Dispatches from Dufferin Street

Energy

Steps to take today

• assess current energy consumption habits. Walk from room to room in your home. List everything in each room that uses energy to operate (i.e., electricity, oil, gas, batteries). Put a star next to any item that you would ordinarily use in the remaining four days of your No Impact Experiment. Next to each starred item, indicate if you are going to ELIMINATE or MITIGATE your usage of that item.
• Unplug! Turn it off. Power down. Go off the grid. For the truly adventurous, turn off your electricity completely and see what happens
• eat food from within Ontario
• don’t drive
• stop making trash
• don’t buy anything new

10:49 am, 10°C outside, 19.5°C inside

Lights turned on this morning? Zero.

Children set on fire this morning? One.

Let me explain. We were sitting around the kitchen table by candlelight in a charming family tableau. It was just as we had pictured, quiet moments spent together, doing things we enjoy and engaging in meaningful conversation. Really. Max was reading a book, Leo was playing with Tinkertoys, Matt was getting breakfast, and I was making school lunches. Leo was bent right over his toys, trying to get the pieces together, when WHOOSH! His hair caught on fire. I’m not talking some smoky smoldering, I’m talking a flame that had to be extinguished by whacking him on the head a few times. Luckily, his head was not burned, just some minor singeing, and I must say the smell of burning hair nicely masked the smell of the cigarettes from next door. And thank heavens for all of us, Leo is nothing if not a good sport. He was a little surprised by the whole thing, but quickly broke into gales of laughter at his adventure. Matt and I will be a little more vigilant from now on.

Energy reduction/elimination is harder than I thought. For one, thing, I shouldn’t even be on the computer, really, but it was log on for a few minutes of quick typing or waste paper transcribing things to type in later. We do have the choice to eliminate or reduce use, so I’m afraid I’m not going whole hog on the computer.

Last night Max and I came up with a pretty detailed list of all the energy-suckers in each room. We’re still not 100% cool with the elimination of the TV (when I said how happy I was that this week made us more considerate of the earth, Max said, “Yeah, well what about being more considerate of your CHILDREN?”), but it’s happening. It’s really only going to be an issue Friday night (traditionally Friday Family Fun Night when we all watch a movie together) and Saturday and Sunday mornings. We can hack it. Matt and I will pry ourselves out of bed and do something fun… maybe a walk to the market, hot-tub at the Radisson, buy a local treat at the Goat kind a morning… it’ll be good.

I’m writing a lot about our week, so we’re not going to eliminate the computer altogether, but will power it down and turn off the power bar when I’m not doing No Impact Week “business.” That will be horribly difficult for me, actually – I live online, I love my laptop and cruising around cyberspace when the kids are in school or bed.

Fridge and deep-freezer are staying on, although Vanessa Farquharson did do a pretty good job convincing me we could live without them. Right now, they’re jam-packed with food, and we can’t eat all the perishables within the next few days.

Coffeemaker likely falls into the same category as computer – absolutely essential, but we’ll unplug it when we’re not using it this week.

Dishwasher – hmmm. When we got the dishwasher, we hemmed and hawed about whether it did, as people tend to say, waste less water than washing by hand. I still don’t know the answer there, but it obviously uses electricity to run. The fact that I despise our dishwasher, and the cruddy job it does as washing our dishes, means that it might not be hard to switch to hand-washing for a few days, anyway. We’ll still be using the hot water, but less electricity.

Just back from my stroll to John’s Deli, where I found some lovely organic, local squash and garlic, and picked up some made-in-store sausages for supper. I think I’ll roast some potatoes and squash, and we have a salad in the fridge we need to use up, and the kids and I can have sausage while our resident vegetarian can enjoy last night’s soup again.

I am loving the shop-as-I-need it lifestyle, walking to different stores every morning to pick up just a few things for that evening’s meal. I think I could get used to that rhythm. OK, I’d better sign off for now, it’s been the 10 minutes I allotted myself to have the computer on. I’ll post this part of the day now, and then add to it at the end of the day when I give myself another 10 minutes to write. If you’re lookin’ for me – call me, don’t email!

The list (E=eliminate, M=mitigate)

Porch

• light (E)

Front hall

• light (E)

Living room

• two lamps (E)
• TV (E)
• DVD player (E)
• PS2 (E)

Dining room

• light (E)
• computer (M)
• stereo (E)

Kitchen

• pendant lights (E)
• main light (E)
• under-cabinet lights (E)
• stove lights (E)
• pantry light (E)
• fridge (M)
• coffee maker (M)
• stove/oven (M)
• radio (E)
• microwave (E)
• dishwasher ?

Back room

• light (E)
• deep freezer (M)
• furnace (E)
• hot water tank (M)

Leo’s room

• light (E)
• moon light (E)
• nightlight (E)
• clock radio (E)
• light saber (E)

Max’s room

• light (E)
• clock radio (E)

Kate and Matt’s room

• light (E)
• two lamps (E)
• two clock radios (E)

Bathroom

• light (E)
• shower light and fan (E)
• washer (E)
• dryer (E)
• clock radio (E)

Upstairs

• hall light (E)