Pet Peave - Private Property Intruders

I wanted to share my annoyance so others might know how not to be rude when driving onto others property.

Yesterday, the dogs started barking ferociously (1 small lab mix, 2 golden retrievers) while I sat near an open window; my daughter was outside playing. They usually will bark at squirrels and hawks, but this was an intruder warning. I turned around to see a black pick-up in our yard. Notice, I didn't say in the driveway. They had actually pulled up into the grass covered area of the rarely used driveway beyond what is obviously the drive to the house. We have a long driveway, but it obviously leads to the house - with cars in the yard that say we're home.

I was thinking this might be some uninformed young hunters or fishermen who were looking to sneak through our property to the pond on the neighbor's behind us. We used to have a problem with that, but changed the road structure to confuse those who wouldn't take no for an answer (more private property trespassers).

I went out and yelled "hello" across the distance. Sitting in their truck, they yell something inaudible back, since the dogs were drowning them out. They didn't even bother to back-up and take the drive to the house where I was standing. I walked a bit closer to them, yelled at the dogs to shut up, scanned for my invisible daughter (whom I like to remain invisible when the rednecks with little brain visit).

Finally, one of them decided it might be easier to communicate if they stepped out of the pick-up and started to cross some of the 100 feet between us, which by now they knew I was not going to do for them. They were looking for free dogs that someone who was moving had. The free dog people had a 20 acre place they sold and were getting rid of their dogs. So, if there were free dogs they were looking for, from someone they didn't know, why did they PASS the house and head out onto the property?!!! Were they just thinking they would load up strange dogs and go? That doesn't sound like a safe option. Were they just going to drive up to the dogs' pen and load up my pooches?

Or were they testing to see if anyone was home, hoping to make a run for the barn and its obvious stockpile of pawnable items? They didn't look the type. They just looked like young men who didn't have a clue how to pull up a driveway, knock on a door and ask the obvious question, "Are you the people who have the dogs to give away?"

No, this isn't an isolated incident. Neighbors come looking for lost dogs, sit in the car and honk the horn. One actually sent her young son to the door. Other neighbors come asking if we'll sell them the "useless" land that has one of our 3 amazing springs and sit in the truck and honk their horn, after they've driven over the flower bed to get as close to the house as possible so they don't have to expend any energy. I've even had bounty hunters come sit in my driveway to watch a house across the road!!

Does anyone else find this behavior rude? Oh, and it isn't just the current location. The same would happen in the previous state where we lived. I had one brave soul sit at the end of the driveway there and honk their horn for me to come out so they could ask if the classic car that I had parked by the garage - not at the mouth of the driveway, or on the lawn - was for sale! So, it isn't unique to this area, it is just somehow unique to a segment of lazy individuals who think that you should go out of your way to answer their questions, or that it is okay to just drive around private property uninvited without checking at the house for answers to questions.

The audacity of it is just mind boggling! I don't want to have to put up rude signs - Trespassers Beware, Beware of Dog, No Trespassing, etc. But we did put up Private Property signs at the end of the driveways so that people wouldn't mistake them for public roads. But, I am really beginning to understand why I see so many of those rude signs out and about. Do you suppose the people they are directed at have even the tiniest clue? Probably not.

Saving Energy vs Health

I've spent my morning doing the usual things, which includes reading mail and checking out the latest articles in Dr. Mercola's newsletter. If you aren't getting it you should. The link is on the right. These are always very informative. I found the article about CFL lighting to be interesting. This is a subject that has always bothered me. In the 1980's there were studies showing the harms of fluorescent lighting. They were definitely on the outs due to the negative health benefits. A school in Canada was even removing all of the fluorescent lights in favor of a natural form of light bulb that was supposed to reduce illness and absences as well as encourage better thinking. I've never seen any new research discrediting the old, but all of a sudden every naturalist and green seems to be jumping on the CFL bandwagon, to the point states are drawing up legislation to ban incandescent bulbs.

The recent read at Dr. Mercola's site pointed to Full Spectrum lighting. I need to research that and see what I think. It sounds like a great option, but if like CFL's it contains mercury (per some of the comments on the article), I'll stay far from it. We have a few CFLs in the house, in opportune locations for money saving purposes. We had bad power up until the last year and would blow incandescents on a weekly basis! The CFLs seem immune to the power fluctuations. But, after hearing about the mercury, I won't be buying anymore of those!

With all the concern about energy reduction to save us all from Global Warming - which I find questionable at best after looking at climatology studies dating back to the early 1900s - how do we save energy? I'd like to make some suggestions. We may poo-poo CFLs, but that doesn't mean we don't conserve where healthy and possible, and we did it before global warming was a buzz term. Here are some of the things we do/did:

Don't use the dryer! We hang our laundry outside if temperature and weather permit and dry for free. In the winter when it is cold we get a double whammy - hang the clothes inside and save the electricity of a dryer AND the electricity of a humidifier!

