time to Recycle, an outreach effort operated and funded by the North Texas Council of governments and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, works with cities like Fort Worth, who have included recycling  as a part of their city services.   Using the program requires minimal sorting and has proven to be more cost effective for citizens and the city government.  The alternative to an integrated system is the often onerous process of allowing a free-market approach that pits contractors against each other to net the greatest number of customers in order to stay cost effective.  Uneven results and an emphasis on monetary gain over any real environmental impact are just a few of the issues that make the open market approach to disposal problematic.

Unlike cities that charge a flat fee or build the cost into their residential tax structure, Forth Worth offers a choice of three sizes of containers and adds a small fee ranging from 12.75 to 22.75 per month for weekly pickup.   Residents have to use their judgment about the size of bin they need.  They cannot be overfilled and no additional refuse that does not fit in the bin can be picked up.  Residents have the option of purchasing bags when they need to dispose of additional trash.  While this seems fairly strict, it should be borne in mind that the city’s solid waste services issues every household a bin for recyclable items at no additional charge.  According to a representative with Fort Worth City Services, the amount of landfill refuse has been reduced by over 20% since the recycling program was put into place.  Budget minded Texans seem to find the inclusion in a service that cost considerably less there than in similar cities to be a motivator for sorting through everything before sending it to the curb.

Attempts to reducing the costs as well as the volume of waste has led to some creative solutions.  In Grafton, Massachusetts, the Pay As You Throw program manages to reduce waste while offering direct savings to both the city government and its constituents. The program gives citizens the option of simply disposing of their refuse or recycling however much of it is allowable based on the materials involved.  Instead of a monthly charge for the use of a city-owned container, patrons can control their household waste by recycling more and needing and thus purchasing fewer of the PAYT required to participate in the program.

Representatives from both cities expressed the view that while their programs could be considered successful, they are continually looking for ways to improve their systems both in terms of resource conservation and cost efficiency.  Twenty percent seems to be the standard amount of materials and funds conserved at this point.  While this is still far out of sync with the increase in waste generated, it is a step in the right direction.  It remains to be seen if the continued emphasis on less wasteful production of goods combined with ways to make recycling more attractive will have a proportionately great impact in the future.

Over the past two decades, Atlanta has been a textbook study in municipal sprawl.  The almost seamless expanse of suburban development extends into two counties.  The weekday gridlock that chokes stretches of I-85 have become legendary among commuters and often serve as deal makers and breakers when it comes questions of relocating.  The attendant issues that can and do have a detrimental effect on Atlantans served as the impetus for Ryan Gravel to create the BeltLine Project.

In the late nineties, a Georgia Tech graduate  named Ryan Gravel decided to address this issue by making it the subject of his master’s thesis work.  Gravel saw one solution in the revitalisation of an unused circular railroad corridor that encompasses a large portion of the older interior of the city.   Working with  Mark Arnold and Sarah Edgens, he created a proposal that would offer Atlantans access to greener mass transit, affordable housing and new and/or expanded green spaces to play in.

Presenting his prospectus to  prominent movers and shakers in the area would prove successful for the trio.  Since its official inception in 2005, the BeltLine project has successfully incorporated the talents of city planners, urban renewal activists and green visionaries to create alternatives to long-expensive commutes for the city’s workforce and new green spaces befitting Atlant’s image as “The Canopied City”.   Over time, the organisation has been successful in securing portions of the land needed to succeed, even in the face of a developer who tried to hold up the BeltLine’s progress  by way of some Snidely Whiplash-like maneuvers that entailed a land-grabs, counter-lobbying by the state’s governor and the prospect of a Hobson’s choice that would have severely mitigated the benefits of the project.

At present, Gravel’s original vision has grown from its early incorporation to the reality of continual positive steps forward.  Six groundbreaking ceremonies have been held, heralding the beginnings of new parks or renovation and expansions of existing green areas.  Continued efforts to create more green spaces and affordable housing for working Atlantans is still a goal as activists continue to work with property management entities and city planners.  A current map of the project reveals only five gaps left in the belt.  Workarounds are already being considered as a few of those properties actually belong to existing rail companies who are reluctant to sell.

As time goes on, the project will come full circle in every sense of the word, further cementing Atlanta’s reputation as a city on the cutting edge of municipal progress.

