Somewhat idle hands and keyboard...

Sometimes you reach a point where you're just trying to pay the bills, to keep the people around you happy, to have clean underwear to wear each day, and to keep the rain barrels mosquito free. That's been me lately.

Green stuff? Yes, I am plugging away there too, but more in a maintenance mode than a Mr.-Wizard-new-project-every-week mode.

Basil loves the olla!

The food-is-free planter is looking pretty good, but it's needing a little shady roof - have you ever seen a sun-burnt bell pepper? The front porch olla-planters are doing well with potatoes, tomatoes, and whole lotta basil. We picked up a rosemary plant to add this weekend.

Now you've seen a sun-burnt bell pepper!

Consuming less and recycling the rest? I'd give our household a C+. We have been taking reusable cups and shopping bags with us more consistently, but we've been eating out a lot and there's a lot of waste in the restaurant world.

A successful work commute to and fro yesterday

I'm riding the bike for most of my under-4-mile trips and I'm riding the work-in-progress-e-bike to work a few times per week. I am wishing I had bought a quality e-bike a year or two ago rather than spending so much time, money, and precious garage time piecing the current e-bike together, but it has been a fun project. The coolest part of the project has been learning to build (and rebuild twice) a lithium battery pack.

Even though lots of tempting stuff has popped up lately, I have been successful in not bringing any new projects home.

As a matter of fact, a few projects have even left this year. I don't have the nerve to call myself a minimalist, but I have been doing some minimizing, and that feels good.

The nicest green(er) upgrade has been retiring Rambo, the old Dodge pickup and replacing it with an eight-year-old Ford Escape Hybrid - by far the nicest vehicle I've driven in years. I feel pretty darned good when I'm able to keep it in electric-only mode while running about. Not a perfect solution to burning less gas, but a definite step up.

Life is good. The blogging is slow.

May all your greenliness roll smoothly along!