A Second Look--August 13, 2014

Here are a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

This flower is courtesy of the birds. They are randomly popping up in a lot of places.

This is the third kind of hosta that has started to bloom. The others are almost done.

The surprise lilies are right on schedule this year. Not much of surprise, I guess, but very welcome.

It was getting dark when I took a picture of this balloon flower.

The baby wrens have flown from the nest. It was about a month from the time the eggs were laid until they left.

This nest box has housed successful broods of bluebirds and wrens with sparrows fighting and losing for a chance to use it in between. The wren's nest is on top of the bluebirds nest.

I'm seeing more deer recently in my yard. This one was standing guard for two does and two fawns.

This baby bunny was laying very still in the grass. I don't know where the mother was.

Vampire Electricity

There is a lot of discussion these days about vampire electricity--electricity that is used by an appliance or electronic device when it's not in use but plugged in. These can be things like the digital display on your coffee pot or your phone charger. Most of these discussions can be quite alarming when you see the statistics they list of how much electricity these objects use both in terms of your budget and the carbon footprint. However, the articles usually give one grand number without going into the specifics of individual devices. So recently when I discovered that Miss Landers had a Kill-a-Watt gadget that measures electricity usage of things that plug in, I had to try it. I used it with a few things around the house to get a feel of how much electricity they were actually using. I measured each object for 24 hours and here are the results.

Item	KWH/24 hours	Cost/month	Cost/year
Toaster with display	0.02	$0.07	$0.87
Outlet only	0.03	$0.11	$1.30
Lamp-off, plugged in	0.03	$0.11	$1.30
Coffee pot with display	0.04	$0.14	$1.79
Computer Monitor	0.36	$1.30	$15.55
Laptop-large	0.47	$1.70	$20.30

As you can see, the lamp (turned off), the toaster with a digital display, and the Kill-a-Watt device itself all consumed negligible amounts of electricity--0.02-0.03 KWH/24 hours. I'm assuming that that may be in the margin of error of measurement, but I don't know for sure. The coffee pot display only consumed a little more with 0.04 KWH/24 hours. (None of the above items were in use during the measurement. They were just plugged in.) However, the monitor and laptop did use noticeable amounts of electricity although a lot less than I thought they would. I didn't measure only when they were turned off, but all of their use during a 24 hour period. The monitor is in use quite a bit, but does go into a power saving mode at night. The laptop is from Ward's work and is quite large and old. I'm sure that many newer ones and certainly tablets use less electricity than this one. However, that's what we had. Even with their heavier usage, the monitor and laptop consumed less that 1 KWH in a 24 hour period.

I then translated this usage into what it meant financially and that was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I assumed that I would just be able to read the charge for a KWH off of my electric bill, but it's not so simple. Besides that number, you also have to add in the additional costs that you pay every month. I ended up with $0.12/KWH as a reasonable estimate (only about half of that number is actual electric use). Rates vary across the country, so you may be paying more or less for your electricity. What I saw was that even if I leave all of these objects plugged in for a year, they're not going to break the bank.

I had a lot more measurements planned, but Theo took the device back with him one weekend. He wanted to measure various things in his apartment trying to see if he can cut his budget any more--mostly if there is a more efficient way to cool things. When I get it back, next up will be the TV. It's an Energy Star one and is supposed to only cost $6.00/year to operate (plugged in all of the time, 5 hours/day on.) I'm interested in that one in particular because it is supposed to be one of the bad offenders of drawing phantom power but the $6/year doesn't suggest that. We'll see.

Until next time...

More general reading and tips on cutting back on your electricity use:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/vampire-power3.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2012/10/26/komando-electric-bills/1649195/

https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=about.vampires

Thankful Sunday--August 10, 2014

I am thankful for my cats.

Annie and Lucy relaxing with me.

Ward is away for the weekend, but I'm not lonely because the cats are always ready to spend time with me. :)

Compromise

The neighborhood I live in has mostly two acre lots where the houses sit near the front of the lot close to the street. This creates a big backyard and a smaller front yard. There is variability in how the lots are used, but most have some kind of landscaping around the house with the rest being trees and fields. And while our neighbor's yard is somewhat typical of this, it has been interesting to watch it evolve over the years.

From this aerial photo, you can see the spirals in cut into the yard.

When we first moved in, the husband and wife had already decided that the front yard was hers and the backyard was his to do what they each wanted. She was a member of the garden club and had nice flowers around, and he was a member of the natural-look club and had a lot of unmowed areas around. Interestingly, amongst all of the tall grass, he had mowed a spiral pattern in the back which he used as his walking path. With his tall grass, he said that he was trying to create more wildlife habitats. I don't know if this was his real motivation or if he didn't like mowing, but whatever it was, he created a great place for the kids in the neighborhood to play. The spiral maze, along with a huge mulberry tree with branches bending to the ground, made their backyard a favorite place for Wally and Theo and other kids to run, hide, and have great adventures. Luckily, the neighbors were okay with this.

As time went on, the back was not mowed as often, and I noticed that an area in the front was not being mowed either. That was because the husband had decided that he liked to watch the tall grass sway in the wind as he looked out his front window. The wife, wanting to keep things neater, would go out and surreptitiously pull some of this grass, hoping that this new area would not become overgrown like the back. It went along this way for a couple of years until she gave up and decided to enjoy the tall, swaying grass also.

The wildflowers in the front yard.

Health problems and kids moving away from home cut back on their mowing even more. The back gradually lost its circles and the tall, grassy patch in the front became bigger. Eventually, the back became filled with brush and was unused. (Except for the time one of the now grown up neighborhood kids used it to grow marijuana. That was an interesting time with helicopters and Federal agents.) Now the husband had truly created a wonderful habitat for animals, but the wife had less area to showcase her flowers in the front.

However, this year I think they finally came to a compromise that suited both of them. The wife has planted wildflowers in the front yard in the tall grassy area, and the husband now has a yard that is certified as part of Maryland's Wild Acres for wildlife.  From my perspective as a neighbor, I think they have come up to the perfect solution to their differing styles. I am really enjoying the bright blooms of the wildflowers, and I am also enjoying the wildlife that spills over into my yard from their happy homes in the husband's backyard.

Sometimes it takes a while, but there is usually a compromise to be found in all situations. My neighbor's yard is a friendly reminder of that for me.

A Second Look--August 6, 2014

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

I'm starting to get large holes in my basil. This katydid may be partly responsible for that.

On the same basil plant, this small praying mantis was hiding under some leaves.

The bees always love these celosia plants as do the ants. Notice the black spots (ants) at the base of the whitish bloom in the right of the picture.

Unfortunately, the Japanese beetles are also enjoying the day lilies. I managed to get this one off before it did too much damage.

Asparagus berries. I used to have wild asparagus growing several places in my yard. I assume it was "planted" by birds. A few years ago, I dug it all up and planted it in one bed. There's not enough to eat, but they are beautiful plants with  frilly leaves and red berries.

The wrens have just about grown up.

This is the first fawn I've seen in our yard this year although it may have been helping to eat some of our plants when I wasn't looking.