According to a number of sources, enough sunlight strikes the Earth in an hour to provide the entire planet’s energy needs for one year. It is also estimated that 99.3% of that energy goes to waste.  Wouldn’t it be nice if some of that unused energy could be put to use in a way that was inexpensive and simple enough that the most rabid technophobe would be at ease?

Such a solution actually exists.  Take a look:

That odd looking contraption is the Sport Model from the Solar Oven Society.  There are actually other brands and makes and applications of the basic premise of cooking with sunlight out there.  I know.  I think I’ve looked at almost all of them.  Many of them are good and well worth the money.  For that matter, there are plans available on the net if you want to build your own.

Of course that leads to the some important questions:  Would you follow through and actually build it?  Do you want to spend time getting the angle of your reflective surfaces just right?  Do you want to invest time in something that might not be too durable because you’re not sure you’ll use it that much?  A solar oven only has value when it is used in place of conventionally powered cooking appliances.  If it’s ungainly to store and set up, if it’s complicated to use, it’s gonna collect dust and create more waste.

The Sport Model from SOS answers all of these concerns.  Weighing in at a little over ten pounds and easier to set up than a Carter Era Coleman Tent, they’re ridiculously easy to use and a boon for anyone who wants to cook a meal without adding to the heat that can be overwhelming in the coming Summer months.

The model comes with two books that explain many of the subtleties of cooking with sunlight and offer enough recipes to get anyone off to a good start, two three-quart lidded pots, a thermometer and a water purifier.  All that it needs to cook is a sufficient amount of direct sunlight, usually two to seven hours depending on what is on the menu. Dinner is done without the mess and fuss of dealing with a hot indoor oven.  This is the perfect answer to slow cooking appliances as the same “fix it and leave it”  principle applies. In the three years that the Sport Model has been a part of my household, we have baked bread, cooked pot roasts, whole chickens, roasted vegetables and created desserts in our oven.

This brings up another aspect of the SOS Sport that makes it such an obvious choice.  In spite of it’s light weight, this is a surprisingly durable piece of equipment.  Three summers of punishing Middle Tennessee Summer sun and bright but cold winter afternoons have not managed to crack or fade the oven.  Starting at 135.00 USD, this is one piece of cooking equipment that will pay for itself many times over.

Do you need another reason to consider solar cooking in general and this oven in particular?  Your purchase funds a solar oven that will be sent to a family in a developing country where energy and fuel are not matters of choice, they’re simply not available. A solar oven can be the piece of equipment that makes safe water and cooked food available to families in Haiti, Guatemala, and Afghanistan.

Does it take some getting used to?  A little, but setting up dinner with a south-facing box is an easy habit to establish.  The added utility savings and the kindness to the planet afforded by this fuel-free cooking method make a solar oven a must-have kitchen accessory.

A stroll through the green living section of any chain bookstore will reveal a wealth of information about available technology, approaches and common problems of sustainability. It will also show the diversity of philosophies that can be found somewhere on the  Venn diagram that is the landscape of opinions concerning resource management.

Roughly a quarter of the books I found that the local BeenEhn concentrated on the actual nuts and bolts of getting and using alternative energy sources. What remained seemed to collect at opposite ends of the spectra.  More hopeful but still not too terribly useful for the immediate future were the Big Ideas books.  Here’s the thing: I have nothing against the thinkers and visionaries who are looking for the next concept that could change the tide for everyone.  The problem comes when everyone’s mindset stays focused on the future.  It means that those needed changes are not within reach or doable.  They’re always sometime off, to be executed by someone else.

At the other end were books with titles like, “What To Do When Society Collapses”, “Hell in a Handbasket: Pickling For The Apocalypse” and “I Told You So! Enjoying Subterranean Living While Your Neighbours Claw At The Doors”.   It was enough to make me want to drown my sorrows in an over-priced latte and peruse fiction for the rest of the afternoon.

The tenor of the uselists for local greens was not much better.  A look at their list revealed page after page of angry rhetoric with little evidence of any real action towards making things better and even less practical information about how to start.  I wondered where and how people found each other to discuss this.   After all, the solution might have to begin with one person here and there making a change, but being the only person on the block who recycles and who uses solar power for their work gets a bit lonesome.  I put out a call and met two other writers who were also trying to make a gradual change to independent energy.  We’ve started meeting semi-regularly to talk about how things are going and what the next logical steps will be.  We have even considered opening up our little circle to anyone else who wants to know more.

