Greener vacation: Beach sweep

On the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State the beaches are varied and beautiful at any time of year. Early March the beaches just north of Kalaloch were also sparsely visited, making for expansive strolls lengthened by lots of warm clothing.

I wasn't surprised to see some plastic bits in the surf and further up the beach. Plastic is forever, right? Well, yes and no. While it can stay intact for decades and is responsible for a swirling mass in the ocean worthy of a good cry, I learned last year the damage doesn't stop there.

It does break down, but is toxic even at the molecular level. I'm not sure whether my brain wraps more easily around immediate danger to today's sea-dwellers or around long-run toxins in our foods and scary changes in ocean ecology and climate. It just seemed a fine thing to do to pick up some of the larger pieces, and soon my hands were full.

Beach walk number 2: Up to Beach 4 (did they run out of names?). This time I came equipped with a bag. This beach looks pristine and very interesting. Up closer, however, I see lengths of rope, the cheap yellow polypro you can get anywhere, as well as green, black, and red. Some half buried, and too much for my little bag. But my husband is joining in, and this is as much fun as any other beach combing I've done looking for agates. Truly. I'm not going all Tom Sawyer's fence on you.

Beach walk number 3: Ruby Beach. Gorgeous rock towers off shore, remnants of the headlands that once were. This time a little stronger larger breadbag. When they collect our garbage, our cabin housekeepers are going to wonder what we've been up to.

We collected a diabolical wad of filament with hooks, and some larger and smaller plastic fragments in a rainbow of colors. I seem to remember someone in the Beachwatchers organization saying that blue is the worst, or maybe it was the most plentiful as least likely to have been mistaken for food and ingested. I could brush up on it, but not right now.

This was plenty absorbing, just the spotting and picking up. And for meeting people this was like walking a dog. A man took notice of our haul and chatted with us about it. The long bread bag filled up to bursting. Is this coming from ship cast-offs? Some items seem like beach party detritis, but not most of it. Most of it is faded, the broken edges starting to round, been in the sea for awhile.

There seems no need to think deeply about all this. I'm content with our catch. But my aching back over the next days, whew. Next time? I'm bringing one of those long-handled reacher-grabbers!

Pay-off at last

Well, it got done and I'm happy about it. It took two more sessions and involved more measuring (the room is not quite plumb) and difficulty attaching the wires to the screws, which were snug against the housing. I ended up doing a cheat--a short length of lamp wire, softer and more maneuverable. Still difficult for me, but done, January 2.

The fun part was playing with position and beam direction of the three light fixtures. I may add a fourth sometime. Yes, this worked out great!

A morning to prep for ceiling track

Getting started on new track lighting--see my previous post for my hopes for this project. Given my capabilities, this is a multi-day project. I've been pre-threading two of those plastic screw-in anchors a day. They are a bear to do, but once done I like working with them. The honking big mollies that came with the track I'll take to the Re-Store.

Since the ceiling fixture power box is over the bed, I make my first trip down to the garage-that-has-everything and select a six foot chunk of 3/4 in. plywood to lay across the bed to stand on, and wipe it down. Is this necessary? It's darned heavy. But it's also pretty weird to stand directly on a Tempur-pedic matress.

I strap on my elbow brace and unpack the track, a mini project in itself--those thick cardboard tubes are just about bomb-proof, with caps heavy-stapled in. Screw driver and pliers and whew! A half hour later it's done and I'm ready for coffee.

I remember my last wiggly (not firmly fastened) electrical box in a ceiling and how hard it was to snap the track into the clip after it was in place on the electrical box. That's what the instructions say to do. How could I could I do the job if I snap the track in the clip first? This is going to involve one additional person, a ladder and a step ladder, swinging the track and holding it one way and then the other for attaching the clip/strap, marking, drilling, setting anchors and connecting wires, but it just might be the ticket. I just have to convince Bill that it's going to be a piece of cake.

There's the whole paragraph about measuring and deciding how close to the wall to go, and painting where the old fixture was--let's just skip it, and talk about the next day, which will be the big pay-off, I hope.

Low wattage: It's not about the money

For me, saving electricity can't be about my personal savings, because the $500.00 on Juno track lighting and a couple of hallway fixtures (Thanks, Mom, for the Christmas present) won't get paid back in energy savings any time soon.

No, what's in it for me is ending the household tussle over leaving the lights on when going elsewhere. Ah, family harmony!

And better lighting, which it absolutely is. I want to copy the success of the study, which I paid a handyman to install. I now direct three can lights (sorry, "step cylinders") to where I want light, using a mix of lamps and beam width. Even with one nice Par 20 halogen in the mix, it's 61 watts. This compares with the ceiling button fixture I took down, which used two incandescents for 120 watts of blah-nowhere-anywhere lighting.

My $500 is for three rooms and a hall, each getting a new lease on life. That's the max I'll spend--I'm going to do the installation myself. So add to the money the cost in pain and stiffness. You do realize that electrical work is darned physical for the arthritic. But I figure aches will be forgotten when I am enjoying new and generous illumination.

OK, I won't gloss over that entirely. To keep to my theme of "ten easy steps" vs. my reality, I'll chronicle the installation in the next segment. Wish me luck.

Enjoy your shower

I love the showerhead that the local utilities sent out by request last year--water saver and a better morning shower, both! Did you get one?

