Bike vs Car

My bike with Currie electric kit fitted

Originally uploaded by lectureral

I got my car serviced today. Adam and I share a 1999 Ford Laser called Princess Sparkle. It was the 200,000km service and it’s costing me $730. $730!!! I couldn’t believe it when the mechanic told me. And then when I said goodbye I told him that I was walking home (with Kaidin and Pepper) and he looked at me like I was crazy. I’m about to walk down to pick her up, but like all mechanics, when the man called me he said that there were several things ‘wrong’ that he just went ahead and fixed for me, so it will probably end up costing closer to a grand.

It got me thinking about how much I really need a car anyway. The only real reason I got a car when my old one died was to get to uni and to work. Now I’m working at the forum, which is a half hour walk away and we live about 500m from the new train station which goes close to my uni. The other reason I needed a car was that Kaidin attends after school care across town. It’s only a 7 minute drive, but it’s a little too far for little legs to walk and I have no way of getting his bike there everyday (well I could wheel it to him, but walking there with a small child’s bike and a hyperactive puppy is just not something I’m willing to do).

So while I’ll keep the car for picking up Kaidin (Adam also uses it for work), I’m thinking about buying a bike. My Dad bought me one for Christmas in 2006, but I stopped using it the next summer and when I moved into this house, I discovered it had been stolen from my back garage. One of the many, many items stolen from my last house.

I read in G magazine while I was waiting for the doctors about electric bikes – ones that you still pedal, but you don’t have to put as much effort into it as a regular push bike. This spiffy one retails at just over $2000 (or the same amount two car service will cost us). I like the Cruiser Nomad at $1299. According to G’s article electric bikes are the way to go – much more energy efficient, you can choose your level of workout (the article included pictures of a man who commuted to work via electric bicycle wearing a suit without breaking a sweat, or you can simply pedal as you would a normal bike and conserve the batteries) and they take a lot less materials to build and need fewer ‘extra’s’ – no $1000 service fee for an electric bike.

According to this site, “for a 250 miles/month average commute, an electric assisted vehicle is 100 times more cost efficient and emits only 3% of the CO2 of a car.” Which is some pretty good stats Ativ Solutions makes the Crystal Cannon Conversion Kit to transform existing bikes into electric ones. At US$695, this option would cost here about the same as buying a new electric bike. The equivalent in Australia of the Currie motor in the picture above retails at between $1100 and $1600 from Electric Vehicles Pty Ltd, again, much the cost of a whole bike. I’m guessing the conversion kits are more for people who want to convert their $3000+ already owned bikes.

I think it’s really an option I’d keep in mind. Adam and I talk often about buying another car as it’s quite impractical for me to drive him to work at 6pm and pick him up at 6am and my other option is to not have any transport for this time period. It’s also just annoying – I am so used to having my own vehicle that I get frustrated if he takes the car and is not back at the prearranged time. Instead of another car however, I would be content if I had an electric bike to use when he needed the car (shopping and errands etc.) and I just used the car to pick up Kaidin from afterschool care. This would not only cut our emissions, but also fuel costs and seeing as petrol is edging up to the $1.50/L mark where I live, it’ll make a big difference to our weekly budget if I can cut 60% of petrol consumption.

Places to go.

Part of my desire to become a better person was embracing my wish to be more creative in my every day life and tr to draw or write something every day. I have a moleskin notebook (Thanks to Gala for insisting that every person should carry one) which I bought off Ebay and carry with me everywhere, along with a few pens and pencils so I can create whenever the mood takes me.

This is yesterday’s effort – a simple list of places around the world I want to see and what I want to do there. It was written at the DMV while Adam was doing his test to get his license back – click on the picture for the bigger, more readable version.

Today is Buy Nothing Day. In an attempt to lower their ecological footprint, people worldwide are attempting to spend one day without purchasing anything. I think this is a great idea. I had to run down and grab washing powder late last night and I’m going to refuse to go near a shop all day just to avoid temptation.

It’s so easy to consume. Advertising is everywhere, making products that we probably don’t need seem ever so tempting. My son watches cartoons of a morning and every advertisement is for a new plastic wrapped toy or refined foodstuff that he simply must have because it was endorsed by some cartoon character. Convinience is also a big thing for me – popping down to my local IGA for late night groceries to whip up for dinner instead of doing a weekly shop or getting pizza and dvds because I’m too tired to cook and entertain myself.

So today I am joining the anti-consumerism revolution – will you come too?

Goals and Dreams

I just got back from walking my dog and it is really hot out there! And it was only 9am when I left. The fact that each year the summers are getting hotter, earlier, really brings home to me how we all need to put in an effort to help lower greenhouse emissions and increase oxygen levels by planting trees; every summer I think ‘Wow, it’s NEVER been this hot’ and then the next summer, it’s hotter. Although it isn’t really summer here, it’s still spring, the temperatures are in the low 30s (celsius) every day and I live in the lower half of WA, where the heat is meant to be fairly temperate.

Luckily, Pepper likes to nap in the heat of the day too, esepcially after a long walk.

I walked the dog down to our local shopping centre, which is just far enough to give the dog a decent walk but not too far that I have to lie down and nap when I get home. We are lucky where we live – our two local shopping centers (one main one and one IGA which is open late some nights) are within walking distance and the new train station (which we have been promised will open in December every year for the last 3 years) so the only reason to use the car is the fact that it’s air conditioned. I’m trying to get up earlier so I can get groceries and do the stuff I need to do while it’s still cool, then stay inside during the heat of the day.