Made the house "light friendly." When we moved into our 1970s cave, I knew lots of changes needed to be made. We steadily got rid of the dark surface paneling, and painted walls bright and light colors to be more reflective. We painted the dark brown kitchen cabinets a light latte (ivory) in a gloss to increase light reflection. We got rid of the heavily textured, light absorbing popcorn ceilings and put up flat surface ceilings and painted them a light reflecting semi-gloss white. Bathrooms have outside walls to allow for windows, so no lights are needed during the day. Only closets are interior. Even the root/storm/cellar/bed room has a small 2x1 window that provides all the light needed for daytime use. (We are going to make a metal cover that can be sealed quickly and easily for storm use.) All the dark trim was painted white for light. We also replaced the doors for energy efficient full glass, with opening windows where possible. Not only did all this make daytime use of lights unnecessary, but it also made it so we could reduce the size of the previous windows for energy efficiency and it was still lighter in the house than before! YEAH.

Got a Pioneer Maid wood cookstove. Huh? Wood doesn't burn clean, and can hurt the environment too you say. Well, the Pioneer Maid is an efficient stove designed by Amish in Ontario who wanted something better than mom's inefficient stove. I won't go into all the details, but will say that this efficient stove will burn much less wood to heat a large area, plus multi-tasks very well. With one fire, in a box smaller than our old wood stove, we can heat 2000 square feet, cook supper, heat the hot water for the house AND humidify. The oven is full size. The cooktop is much larger and more versatile than the four burner stove, the firebox has a coil you can add for hot water heat (just hook a hot water heater up to the system), the side reservoir can be opened to let the steam circulate into the air. With a good supply of wood, well seasoned to avoid more pollutants, we have replaced 4 appliances which all used either propane or electricity individually.

Replaced the windows before the light bulbs! Highly energy efficient windows exist now. We replaced all the windows in the house slowly, but surely. Though I don't like curtains or blinds much, I do have them on south and west windows to close to keep the sun from heating the house on air conditioning days.

Air conditioning/heating - use sparingly. I like comfort like the next person. But, I get a kick out of people who keep the house 75 in the winter and 65 in the summer. If you can keep it 75 in the winter, you can save lots of money letting it be 75 in the summer. We actually have an 84 degree summer threshold, and would go higher if it weren't for humidity causing indoor mold above that temperature. The reverse is true for winter. If you can stand it 65 in the summer, then you can live with 65 in the winter! Of course, with the Pioneer Maid wood stove, we rarely see it that cool inside except during the transition seasons. One of the things we've noticed is that it is easier to adapt to the outside temperature if the inside temperature isn't a radical difference.

Small appliances, do we really need them? Can opener, definitely not. Toaster, yeah we still have one. Hair dryer, have it, but use it only rarely. It's better for your hair to let it air dry, and my curls are much prettier that way. Mixer, just got one to make life easier, but have been without for over 10 years. I could go on, but you get the point. Make the personal decisions on each, Do you really need it? Could you do without?

Today is what my husband and I call a free day! The windows are open, the lights are off, just the hum of the computer, refrigerator and freezer when they need to run. And, I still have incandescent bulbs in many fixtures.

Let's make wise and healthy conservation choices so our children can have a future.

In the beginning. . .

May 16, 2007 - okay so it isn't quite the beginning of time, but I figured Genesis was a good place to start. Though my life has a past, it won't be here. I'm going to try to start with today and share those things which I find relevant and helpful to others. Why? Well, the beginning happened. I've been wondering about bloggers for years. Why would someone blog? What motivation is there? Or, as has been a favorite line of our home school, thanks to Cynthia Tobias - What's the purpose? Well, I discovered my purpose:

Last week (okay - a little past) I was reading Jordan Rubin's book The Great Physician's RX for Health and Wellness, which followed a reading of Dr. Janet Maccaro's 90-Day Immune System Makeover. Both books came as a free gift from one of my favorite charities Life Outreach International. One of the recommendations in the book was to use millet, a Biblical grain that has fallen out of the modern diet. I had NO clue whatsoever how to use millet; I'd only ever fed it to the birds. So, needing more information, I hit the web.

I had recently joined a message board for "crunchy" moms. That translates as the type of mothers who breastfeed, attachment parent, don't vaccinate, eat organic, wear their babies, etc. . . .in any combination. I decided that would be a good place to post a question about how to use millet. I got one answer, but it was all the answer I needed. The person who answered was wonderful. She had decided to use millet because it increases alkalinity - that I didn't know.

Her method for use was in sourdough bread. I had always wanted to try sourdough, so asked for a recipe. I also went to my cookbooks, and found a recipe for sourdough starter. Not just any sourdough starter though, it fit my lifestyle perfectly NO SUGAR - unlike those Amish sourdough starters I'd often gotten with way too much sugar. So, what does all this have to do with starting a blog? The next paragraph.

As part of the many links and all the info she sent, she also sent me to her blog where she had posted not only the process she used to make her bread, but also pictures! Wow, that was helpful. As a matter of fact, that was VERY helpful I thought. Then, my juices started flowing. There are all sorts of things I could share in a blog. There are ideas, helpful hints, pictures, anecdotes, etc. I answer a lot of questions via e-mail for friends and message boards. It would be so easy to organize the information here to share.

The setup required a title, so after very little thinking I came up with the one you see - Adventures in Lifestyles. It seemed appropriate, since our family practices some rather non-mainstream lifestyle choices. It seems much of what I will have to share, will undoubtedly be derived from those lifestyle choices, but probably not limited to them. If you happen upon this, I thank you for reading.

So, today the adventure begins. . . .. .

Until next time.