Bike the Drive (Car-Free, Care-Free)

Mike and I participated in Ride the Drive this past Sunday here in Madison. I wish I would have had my camera because we could have gotten some really awesome photos. Here's a link to Channel 3's photo page.

http://www.channel3000.com/slideshow/news/24805441/detail.html

Ride the Drive is a free community event that closes some of the city's most busy downtown streets and opens them up to bicyclists, skaters, walkers, strollers , etc.
Here's a link to the website and the route.

http://www.cityofmadison.com/transportation/ridethedrive/route.cfm">>

The closed streets make a 6 mile loop and you can join the loop at any place along the way. This is the third time the event has been held in Madison and we've been lucky enough to be in town for it every time. My favorite part of the stretch is John Nolen Drive and biking through the tunnel under the Monona Terrace. If you catch it at the right time you can be biking under the tunnel while a local musician is playing...and the acoustics are truly amazing!

Along the 6 mile loop you can stop and purchase drinks and food from vendors, get your bike tuned up, listen to music, and talk to people about biking or environmental issues. There's even a music stage purely powered by people peddling bikes. This year they also had hula hoop making, face painting, bike demo's and more. It's such a great way to get people out downtown on a Sunday!

This year was especially exciting because Lance Armstrong was in town to help promote the event! Over 50,000 people came out to join the fun! I didn't see Lance Armstrong specifically but I did see the two police escort motorcycles riding the loop with a huge group of bicycles following as everyone tried for a chance to "bike with Lance". So I saw the huge group of bicyclists and he was undoubtedly in the middle of that crowd. I'm not a huge cycling fan and I don't necessarily follow the Tour de France, but I did find myself getting a little excited at the thought of catching a glimpse.

There were a lot of people out to see Lance and praise him for all that he's done to promote cycling in this country as well as people who were excited to see him as a cancer survivor and someone who has made an impact personally on their lives. I saw a lot of LiveStrong jerseys buzzing by me, a lot of smiles but also some tears. It was very touching and not something I had expected as I biked along the loop.

I hope this event only grows in Madison and that it continues to help promote bike-commuting in downtown. My only complaint is that it was hard to find recycling bins along the route. It was a shame because a lot of vendors were selling Gatorade and water bottles.

Clothing Line Conundrum

We put up the clothing line Monday night!

And it hasn't been used yet..see last night I was faced with a challenge. I ended up staying in the office later than I had anticipated to get a couple of things done at work. This left me scurrying and racing home on my bike so that I could make it to my yoga class on time.

I had promised Mike that I would switch the laundry before I took off for class because he needed something dried. My intention was to come home and hang the laundry on the line (with the new plastic clothing pins I just purchased at Shopko Tuesday night) but I was now running out of time.

Ah!
What do I do! I had 10 minutes to get my yoga bag together, change clothes and get back on my bike!
Here were my options.

a. quickly put the clothes in the dryer so I have enough time to bike to class.
or
b. take the time to hang the clothes on the clothing line and get in the car and drive to class.

I'm not sure what the best environmentally friendly option was...but I decided to put the clothes in the dryer and bike to yoga. So I used unnecessary energy to dry the clothes but didn't burn any gasoline to get to yoga.

Now I'm not neurotic and I didn't lose any sleep over this ...but this whole challenge has me thinking much more about my choices. bah!

I must also express my disappointment in the fact that Shopko didn't carry wooden clothespins. What's with the cheap plastic ones? I want the real deal!

Bike Camping

There's just something about being able to get out of town for a weekend, get out into nature and camp without ever turning on the car.

Mike turned me on to the idea of Bike Camping a few years ago before I even had my bike. We rented a bike from Budget Bicycle near our home, packed up the bike trailer and biked out to Blue Mounds State Park. As I didn't own my own bike or bike regularly it was a challenging ride and left me with a very sore behind but I loved it!

If you have a bike, some means of carrying your gear and a destination in mind, I think it's about as easy as any camping trip can get.

The Military Ridge State Trail is perfect for this type of adventure! You can hook up to the trail from the Capitol City Trail in Madison and the trail takes your through Verona, Mt. Horeb, Blue Mounds, Barneveld, and all the way to Dodgeville. http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/parks/specific/militaryridge/pdfs/mrtmap04.pdf It is one of the Rails to Trails systems with a fairly level grade and smooth limestone and asphalt surfaces.

In the last few years we have tried to make it out to Blue Mounds for a bike-camping adventure at least once a year.