Adam and I have been speakng about finances. We know that our dream is to own a chunk of land big enough for a hobby farm – approx 5 to 10 acres – and build our own ecologically friendly house with a studio for my jewelry and woodwork , a shed for his cars and motorbikes (the guy is a motoX fiend!), a food forest and enough room for a few goats and pigs, three horses, chickens of course and maybe a cow or a few sheep. Oh and I want a barn full of cats and puppies. To most people that would probably sound like a fairly modest dream, but put in the fact that we have no savings, a large debt to pay off (the car loan), we are renting a house at $220 a week and only one of us is working (Adam is a security guard at the local hospital. I am hoping to get a ‘Christmas casual’ position, but I put my uni degree above any job at the moment).

At the moment I am reading Write It Down, Make it Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser which I got from bookmooch (the only way to recycle books and absolutely loving it. The premise is basically that you write down your goals and that starts the process of getting to those goals. Along the way there are other things you can do – write down any fears that could stop you from acheiving your goals, free writing to find goals you weren’t consciously aware of, writing down accomplishments and gifts that have already come to pass. So I have decided to make a page of this blog a dedication to our dream home, writing down our goal in detailed description, what is holding us back and how far we have already come. I;ll also be adding a donations button – all donations will go towards our house building fund (which incidently is where all my christmas casual money minus $50 a week will be going). Our Dream Home page can be viewed here.

First Fruits

A few months ago I dug up a few square feet of my back lawn to plant a vege patch. I made it way too small, so there is lettuce and strawberries and herbs and cucumbers all squished together, which snails love – it’s gourmet feast and they barely have to move to get at it all.

The real showstopper is the tomatoes. You know when you plant plants how you are supposed to read how big they’ll grow and then plant twice as many so you can remove the weaker seedlings once the stronger ones get bigger? There were no weak tomato seedlings. Every tomato plant that I planted (including the ones in pots which had been straggling along for weeks before dug the patch and which I was sure I’d killed by lack of water at least several times) grew and grew and grew. The tallest one now is about 3ft high.

I water them lovingly. I pull buffalo grass out from their edges. I planted basil in between them in the hope that I could have fresh basil and tomato on toast (all I need is a baby buffalo for boccochini and I’d be all set). I spread chook poo and cow poo and water saving crystals anda heap of other stuff around their stems and I poured seaweed solution on themuntil I realised how many midgies seaweed solution attracts. I love love love my tomatoes.

I love to eat tomatoes. Brushetta, tomato salad, skewers, caserole and ragu – yum. So I was quite happy with my over achieving tomato plants, until I realised how long it takes tomatoes to ripen. There has been baby cherry tomatoes on one of the pot plants for what seems like weeks now. Month even. There are millions of little roma tomatoes that refuse to turn any colour but green. So many tomatoes and not a one for me to eat already.

It was a big deal today, because I decided that even though it was still slightly orange, I was going to eat my first tomato. The first yield of my vege patch (apart from the occasional lettuce leaf or cat nip sprig – Momo goes nuts over catnip). It was a big moment.

It was delicious Now I’m just hoping that I don’t get a complete glut of ripe tomatoes all at once and get sick of them.

Green Power

I hate renting. Ever since I was little I have wanted to own my on house. The houses I want to own have changed somewhat over the years – originally I think I wanted a hermit’s hut like Tammylans, with lots of animal friends, then maybe I huge mansion, a Tuscan villa, an English cottage, a Morrocan riad and at the moment I want to live in an Earthship. While I’m a poor student however, the dream of owning my own house/castle/log cabin will have to stay just a dream and with it, my dream of having solar panels and a generator.

My uni has solar panels. I’m hideously jealous. The idea of getting free power from the sun amazes me and I have no idea why the Australian government hasn’t utilised the idea more* – we have a very sunny climate (except today.. It’s raining) and loads of open space that due to rising salinity levels and lack of rain is not much good for anything. I know as of May 14^th this year, there are increased rebates for those who purchase solar arrays for their homes or businesses, but the majority of Australian grid power still comes from coal fired power stations.

Photo from Greenwatts.com.

Recently I made the switch over to using renewable energy sources through Synergy. It’s costing me approximately 4.4c extra per unit to have 75% of my grid power (hopefully soon it will be 100%) come from renewable sources (mostly wind and some solar at the moment). This money apparently goes to creating more wind and solar farms, in the hope that sometime in the future, power to the grid will come from only renewable sources.

While I think it’s great that people like me – who are renting a home and unable to put up a solar array – are now able to choose this option, but I was annoyed by the price increase. At our house it’s only a rise of about $16 per month in winter, which we can easily afford, but it is the motive behind the price hike that bothers me – the people who are changing to green power have to pay to get more green power sources. Does that seem wrong to anyone else? Shouldn’t the people who are still using coal sourced energy have to pay extra and those using green power pay less? After all, it’s not costing Synergy anything to get this power after the set up and maintainence costs, which I am assured are much, much lower than the costs incurred by running a coal fired power station. Plus there are a lot more people NOT using green power – the revenue raised towards making more renewable energy sources would be much higher by charging the extra to those who refuse to change to green power. Plus think of the incentive – while the 4.4c per unit may not sound like much it’s certainly going to turn some people off making the switch.

So to Synergy I simply have to say stop taxing the people who are doing the right thing and to everyone else, I can’t wait to own my own house, cover the whole darn roof with photovoltaic cells and stick it to the grid energy man.

* Here is a list of some things the government is doing with renewable energy sources and here is some Green’s policies on renewable energy and climate change. Vote Green!