Are we sure we want to do that?  We know we need to.  We actually have tried opening it up once before.  Believe it or not, it was someone who reads this website.  He seemed nice enough but a little disappointed when he met me.  (I have that effect on people.  I call it Reverse Shania.)  When we sat down, he looked at the five of us and asked what were working to overcome.

Bob, an older gentleman who is probably the most political of the lot of us spoke.

“We’re trying to break our dependence on municipal power sources.  We want to live in a way that doesn’t exploit the earth or each other,”  he said.

We all nodded.  Yep.  That was pretty much it.  The stranger, we’ll call him DAH-rill, looked at us and shook his head.  What he wanted to know was what we were AGAINST.  We had to be AGAINST something.  Surely.  And then he gave a pert little shake of his dork knob.*

Against? What was I against?

“I really don’t like Matt Cooke,” I said.  ”I’m against him.”

Everyone else nodded.  DAH-rill looked very sad.  Wished us all a good day, and then gathered his things to go.  I could swear he muttered, “amateurs”.

Bob watched as he exited the Starbucks.

“He has no idea who Matt Cooke is, does he?”

“Do you?” I asked.

And then I spent the rest of the morning answering questions about the Pittsburgh Penguins** to my otherwise gentle granola crunchy group of fellow travelers.

*My name for short hipster pony tails.  Yes, I know that isn’t very nice.

**Did y’all know Evgeni Malkin has a sweet face? I didn’t either until last week.

A joint study¹ conducted by Gary Pivo of the Responsible Property Investing Center at the University of Arizona and
Jeffrey D. Fischer of the Benecki Center for Real Estate Studies at Indiana University has found that an increased walk score of ten points contributes to the appreciation of properties at an average rate of one to nine percent. While this is good news for current property owners in areas that are seeing improvement; it also suggests a troubling trend that will further isolate swaths of lower-income urban populations from easy access to resources.

The line between true community renewal and what is simply gentrification hiding behind a kinder, gentler name is sometimes hard to discern.  The costs involved with creating multiple occupancy/multiple purpose spaces is high and the push to get a return on developers’ investment is a reasonable expectation.  Still,  there is the sad fact that good intentions and a sense of mission are more and more often getting lost as sustainability when it pertains to urban renewal goes from being a cause worth learning about to the Latest Thing.  In a recent City Paper article, Kay West, a reporter who has covered trends in architecture in Nashville, Tennessee for almost two decades, noted that 12South, an historically diverse community near Belmont University was undergoing gentrification.  Nestled among the older, solid foursquares and stately victorian homes that have sometimes been divided into more affordable apartments are smaller homes, bungalows that have acquired their own funky charm and other expressions of individuality in taste.  These are slated to be leveled in favour of mcmansions that will be “bigfooted” onto lots intended for much smaller buildings. Aside from the material loss and the abbreviation of aesthetic appeal, the resultant decrease in affordable housing makes another segment of Nashville’s population less housing secure.

The speculative buying rush to the next trendy neighbourhood drives prices in once affordable areas out of reach for most.  A boast of “walkability” and easy access often means there will be business migration or shuttering as the competition goes where the money is.  The sad irony is, those who would benefit most from walkable neighbourhoods are often the people who can least afford to live there.  Keeping the Bimmer, the Hummer and even the Prius parked in favour of a walk of a block or two to the store is a positive thing, but how many people are really going to do just that?  And what of those who reside on the fringes of the new versions of the old neighbourhoods?  Will they find their needs met with merchants offering affordable life staples or arrive at their destination only to find  the family owned grocery has been replaced by a hot yoga studio, two fair trade scrunchie kiosks, and a Pinkberry?

As Daniel Cubias, the author of Being Latino, noted in an entry from September of last year,

In theory, only white people can gentrify a place. Their motivation is either a sincere desire to improve a neighborhood, an insidious drive to ethnically cleanse an area, a misguided attempt to go slumming, or a simple craving for cheap rent – depending on whom you ask.

Many traditionally Latino neighborhoods have become gentrified in recent years. This is problematic for Hispanic residents who have built lives in these neighborhoods, only to be forced out by skyrocketing rents. In gentrification’s final stages, your local pupuseria becomes a Starbucks.

