Earth Day/Hour

One of our exchange students was asked to be part of the local celebration of earth day/hour last night, in town.  Fortunately I had to pick my daughter up from work, as I delivered Cherry to earth hour at City Hall.  It would have been a bit ironic to have had to waste the gas on two trips, to save the energy from a few lights.

So the rest of us arrived home, determined to at least try to do our part for earth hour.  My wife and daughter and I decided we would sit in the hot-tub and enjoy the stars, sans lights.  Yes I do admit to letting the pump run the jets for one guilty cycle.  The stars were amazing!  You could certainly see a lot more, what with all the neighbour's lights out as well.  And the usually glow over our fair city, was considerably fainter than normal.  Even the passing airplanes seemed to be on a reduced flow last night -- we live on the flyway between Toronto and Montreal, so it is not unusual to see three or four winking flights at any given point, in the sky.

Our other exchange student, who lives in her room and only comes out for meals and bathroom breaks, we thought was asleep, so we let her be.  Well, she suddenly seemed to come to life, just as we were all parked in the hot tub.  Lights came on throughout the house at periodic intervals, as she visited the bathroom, the kitchen and various other rooms.  And wouldn't you know it, every time she switched on a light, a car would drive by - I'm sure they were impressed by our observation of earth day.

Well after 45 minutes of soaking in the tub, we finally came shivering into the house and got ourselves reclothed.  The missus located a candle and we sat and chatted for the final fifteen minutes.  Fortunately just as we were about to get in the van to pick Cherry up from City Hall, she arrived home, driven by a friend.  Well that certainly seemed greener and more earth friendly than us making a second trip.

We did purposely leave a few lights on in the basement - my growlights for my plants.  I knew that I would forget to turn them back on, and as I had just watered everybody, I knew it would be a few days before I would discover my error.  I have the one rack on a timer, and probably need to do the same with the other rack now, as most of the plants are getting nice and bushy.

So I'm not sure how carefully we observed earth hour.  I know purists would decry our sojourn in the hot tub (and probably even the fact that we have a hot tub - it was here when we bought the place, and it is our one luxury in life, right now), but the water was already heated, and it has to keep circulating.  I do try keep our hydro usage to a minimum the rest of the year (I think Ontario Hydro has pretty much determined that with our high billing rates).

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.