What I just found out is how to get more of these to outfit other bathrooms. They are called "Earth" showerheads and you get them online at www.nrgsavers.com. Mine is a 2.0.

It's simply wonderful.

Ants!

Does science fascinate you? Do you pounce on the Tuesday New York Times science section? Or are you a flat earth type—what's real must fit established beliefs and direct experience.

What I think is, we are all scientists. When we are faced with a problem, say, ants in the kitchen, it's a scientific inquiry to ask what is the simplest way to get rid of them. An exterminator may be needed. But first, what's at my local Fred Meyer? I had this problem last June. I remember the month because it turns out to be ideal for a self-inflicted ant invasion.

So, what's on the store shelf? Many have come before me; I'll see what's selling. Well, how about poison compounds targeted to "exterminate grease-eating ants." I don't know if I have the right kind of ants. I'm smashing them left and right and beginning to catastrophize—what if they are the moisture ants that ate my neighbors' house? I need to get hold of myself. Maybe I should just buy this product as worth a try. I can set it out today, so no delay. And it's cheap.

And hey, even my doctor once prescribed me something that didn't match my problem exactly. "Close enough" was what she said. Soon I'll know whether it works and then I can panic, or call in the big guns.

It's scientific, if crude. But what if there's a hidden cost and I end up killing something beneficial? So I took some ants in a jar to the WSU Master Gardener on duty. There Al examined them and reassured me they were not structural pests but more like a cornfield ant that eats a number of things including sugars. He asked what they showed interest in. So I confessed I had cleaned up a hidden spill (Maybe the dishes didn't get done. It could happen). A dried puddle of sweet strawberry juice. With added sugar.

But we'd been clean ever since, honest! And yet they kept coming. The problem was worsening, they were traveling farther in greater numbers, though they continued to come up from just one small gap in the window sill.

Ah, but here's the thing. They follow a scent trail, Al told me. If one ant marks a trail as "fruitful," others will follow despite disappointment and dead bodies. But disrupt the scent trail and they would stop coming. Science just got more fun.

A few drops of bleach on a bit of paper towel stuffed into the gap. It was miraculous. Ants no more. And recently a smart young Huxley student, Sarah, said cinnamon works, too. And nothing icky to use or dispose of.

So as I sit and eat the last of my Shuksan strawberry freezer jam on cream cheese, I am ready for a new season of the deep red beauties to go with my Tuesday NYT. I'll eat till I get hives. But then I'll wipe up the counter. I don't need a side dish of ant angst.

Compost skirmishes: Raccoons 2, humans 1

Despite our shade, I wanted to step up from making compost by mere neglect (See April 14 posting). And use what I already have, if possible. I want to see if worms will help. One of the odds and ends that moved with us from a more amenable locale is a brown plastic bin, bottomless with a clever door to spill the goods when fully baked. How would it work in the shade? I set it a suitable distance from the back door, put in some kitchen scraps and maple leaves and called softly to the ground, "Little red worms, come and get it."

Soon there's been excavation and rinds and husks have been pulled out from the bottom edges. Raccoons. Sometimes I fail to read the writing on the wall. And so I dug down and placed a sturdy wire screen barrier around, weighted down with bricks.

Next I bought worms, because the scraps the raccoons hadn't eaten were just lying there stinking. Time passed while I noted the worms' preferences--these seemed to be picky. Celery was lasting for the longest time. And then I realized I hadn't seen an actual worm for awhile.

Had the ingrates fled the first fall chill? Naw, raccoons like worms--they had simply had themselves a worm spaghetti feed, compost guru Joyce says. Now she tells me. So they win this round. The cute brown bin is now just for coffee grounds and leaves. In 2011 it'll be compost. You have to take the long view.

We'll skip the story of my double decker blue plastic tub tower worm bin. (It got chewed on, and when I moved it into the garage, it leaked.) Raccoons score again.

But I had another composter. This is not so unbelievable if you know us and have seen our garage. If we can re-assemble it, this is your basic overkill German-engineered composter, and "Manfred" will escalate my defenses in the raccoon skirmishes. So I ask Bill to put it together--a steel hexagonal drum, elevated and rotatable like a turkey on a spit. We had used it once, maybe 20 years ago--too long ago to remember why we had quit on it. Or why we had kept Manfred, in pieces, all their years. The assembly instructions are long gone and a Web search turns up nothing.

This is exactly the kind of project Bill finds enticing. You may think I'm kidding. He was at it with skinned knuckles for four hours.

It has been fun taking our jaunt into the woods out to Manfred. With enough leaves, and maybe helped by the Biobags, it hasn't given off much smell, and the raccoons gave up after only managing to pull one shred of corn husk through a dime-sized hole. Who know how long this load will take to decompose, but at least it needs no tending.

There was one problem. Because the drum can rotate, Bill rotated it. He did this just once. During a cold snap. Leaving the door facing down. Of course the half-full mess fell against the door, and it froze solid. Which I discovered next trip to add my bucket. I pulled on the handle to bring the door around to the top, then let go. Luckily my two mugs of strong English tea boosted my reflexes, though apparently didn't have enough caffeine to make me smart. I jumped clear as the drum and it's wicked handle whipped back on a date with gravity. Manfred sat that way for three weeks--lid down and useless--till the thaw.

Now that it's getting full, I'm open to the next idea. I'm think of the sunken bucket strategy. What's your idea?