Rain Barrels

I was at my friends' house this past weekend making jam from fresh picked organic strawberries. When we were finished, we sat and were chatting for a bit. Then the rain came out of nowhere and it was coming down really hard. Ed pointed out that his rain barrel was overflowing. Rain barrels - so awesome. Every household should have at least one of these. Ed pointed out that he uses the water collected whenever it gets really hot and there are bans on watering the lawn and garden. So perfect.

I have heard of really green homes that collect rain water in huge underground tanks and use it for toilets and even that have their own filtration/cleaning system so that the water is drinkable making them completely independent when it comes to water. That's pretty awesome.

Collecting rain water does double duty of saving water required from the city (a big part of the energy used by the city is dedicated to purifying our drinking water - and then people are spending hundreds of dollars to buy bottled water) and preventing it from running off into drains and rivers causing unnecessary erosion. Because our cities are over-paved, rain water does not get absorbed into the ground the way it is supposed to. It runs into our poorly planned sewers and causes flooding in our lakes and streams. That's bad. Especially in all those houses where the downspout is directed into the sewers instead of onto lawns - or rain barrels!

Backyard Farm

All winter long as I rode the GO train into work and looked out the window, there was one backyard along the way that really intrigued me. It looks like it's about 30ft wide and 50ft deep, but there's no lawn or bushes or trees, just a patch of dirt that is obviously where they grow vegetables in the summer. The entire backyard is dedicated to growing food.

Wow. Now that summer is in full bloom, it's so apparent that they have a full-blown little farm going on back there. I see corn, tomato plants, lettuces, and all kinds of other things that I can't yet identify. It's amazing. I just keep thinking how intelligent this family is to be putting their little patch of land to such good use. Imagine how amazing it is for the people living in that house to just step outside and pick whatever vegetables they want to use for dinner that night and then eat it as fresh as absolutely possible. They know exactly where the food comes from, what it took to grow it. It's so healthy and such a great relationship with the land. Bravo! I'm thinking I might knock on their door just to see what I can learn from them.

If I am ever lucky enough to own a piece of land, I most certainly would like to have my own little farm just like that.

Natural air conditioning

Now that the hot summer weather is upon us, I have discovered something amazing about living in our condo: At night, we leave the sliding door to our balcony wide open, with the screen door closed. When we wake up in the morning, our whole suite is cool and it feels very refreshing. Neither Georges or I mind the heat, so we have probably only used the air conditioning once or twice so far this year. And even when we turn it on, it's only to 25 or 26degC just to take away the humidity.

I wonder why everyone doesn't just leave their doors open at night to naturally cool the house and then I remembered that when I was living in a house, it just didn't feel safe to have your living space so exposed (to burglers, prowlers, animals, etc...). One day, if I can design my own single family home, I want to be able to cool the house naturally like this. I'm thinking really high ceilings will have to be involved.