Last year we decided to do a two-night trip and take the trail out to Governor Dodge State Park. We took off on a Friday night after work for the journey. The weather was questionable but after I had told most of my co-workers about the trip I felt obligated to see it through. We got a slow start and ended up biking at least half of the ~25 miles in the dark. I didn't complain. When we hit Mt. Horeb about 6 miles away from our first campsite at Blue Mounds...my bike light went out. I had to bike right behind Mike so that I could follow the beam of his bike light and see where I was going. I couldn't complain. At about the same time the bike light failed it started to rain. We pulled into our campsite at about 10pm on Friday night and had our dehydrated Pad Thai dinner sitting on the wet picnic table in the dark. It was an adventure especially dodging some unrecognizable nocturnal creatures on the trail.

This year the weather was nicer and it was the first time we could talk other people into joining us for the trip. We had two other couples bike with us on Saturday to Blue Mounds.
We met up on the Southeast Bike Trail near our house and proceeded to the Military Ridge. 3 bike trailers and several saddle-bags helped carry our camping equipment and other necessities for the evening.



We stopped off at Tulavu Coffeehouse in Verona for some iced beverages and met up with another couple who were going to ride along for a short part of the trail. After getting our caffeine buzz for the morning we continued down the trail and through some beautiful wetlands. Our plan was to stop at Riley's Tavern about 7 miles from Verona for the infamous Riley Fest for live music lunch and some beverages however they were charging $15 just to get into the festival. We decided our intention of staying for an hour and having a drink didn't justify a $15 cover-charge so we pushed on to Mt. Horeb another 6 miles away.

Mt. Horeb is a quaint suburb of Madison WI. In the 1800s more than 75% of the community was Norwegian so signs entering the city read Velkommen (Welcome)! The city has been dubbed the Troll Capital of the World and you can find trolls everywhere when driving or biking through town.

We ended up having our own festival like fun at the Grumpy Troll Brewery with some pizza, beverages and shuffle-board. The second floor of the brewery was recently converted into a pizzeria and the pizza is delicious as are the bloody mary's! http://thegrumpytroll.com/

After a short walk around Mt. Horeb to walk off lunch we found ourselves at the Mt. Horeb Aquatic Center. We enjoyed the water slide and diving boards and surprisingly a competitive game of pool basketball!

We got into Blue Mounds around 6pm and set up camp at the State Park. Blue Mounds State Park has created bike only campsites that are accessible right from bike trail.

Yesterday we packed up the campsite by 9am and headed into the Town of Blue Mounds for breakfast. We stopped at the Hooterville Inn for breakfast (this was also our stop Saturday night for dinner). Don't let the name confuse you...this is nothing like the well known Hooters restaurant. If you leave a tip over $5.00 the servers will pull something similar to a train horn and the restaurant fills with a lovely hoot-hoot-hooting noise! The food is good too!

We all made it back into Madison in one piece. There may have been a sore behind or two...but no accidents, no popped bike tires and no complaints!



Plus to keep in the environmental theme...we didn't burn any gasoline!
We did burn calories though...fueled by pizza, french fries and burgers.

Here's thanks to the strong guys who hauled the trailers!

Sneak Attack

We had our August Green Faster Challenge Meeting last night at a lovely home on the Near East Side in the Williamson Neighborhood. We will be having one meeting a month to go over what each family has been doing to reduce their impact and discuss challenges, goals etc.

We will also be reviewing the ENACT book.
Available online here: http://www.enactwi.org/index.php?page=download-the-pdfs

The first chapter is titled "Conserve Energy" and Mike and I will be leading the discussion next month. We are thinking about making several dioramas using old shoe-boxes to bring this chapter to life! (Diorama-a small model of a real-life scene that has lifelike details and a realistic background). When was the last time you made a Diorama!

I must say that I'm very impressed and a little intimidated by the other families who are competing with us.

One of the families composts underneath their sink all year using worms. Another family only produces a small plastic grocery bag full of garbage a week. And another family eats almost 100% local or organic, buying and freezing local fruit and vegetables to use in the winter.

Here's a link to the ENACT website and the short family bios. http://www.enactwi.org/index.php?page=greener-faster-challenge-participants

It was interesting as we were discussing all that we have done so far in the challenge, nobody divulged how they stand against the Madison average. It was simply not discussed! It seems nobody wants to share their statistical information..and I like it this way. We are all simply trying to improve upon what we each do individually. Mike on the other hand thinks this should be public knowledge and he intends to argue for full disclosure at the next ENACT meeting.

I think that we will have to come with the sneak attack approach and surprise everyone in the end!

