Yesterday afternoon/evening’s lovely, leisurely, fat soft rain ended up filling the tubs and topping off a barrel.
I sometimes joke that my extra-high-visibility urban corner lot is like an Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm, where I am the “ant” being observed by the passing humans as I go about my experiments & data-gathering.
#PorousProperty
And, regarding heat mitigation (in response to a reader’s questions regarding do the trees reduce the AC load):
1) We do not use air conditioning. The house was wired for it, & has duct work etc, but it does not get used ever.
Since I knew I would never use the AC system, I actually got rid of the giant outdoor component of it (that big outdoor boxlike thing that makes all the noise and blows out all the hot air — I don’t know how people live with those things nearby, I can’t even hear myself think when I’m near one) in order to make room for a birdbath.
Housemates are permitted to use a quiet electric fan in their own rooms, but I myself don’t use a fan.
2) And no I don’t collect temperature data. I use subjective data. From countless visitors who report the instant feeling of cooling the minute they step under the trees.
3) The foliage definitely is an essential part of keeping the house cool. As well as keeping it warmer in winter.
Also essential for keeping the house cooler are awnings on each window. Where there were no awnings, I have made cute little trellises out of bamboo and palm fronds etc.
This is the first year that I have added bamboo and palm frond trellis awnings over the windows on the corner of the house that gets struck hardest by the summer afternoon sun.
The house has awnings on the south side and southwest, but none on the northerly west side windows.
Even with the trees off to the west providing lots of shade in the yard, the windows still therefore get struck by the hardest sun in the late afternoons.
So I’m looking forward to how my little DIY artsy + functional bamboo & palm frond trellises improve the comfort of this side of the house in the summer afternoons.
Fortunately my room is on that very “hard sun” side of the house, so I get to be the “experimental subject” — a role I embrace!
PS. This sausage was left over from a catering event that my friend worked at. It was going to be thrown away if we didn’t use it #StopFoodWaste