February 18, 2008

Green Can Make You Some Green

On the “The Early Show” a segments was noticed about green jobs and how they are growing both in need and in pay. Even in today’s economy this segment of the job force is growing and paying well. So learning all you can about taking your home off-grid and making it more green can actually lead you into a new career.

After installing your own solar panels you can look into becoming a solar panel technician. You can do that by attending a vocational program or entering a community college and getting an associate degree. Which has the median pay of $40,000 right out of school. Not to shabby and you are hlping our environment and energy crunch at the same time.

Or you have made your home a healthy one by selecting eco friendly products, ergonomic furnishings, and green products for cleaning. Have a knack for design or love to help others get green and you should look into becoming a healthy home decorator or advisor. Use all that research you did to make your home healthy and self-sufficient for you and your family and help others do it too. The sky can be the limit or it’s a great way to make some extra money on the side.

Have you started making your own soap, honey, clothes, lotions, ect. because you couldn’t find it made healthy enough for you? Started a business that uses green or alternative energy sources to make your business more environmentally friendly? Any of these ideas and more are now being looked at by the big corporations to help them get in on the green and eco-friendly markets. “Burt’s Bees”, the lip balm maker, was bought out by Clorox for $913 million, “The Body Shop”, that green store that was in most of malls, was acquired by L’Oreal for $1.4 billion, so who knows if something you started or are thinking of starting might not be next.

So next time your staying up late, researching what product is best for your home, installing something to make your home more efficient or an alternative power source you just might be finding a new career for yourself.

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Community

Snow, Power, Wind…

02-16-08

Today was different, quite fun actually. The weather has been fairly quiet the last few days, sunny, calm, a little wind now and again, warm days (in the 40s & 50s), cool nights (30s-40s) but for the most part, uneventful. The humidity is generally pretty low, in the 20-30% range, higher at night, lower in the day.

Last night the humidity got up to 91%! I looked out the window and could see low clouds coming across the mountain tops, obscuring them. Today, it snowed, not much accumulation though, a couple of times it looked like we were in a snow globe and someone shook it up. :) I really enjoyed the snow falling and blowing, the snow fell for a short time, and as soon as the sun peeked out from the clouds, the snow that had accumulated, immediately began to melt. A couple of times, during the snow fall, there was so much snow falling and blowing, I couldn’t see the mountains around me, it was so pretty to see. Sorry I didn’t get any pix, but my cell phone takes terrible pix and with all the snow blowing, all it would have shown was white to light gray on white/light gray…

The snow is gone, but the wind stayed, it’s not that cold outside, but with the wind blowing and gusting, the heat that is generated by the wood stove is pulled out almost faster than we can make it. It also messed up movie night, it’s nearly impossible to hear the little computer speakers on the laptop, that is something that I overlooked before I left Best Buy, I wished I had known, I would have gotten a small set of powered speakers, but live and learn.

Power

We have been doing very well with the power, we have learned how much we can use and still have power left over, ie we don’t run out of battery power any more! We have a total of 4 deep cycle batteries, 2 are hooked up to one set of solar panels and 2 are hooked up to another set of solar panels, we use one set for the water pump on the sink and one light, the other set is for the rest of the lights, computer, fan (rarely used), cell phone and occasionally a small electric blanket. Oh, I almost forgot, we are now running a small cube refrigerator, right now we are leaving it outside, covered with a piece of plastic to keep it dry (just in case). It is in the shade (it’s on the north side of the cabin, so it never gets any sun), and for the most part, the outside temp stays cool to cold so the fridge doesn’t run very much, even so, I unplug it at night, and sometimes even leave it unplugged during the day, just depends …

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