The Story of Our Garbage

As living beings we are bound by a cycle of consumption and disposal. However if we make educated decisions about what we consume and how we dispose we can reduce our negative impact.

One of the challenges this year will be to reduce the amount of waste that we produce at our home. Last week we weighed our garbage and recycling. Our recycling came in at 7.5 lbs. for the week.

I asked Mike to guess how much our garbage weighed when he came home from work that day.
He took his bike helmet off before saying "20 lbs"
I perked up and yelped "20 lbs?!?"
He looked at me again and said "25 lbs?".
Nope..not even close! Our garbage weighed in at 2.5 lbs. It consisted of mostly tissues and floss. This may not be our typical garbage production in a single week...so I'm curious and will be weighing our garbage this week too. Stay tuned!

Recycling can sometimes be so daunting, especially when one city may recycle a certain material while others do not. The rules seem to change often too, so it's important to remain educated to fully utilize the resources at hand and ensure that our refuse ends up in the correct place.

That being said, I've done some research. The City of Madison has recently expanded the products that they can recycle, which will help us reduce our garbage production even more!

From their website, Madison recycles the following products if placed in the recycling cart.

PAPER: In addition to newspapers, magazines, catalogs, and corrugated cardboard, you can recycle these paper products:

* Junk Mail
* Paper Grocery Bags
* Envelopes
* Office and Computer Paper
* Phone Books
* Cereal and Cracker Boxes
* Soda Cases etc.
* Paper Egg Cartons
* Paper Milk and Juice Cartons
* Juice Boxes and Other Aseptic Packages

PLASTIC: The City can recycle the following plastic containers:

* All plastic bottles (except Motor Oil bottles)
* #1 Peanut Butter and Condiment Jars
* Plastic Frozen Juice Containers

Basically anything with a screw top. And the City can now recycle the lids and caps from water-type bottles...just make sure they are sealed tightly or they'll fall off and get screened out and thrown away. - I learned this from ENACT!

OTHER: The City does recycle the following:

* Glass Bottles and Jars
* Aluminum Cans
* Aluminum Foil Pans and Pie Plates
* Steel/Tin Cans
* Empty Aerosol Cans


So, we have a lot of options for recycling but what are some common items that the City cannot recycle?

The city of Madison does not recycle the following plastics:

* Tubs and Containers
* Frozen Food Containers
* Microwave Dinner Plates

So all of our sour cream, cottage cheese, cream cheese, yogurt tubs cannot be recycled by the city! I know..shocking! So what do we do?
Well, I've recently learned that Whole Foods collects other plastics for recycling, mainly #5 PP containers. We will be dropping off our first load tonight.

According to the City, 8.3% of the material put into Madison's recycling cannot be recycled. Common things that cannot be recycled but typically end up in recycling carts include; paper or plastic cups, plastic blister packaging (from electronics, batteries etc.), styrofoam, broken glass, light bulbs, and rigid plastics.

Now that I have the correct information, I'll be able to make more educated decisions about what items I purchase and what items I throw away. Here's the City of Madison website for more information:

http://www.cityofmadison.com/streets/index.cfm

Utility Bill Breakdown

Below is a portion of an email that Mike and I received from ENACT this week. It breaks down our Gas/Electric/Water from 2009 and so far in 2010 and tells us how we're doing so far. ENACT has also given us a goal for the upcoming Year-of-the-Challenge.

_________________________________________________
Gas:

Average Madison Gas Usage: 856 therms/year

Your 2009 Gas Usage: 254 therms/year

Your 2010 Gas Usage: 210 therms/year (if you were to continue doing what you have done this year so far)

Congratulations! Your gas bill is very impressive. You are 71% better than the Madison average starting off. Sonya and I are very impressed and we can tell that the two of you have done a lot to make your place more sustainable. Keep up the good work!

Electric:

Average Madison Electric Use: 7200 kWh/year

Your 2009 Average Electric Use: 5,934 kWh/year

Your 2010 Average Electric Use (Continuing what you are doing now): 5,124 kWh/year

Good Job! According to your numbers in 2009 you are 18% below the Madison average. This is really great but Sonya and I think you can do better. Your goal kWh for the year should be 4,320. This means that coming into the fall your kWh/month should not be more than 360. Make sure you unplug those appliances when you are not home!