The proverbial twin elephants in the room are SES² and ethnicity. The question of who moves in to a neighbourhood that is seen as “on the mend” can be a touchy one.  In situations where everyone is from somewhere else, the connections and associations with place alter in ways that make a neighbourhood a strange place for groups who might have enjoyed historic connections to a given area in the past.

When ethnic identity is eradicated in favour of something more generic and branded, it is not just the flavour of a community that is lost, but the continuity of  knowledge that comes with multi-generational cognitive connection to a place in relation to ethnic identification. It is in this macrocosmic strand of geographical DNA that what is labeled “folk wisdom” or “frugal ways from the old country” that a community loses its connection to being able to wisely use local resources, whether they are  animal, vegetable, or mineral.

In the minds of many, ecology and conservation begin and end with nonhuman resources and wild places.  The preponderance of urban and suburban space and the sheer magnitude of the human population dictates that we also approach this as a very human concern.  Our solutions should extend to all, not just the lucky few who can afford the boutique approach to a superficially gentler way of life.

¹ The Walkability Premium in Commercial Real Estate Investments; Gary Pivo and Jeffrey D. Fisher,  February 2010, (working paper)  University of Arizona

² SES – socioeconomic status

You know those scenes in movies where people bond with some oddly fabulous* creature? There’s the closeup shot of the person’s face and then a closeup of ET’s/ Clarence the Crosseyed Lion’s/Keanu Reeve’s/Godzilla’s/Big Foot’s face. Then comes the swell of music from some unseen orchestra and they’re friends! Well, it was kind of like that between my mom and the eight cup Bodum Press at Starbucks.

So I went back later, brought it home and then realized that the eco gods were smiling on me that day. Aside from the great price, the plastic was 30% post consumer product, the packaging, which was pretty minimal, was 100% recycled and recyclable. It’s easy to use and easier to clean than any coffee maker we’ve ever owned. And the coffee? It’s great. From a green perspective, even though the water has to be heated by other means, there is still less energy used. There is also less water waste due to no volume lost to condensation. The grounds make great compost, so even those can be reused.

My friend, Theresa, is a fellow writer who lives with her husband, Bill, and her mother, Sylvia. They have been encouraging of our green transition and have taken steps to reduce their own household carbon footprint. I told Theresa about our latest find and asked her if she thought it was something they might want to try.

There was a long pause.

“Well?” I asked.

She sighed. “Let’s think this through. You’re suggesting that I leave my husband and mother alone with hot, staining liquid and a glass container with a plunger? They can’t not turn this into an adventure. I’ll get a small one and try it here at work first.”

I intially thought she was being harsh. Then I had this mental image of Theresa walking into her kitchen to see Bill and Sylvia splattered with bits of wet grounds, trying hard to not look at the brown dripping ring of coffee sprayed on the ceiling.

Theresa: What the…?

Sylvia: Baby, I have no idea how that got there.

I shared this with Mom, who shook her head and said there was no way that could happen. Theresa begs to differ.** In the meantime, we’re enjoying our own green brew. Cheers and pass the stevia!

*”Oddly fabulous” in the archaic sense. Think Lewis Carrol’s menagerie meeting Alice rather than your average entertainment reporter’s encounter with Snooki. How sad is it that I know who Snooki is?

**Sylvia, if you’re reading this, know that I advocated on your behalf for a press.

Maybe it comes down to what it means to be “Green”. Kermit the Frog says it ain’t easy while his cohort Oscar the Grouch (probably the first practitioner of true zero-waste lifestyle most of us encounter) does not seem to give a flip about the finer points. Being green is as much about how we approach conservation as it is what we choose to conserve. It is looking at where our goods come from and supporting producers of those goods on a local level every chance we get. It is culturally sensitive… to everyone. It is acting from a place of inquiry and an attitude that this is leading to good things. It is making sure that changing from wasteful, mindless consumption to a more engaged life something that is not inaccessible, scary, or needlessly complicated to people who are just now considering doing good. It is about talking about it, thinking about it and sharing every chance we get. It is about deepening respect for all life and learning from those who live in close connection with our home.

