First Month In the New House

 

Rolls of bluegrass turf I have been keeping on life support by watering down every few hours. In our part f the country, a lawn is like a sick plant pet that you need to keep alive because it is what is expected.

As we move toward the end of our first month in the new house, the choice of new has redeemed itself in some ways. First, the house and garage are incredibly well insulated and despite the long side being west facing, the house has yet to get above about 78 degrees, even on days in the 90s. Since both of us prefer opening windows to turning on the air, we only turned it on once for a few days when we had guests, but they being used to heat in the Philippines they, got cold so we turned it off. From an economics, resource use and climate standpoint, keeping the air off as much as possible reaps multiple benefits. It will be interesting to see if this house reaps dividends with energy savings over the next year. The real test will be how the house weathers the nearly half the year when we have to have the heat on.

For me, the insulated garage is great and makes me wonder why all garages in our climate aren't insulated. As the builder said, "it doesn't cost much extra to do it". I gives us a huge area of extra space for the winter for our projects. If I keep the doors shut, it easily stays in the sixties when it is in the eighties outside. It will be interesting to see how it does in the winter. It has always been a dream to have a place to work in the winter that I can keep above freezing. I hope to get some projects going.

The lawn and sprinklers will hopefully be up and running this week. I would have prefered to go without a lawn, but it was part of the purchase and part of the deal living in this neighborhood. Also, if we want to resell the house in a few years, because most people are acculturated to expect a lawn, it will be what we need to resell. 

Initially, I had hoped to create a backyard like Steven Cornett's in San Diego or Curtis Stone in British Columbia. We would still have the front yard with grass and a deck. Below are video tours of their backyard garden farms.  I dislike being compelled to maintain the weak and pointless cultural expectation on life support by dumping fertilizer, water and money on it, but unfortunately. we need to go with America's number one crop that produces nothing and is a wasteful carbon and chemical pollution bomb. Take a look at these cool backyard farms that actually pay the bills.

 

 

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I think of the American lawn as a barometer for our ability to make the sacrifices and changes that are required to withstand what too many realist thinkers say is coming. The lawn is the low hanging fruit of things we need to change, meaning it would be easy for most people to do without sacrifice, yet even I, someone steeped in what we need to change isn't doing it. The easiest thing would be to stop spreading noxious weed and feed, most of which runs off into water. Better, would be to get rid of most of the lawn and plant wildflowers and vegetables, turning America's number one crop (the lawn) into spaces could grow large amounts of food.

The one thing that has hit me hardest is that moving into a house causes our carbon footprint and resource use per capita goes through the roof. As I have written before, the single family home requires so much stuff to maintain that it would be more sustainable to have things like mowers and other tools shared with a larger community. I just bought an aluminum ladder at a garage sale that will get used a few times a year. Of course such things can be rented, but it is the exact kind of thing that would be better served by a community "tool library" where just like community purchased books, I could "check out" the ladder when I need to clean gutters. There is so much stuff needed to run a house and keep it going.