Water:

Average Madison Water Use (for two people): 47,450 gal/year

Your 2009 Water Usage (per person breakdown): 28,257 gal/year

Ok so the good news is that no matter how you break it down you are right around 40% below the Madison average. You you are 41% better than the average for Madison! You guys are doing great, but imagine how much you can do by making some simple changes.
__________________________________________________


So given these numbers I'm very happy with our gas use...though I'm sure it's so low because of the size of the condo and the fact that we have only turned on that air-conditioner twice this summer. I'm a little concerned with our electricity use but I'm not sure how much we'll need to do to reduce it. I think we are pretty good about turning off lights when we're not in the room, except for my bad habit of leaving the bathroom light on all morning when I'm getting ready for work. In my defense I'm in and out of the bathroom a lot in the morning...but luckily I have Mike to remind me of this wrong-doing and surprisingly even Mike's dad. Thanks guys, now I know what you two gents say about me when I'm not around! It's great though because now I'm making an effort to change my ways.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

In addition, I've noticed that after I cleaned the refrigerator coils, some of the food was too cold...ice cold... frozen even! Shockingly, I think cleaning the coils actually worked! We've turned the cooling system up...umm...wait or is it down? Either way the food is no longer frozen and I hope that means that the refrigerator is not working as hard and saving us some electricity. Mike also turned down the temperature on the water-heater which should help. I suppose we will see if there is an improvement when we get our next electric bill.


In other news, we have purchased our clothes line and it should arrive next week with plenty of good weather left in the summer to use it!

We purchased this one off of Realgoods.com :


http://www.realgoods.com/product/home-outdoor/household/laundry/retractable+clothesline.do

I know that a cheap rope would have done the trick, but as we share the backyard with seven other lovely earthly beings, we thought the retractable line would be more considerate! Bring on the sunshine and the wind...and the scent of freshly dried clothing off the line!

And so it begins....

It's officially August so the Challenge has begun!

Mike and I will have to begin attempting to reduce our electric/gas consumption, water consumption, and waste production. We will also begin attempting to reduce the miles we put on the car and increase the percentage of organic and local foods that we purchase. ENACT has given us some spreadsheets to monitor our progress. The electric/gas and water will be easy to monitor. As for the other areas we will have to analyze our grocery bills and weigh our garbage and recycling. Luckily we only have to do this one week out of the month. In August we are picking the first week of the month. I went grocery shopping yesterday and chose the foods that I normally would have gotten except I did swap in a can of organic black beans instead of the conventional and I purchased the organic eggs. 75% of my grocery bill went towards organic or local goods. I think that's a pretty good start!

Usually I purchase the eggs labeled "cage-free" even if they aren't labeled organic. There's a lot of controversy over the labels on egg cartons these days as more people are becoming aware of the terrible conditions chickens have to endure in many factory farms across the country. The standards that farms need to meet to label their eggs "cage-free" or "free-range" are very loose. To maintain a "free-range" label, I've read that farmers only have to prove that they've given their chickens access to the outdoors, even if there are hundreds of chickens in a barn with only a small outdoor access door. A majority of the chickens probably never had access to that door but the farmers are allowed to label their eggs this way. To label eggs "cage-free" a farmer must allow their hens to walk, spread their wings and lay their eggs in nests. This sounds lovely, though according to the Humane Society of the United States the cage-free hens still live in large flocks that may consist of several thousand birds who never go outside. Most of these birds still have portions of their beaks burned off (painful mutilation) to prevent the birds from hurting each other since they live in such close quarters. I believe that purchasing organic, free-range, cage free eggs is still better than buying the conventional however I should look into local options like purchasing directly from a farmer. My parents previously raised happy chickens on their hobby farm and I used to get my eggs there but that's not an option for me anymore. I wonder if the Regent Street Condo documents would allow for a chicken coop in the back yard...or more importantly I wonder if Mike would allow it.

I marked the first day of the challenge by doing a once over on the refrigerator coils (see previous blog) and by making our new cloth napkins. Well, I guess "new" as in old and tattered cloth napkins. They are indeed nothing spectacular but we will give them a try. I used a cloth bed-sheet and cut it into about 20 napkins. There's a lot of sheet left for more napkins but I thought we'd try it out before I put too much more energy into this project. I do not know how to sew so we will see how they hold up in the washing machine as the ends are already frayed from the butcher job I did with the scissors.


I guess if I can wipe my hands with a cheap paper towel I should be able to wipe my hands with a tattered napkin made from an old bed-sheet. We don't typically carry out our domestic affairs in a regal manner so I don't think this will be a problem. I guess unless we suddenly decide we'd like to do some formal entertaining...but until we own more than 2 spoons I don't think that will be happening!