Druid Pack

In a sad turn of events the Druid Pack appears to be gone. A combination of mange of the death of an alpha has reduced the pack to one - no doubt she will join another pack if she lives through the mange. This pack has had quite the social history over the years - its part of nature but still sad.

Shoutout to NWE

Hey Northwestern Energy! Thanks for the new bill format. I love the information on the bill now - the charts, the graphs, the temperatures, its wonderful. Thanks!

New year, new projects

What to do with a nice tax refund check from the wood stove...??? Its so hard to decide. Finish off 2009 ROTH contributions? Tempting. New roof. Perhaps. Windows. Very tempting. There are still some federal energy tax credit dollars out there so we're seriously considering replacing the windows (although that has been a goal for several years, just not one that has ever come to fruition). Then this time next year we'll have yet another refund and use that to bank roll the roof.

I know all you financial scholars out there are yelling, screaming, "change your withholdings" but really we're just too lazy. Once things are a little more settled, ie I hope to start a new career later this year, we will but for now the spring project fund is nice.

Long time no see

So its been a long time since I posted on here. There's a multitude of reasons, a big one being the 18 credits I'm working on this semester. But no excuses here.

I have been anxiously awaiting our utility bill for weeks and it has arrived! I LOVE getting the gas/electric bill. Each month is a surpise to see how much we saved. This winter I'm especially excited due to the addition of our wood stove. I'm proud to report that not only is this the warmest winter on record in our house, but its by far the cheapest. According to the bill the average temperature was colder this Feb than last, but we still used 1/2 the dekatherms of gas when compared with last year! Hooray for $60 utility bills in the winter!

On the negative side our electricity use has gone up - I guess the days are longer now and the computers are constantly fired up thanks to school and work. Overall we used 135KWH this month - still much less than the "average" household, but hey we've always been several standard deviations from normal.

Early Morning Milking

We have decided to try plant based milk for awhile. Several things have influenced this decision. First, animal (cow) milk is expensive! Second, raising cows (for milk or meat) distresses the environment (see reference to Food, Inc in earlier post). Third, having oats on hand is an easy way to make milk as needed.

As one may surmise from the last sentence above we are starting with oat milk. Other plant based milks include almond and soy. If oat does not work out we'll try almond. Soy is out because it wreaks havoc on the thyroid, and my thyroid is already quite touchy.

Thanks freecycle for the new (to us) blender!

Scratch is Back

For this long, labor day weekend we're going to get busy making our own from scratch products. We've been slowly accumulating the needed products (washing soda was the hardest to obtain - we got it in Great Falls on our way through last month). And now we have run out of the store laundry detergent.

We're going to try a powdered version. Because it has the best reviews. It looks pretty easy, grate some soap add a borax and washing soda, viola! Shampoo may also be on our weekend creation list. Its a bit more scary since its hair, but again the recipe is simple. We may need to add some olive oil though so that could be quite the experiment over the next few weeks. Dishwasher detergent will also be on our scratch list, but for now we have quite a bit left from our store trip in '06.

So where ever you are, whatever you are doing to celebrate the unionization of labor, remember your ancestors and think SCRATCH!

UPDATE: We made the laundry detergent - works great. We did a load of sheets and then shower curtains. Everything looks great!

Impacting the Bottom Line

I am excited to report that an annual review of our energy (electricity & gas) bill by the esteemed Northwestern Energy Budget Bill department has resulted in a $18/mo decline in our budget bill amount - a savings of over 20% (ok 21.4%). All that hard work of not plugging stuff in and hanging clothes to dry is finally paying off in our pocket book. Look up and notice the smaller hole in the ozone too. Ahh.

Years ago we switched to the green only electricity. Its $2/100kwh. Really a steal. We have now halved our electricity consumption but continue to pay the green fee for the original monthly consumption - perhaps we're making YOUR electricity a bit greener. So do your part, check with your utility and sign up for green only electricty. That way we're actually buying green energy for Mr. EverythingIsFine, but don't tell him!