Can we ask any less of our leaders at all levels than we would ask of ourselves and each other? Should we? At this stage in the game, I don’t think we can afford to continue to scoot most of our engagement in being green to someday. We have seen the reach of the green revolution in the Slow Food Movement in California and the Urban and Guerilla Gardening Groups who are taking to the streets, the lots and the formerly blighted back alleys to be sure people are fed. We are seeing how scarily fragile our dependency on the few who supply our food and our power can be.

In the end, no act is too small; but those initial changes, those small nods to the idea that things need to change are not enough. Those of us who know and care need to speak out and act on every initiative that can compromise what we have left. This is as true of the people of Aurora, Colorado who are looking askance at the proposal to turn over land to Gaylord as it is the engineers in Memphis, Tennessee who are trying to get the hostile state government to legalise the use of the cooking-oil powered cars that are built there. This is true of you who are asking your governments to refocus on common good as opposed to corporate gains and you who take a little from every paycheque to replace another light bulb or bag up your foam trays for the recycling bin at your local grocers’. What can we hope to get from all of this concern and care and activism and action? Hope. It’s the least we can and should expect of ourselves and our cities. It is what I am continuing to look for as I research every town with a desire to be identified as green.

So now I will ask. What is green about you and where you live?

Coming next week: I’ll finally (finally finally finally!) post the interview with Reverend Billy Tallen, there will be reviews and we’ll discuss eco-skeptism.

You’ve probably seen this ad. If you haven’t take a look. If you have, take a look anyway.

Corporate shilling aside, it’s one of the best video love letters to a city this side of Woody Allen’s Manhattan or nearly everything John Hughes ever filmed in Chicago. It also perfectly expresses the spirit of the people behind the move to make Detroit the Great Green Hope.*

There was a time when the idea of greening a home, much less a city was borne of the luxury of taking a leisurely stroll through expressing one’s devotion to making the Earth a prettier, cleaner place. The past decade has seen much of that replaced by a more urgent approach to implementing sustainable practises, especially in urban areas. There are cities that have taken many of the steps the people of Detroit have taken but few have taken as many or taken them to the extent that Motor City has. Then again, for Detroit there was little choice. For many of her most vulnerable citizens, it is not a point of taking a stand, but a question of survival.

From the corporatised enterprises such as Greening Detroit to literal and figurative grassroots movements such as the boom in urban food production, Detroit is becoming the focal point for urban renewal on a scale many would have dismissed as wishful thinking a decade ago. These are only two of many initiatives to restore Detroit to something even better than her former glory. This is a chance to revitalise the city in a way that the people who make up her various neighbourhoods will flourish, restoring what Reverned Billy Tallen called, “that magic of a living thriving place”.

The creation of such strong programs is dependent upon the transmission of information on two fronts. On one side, the internet, with its plethora of free blogging sites and inexpensive web hosting has provided groups, writers and activists such as The Georgia Street Community Collective, Rethink Detroit, Handmade Detroit, Detroitblog, and Grace Lee Boggs the chance to get their message to audience that might otherwise miss out on the chance to help.

The other half of their approach to outreach is much older. Word of mouth, often spread by visiting surviving centers of commerce that have become clearinghouses for information for those who are struggling to feed their families, much less participate in the stream of chatter that forms the information superhighway. This revolution is manifesting itself in the form of groups advocating for homesteading, backyard chickens and organic gardening in backyards and community plots.

On a larger scale, ventures such as Greening Detroit are creating networks of green, local businesses whose main mission is the revitalisation of Detroit. Working closely with Detroit’s city government, Greening Detroit aids in the creation of groups devoted to local business, education and improved living resources. The program has been a vital part of Detroit’s rebirth since its debut in 2007 and is still growing in terms of efficacy and outreach.

Given the seeming belief held by city fathers in many corners of the continent that rethinking what makes a city sustainable would take nothing short of some obscure alchemy, it would seem that Detroit has indeed discovered the magical formula needed to make it all come together. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tenacity, civic pride and a bone-deep belief in the power of a people and love of place are what drive Detroit these days, and it will be what moves her to the forefront of sustainability in the future.

*Okay, I have one quibble. Chrysler…Chrysler…you included the Lions jogging. I want to know: WHERE ARE THE RED WINGS? (pantpantpantpant)

by Jas Faulkner

Villard Press’ 2008 release, “Farewell My Subaru” might seem like a cute trifle of a book.  You could even call it an eco-update of Green Acres.  The author, Doug Fine, is a journalist who decided to chuck suburban life for an off-the-grid fixer-upper of a ranch in New Mexico and hilarity ensued. Sort of.

