Eight animals runnning around on your carpet for about a decade takes its toll. Andrea’s allergies have been acting up for years, likely synchronized with the buildup of dirt and dust deep within the carpet. So this week we are getting hardwoods installed in the entire house.
I have resisted for a while. It’s very costly (hello debt). And my inner environmentalist has been saying “can’t we just make do” (for far longer than reasonable, all things considered). The fact that the hardwood boxes are marked “Made in USA” doesn’t cover my guilt. Such conflict! So… here I am. I carted three vanfuls of carpet, padding, nails and carpet tack to the dump this week. *sigh*
In other vaguely related news, I discovered a beautiful bunch of bunnies – by running over them with my electric mower – none were harmed! – but they scattered like the wind. I pulled them out from the A/C ductwork and pushed them back into their burrow. I was determined to protect them, but… I had called our lawn guy to come mow, and he said to call him back when he was back in town. I feel like I spend half my life following up on things like that, but irony would have it that he was proactive, and came to cut the lawn on his own without a followup… mowing over the bunnies – again none were hurt! But when I heard the news, I was crestfallen and depressed. When I got home from work, I searched the yard and everything seemed okay. By now, the bunnies have grown too big for the burrow, but I’ve spotted them, and mom, around the yard, and hopefully the little guys will lead long happy lives. :>
So, to sum up, I’m not completely satisfied with my environmental efforts lately. Life can be full of hard choices and challenges! But there may be an unbelievably strong light at the end of the tunnel – EGS! I’ve recently become fascinated with the potential of this alternative energy source to solve all. our. problems. Seriously! We’ll see how it plays out, stay tuned!
An environmentalist’s bad day, with a long shot at total redemption
We’re doing some of that work back here in Indiana… check this out:
http://www.waterfurnace.com/how_it_works.aspx
And on a related note, we have a pair of nesting Flickers in one of the old trees in our back yard… maybe your wood will come from the giant Hackberry we had to cut down after a storm split it to the base… circle of life.
Yo Erik what up!
Yeah residential geothermal heat pumps are great, especially if you can roll the cost into the construction of a new home. But EGS is different – it’s positioned to provide ALL the energy we’ll need for millenium. I’m pretty excited!
I bet you guys have some great trees on your street. Here they virtually raze the ground when they set up a new subdivision. There aren’t any trees left for me to hug. :<
Yep… lots of old trees, but our “new” subdivision was built in 1915 – 1920… I met a woman whose husband built some of these houses back when the roads were dirt and the school up the block was a one-room schoolhouse at the edge of the woods.
Unfortunately the tree we lost was one of the largest in our area, it towered about 100 feet right between my house and the neighbors with giant sections that split off about 15′ up… and that’s where the storm split it down to the base, which was so large it would take at least two people to hug it… we had a tree guy tie up the upper sections to keep it from taking down our houses. A sad day when they had to bring in a crane and a crew to bring it down in sections… all the critters seem to have found new homes, but I’ll miss it.
E-mail me some info on EGS… I’m reviewing a number of new technologies for my new gig… who knows, there may be some opportunities to move some of them forward.