Make no mistake, Fine is a funny writer and “Farewell My Subaru” is one of the more entertaining books about sustainability out there.  It is also quite informative in terms of his ability to convey his own travails as someone who was far less prepared than he first imagined he would be to deal with the conversion of his new home into an off-the-grid working ranch and what is right and wrong with the alternative energy industry.  On all of those counts, Fine is pitch perfect.

The market is flooded with books about people going green in different environments and using varying levels of technology and finances.  Some of them are probably more up to date and even more detailed about what is available right now and how to use it.  So what makes this book, now four years old, worth adding to your library?  The intellectual and emotional journey the author takes is richly populated with the people he encountered in the first year.

This is not a Waldenesque internal monologue of one man’s first lonely year out of civilization as we know it. Fine has help, lots of it, and he doesn’t mind revealing the diversity of the people who played a role in getting Funky Butte Ranch up and running. Without giving away too much, it is safe to say Fine has many of his (and our) assumptions disposed of in short order when he encounters conservatives who are also alternative energy visionaries and granola-crunchy hippie types who don’t mind countering orthodox Green thought in the interest of moving things along.  Fine never comes right out and says that a more sustainable lifestyle is for everyone, he shows it.  As everything seems to get more politicized every day, this is a valuable lesson to take away from a slim little book intended to make you smile and think.

As this goes to press, Fine is still living at Funky Butte Ranch, still communing with his goats and still giving talks about ways to live a greener life.  Want more information?  You can find videos, resources and updates at www.DougFine.com

,,,and here are the deets:

Title: Farewell My Subaru

Author: Doug Fine

Release Info:  2008 Villard Press

Cover price: 24.00 US  28.00 Canadian

210 pages  Hardbound

Sorry this column is late.  Did you miss me?  (crickets…crickets…crickets…)  The southeastern US was slammed with storms and we spent chunks of yesterday in the bathroom, peeking out every once in a while to see large items flying past the windows.  Fortunately for us the damage to La Maison Faulkner is minimal.

The Jumbo Shrimp has been walking around with an affronted expression.  He hates anything  even resembling inclement weather and yesterday was one big “Do not want!” as far as he is concerned.  The crash that accompanied the solar panel I accidentally pulled out of the window as we battened down the hatches did not help things.  He’s sure his staff is conspiring to make him jump.  Lucky for me, the panel is pretty solid.

Where we are so far:  We started with one 45-watt generator and a 15-watt panel.  Goal Zero’s Escape 150 kept my work going -sometimes by candle light- for the first month after we lost most of the electricity in our home.  From there we have expanded to another “Adventure Set”  and a 350-watt Ranger and two 30-watt solar panel.   The energy we collect and store with this setup powers everything in the house except the refrigerator, freezer and hot water heater.   Those are the next items to go off the grid.

One of the more common questions I get  is if using solar equipment is difficult.  There is a learning curve for all of this.  I have been told that bigger storage setups require more monitoring, turbines need to be watched to be sure they are lubricated and panels have to be kept clean.  We’re at the training wheels phase right now.  What we have right now is ridiculously easy to use.   Our panels are in our front windows and the fussiest thing we have to deal with is resetting the meters on the generators.  They don’t get “battery memory” but the indicators will stick at a lower percentage if they’re left to sit and not completely discharged.  Now that we’re getting more confident of our ability to use our equipment, this is getting  to be a rare occurrence.

Even with that, I was all thumbs and pretty unsure of myself at first.   The Ground Zero people have been great.  Kirsten, the rep who has been answering all of my questions, (some of which were of the irritating “But…but…WHY does…?” variety) has been fabulously patient .  I don’t think more than half a day has ever passed between me shooting a question to Ground Zero at Goal Zero during their business hours. Sometimes the answer has come back within minutes.

Another reason to love Goal Zero is their participation in the Tifie program.  If you want to get a better look at their products and see what we’ve been using at Casa Faulkner, check out their website at  www.goalzero.com .   The Tifie Program hastheir own website at tifie.org.

Next week:  I open up my mailbag and message files and answer some of the questions everyone wants answered but it afraid to ask on the website.  Y’all?  Did your teachers never tell you there’s no such thing as a stupid question?    See ya then.