I was browsing through my blog-reader today and ejoyed this post by Rachel. In fact it got me writing about something I had forgotten to mention - our latest central heating advancement.

No, we have not gone mad and had oil fired central heating installed but we have improved the heating which we get from our wee stove.

We live in an open plan space - kitchen, dining and living room, which is heated with a small stove. It’s a narrow long space which is not well insulated and the stove is at one end which results in our being cold at the other end where the couch is, so recently we bought a small desk fan and attached it (safely) near and above the stove.

Now when the stove has warmed up the air around it and of course particularly above it, we switch the fan on to a low setting and the warm air circulates much better than before.

Interestingly enough when we bought the fan from our favourite small family run electrical shop the shop keeper asked what we were intending to use it for. No, she is not especially nosy, it’s just that she knows that we live off-grid and are not wasteful of our electricity and also that we, like herself and her own wonderful husband, are resourceful and might not always use things for their original design purpose. Also, of course, it’s winter and not many people are buying desk fans in the cold damp Irish winter.

When we told her what the plan was she said that someone else that week had also done precisely the same thing! Great minds think alike (never mind the rest of that saying - I am sure it’s not true that fools seldom differ!)

The fan works very well and does not use much power. We switch it on when feeling chilly  and turn it off when the room is fully warm.

It is a very simple solution, we are only sorry that we didn’t think of it years ago…

I heard recently that the American motor industry is in trouble, I have to admit to not feeling a whole lot of sympathy, after all these guys have not gone out of their way to change the typical gas guzzling large American car into a more economical model. Apparently there is no connection between greedy vehicles and global warming!

Of course they have also not had much pressure from their government to change the typical motor vehicle being driven on US roads and unfortunately these large and greedy types of SUV have become really popular here in Ireland in recent years although increasingly they are now up for sale due to the increases in fuel costs and the new road taxes.

I am SO big I need two parking spaces

Fortunately people are changing their attitudes and not just because of increasing fuel costs, rock on new ways of thinking…

I can’t believe it!! i just popped out after dinner to get the cat food dish and it was snowing!!!

Yahoo - I am a total kid when it comes to snow, I just love it, I don’t worry about any inconvenience, I head straight for 8 year old status!

We have already had more than an inch of snow - I know that by the standards of some places in the world that one inch is not even worth talking about - but I don’t live in those places, I live in Ireland where we don’t get snow very often so I make no apologies for being eight right now, and being a grown up eight year old means I get to be silly and excited but don’t have to go to bed early!

The moon is out as well so I just had a little walk in the snowy moonlight - hey, it might be gone when I get up in the morning!

Meself and himself went for a romantic walk in the woods today. Because we work together and live in a small space we can sometimes get into the habit of taking each other a little for granted so we have lately been trying to spend one day a week, preferably Sunday, doing something which we don’t normally do so today we went for a lovely walk in the oak woods.

The oak woods are on the edge of Lough Gardice in Co. Leitrim and are easy to miss, we only found them a few years ago by accident and love going there to watch the seasons change. In spring they are filled with bluebells and wild garlic and sorrel and all sorts of nice things. There is also the remains of an old ringfort which you can find if you take a path which leads you into the woods and uphill away from the lake.

The wee road to the woods is easy to miss unless you know what you are looking for. If you are heading to Ballinamore from Ballyconnell you drive past Hortons Shore on Lough Garadice and look out for and take the first wee road on the left. It is signposted for Drumreilly Church, a lovely old C of I church and graveyard which you drive past and a little further down the road you find your self in a car park at the lake.

The car park was built to facilitate anglers, it seems to be a popular place for coarse fishing contests through the year and it is sometimes very populated there although it is still very pleasant and quiet for walking even during those times. The fishermen sit, mostly singly, on their wee camp chairs in little clearings at the lake’s edge and they are pictures of quiet contemplation as they await the excitement of a bite.

The woods are the only place I know of around here where there are so many mature oak trees. Unfortunately this is a rarity in Ireland, I don’t know of many old oak woods anywhere so to me it is quite a treasure. There are also hazel and holly trees growing there but it is predominantly oak, some are really quite large and just lovely to spend time with. Ferns grow from branches and provide wonders to look at when you look upwards.

There is a path all which goes along the shore and turns to come around by the old church and bring you back to the car park, it is a gentle one mile walk and the track is fairly even surfaced which means that you can do what I did today, walk for ages just gazing upwards at the contrasts of green, gold, bronze, yellow and the varying blue and grey of the sky.

So after a beautiful walk together we have come home to cook together , doing a little internet stuff (such as this post) and are now enjoying David Attenbrough on the telly as we wait for dinner to cook on the stove and boy - it smells good!

I hope that you have had a lovely day too…

I spend today helping my neighbours to organise a workshop space in a building in a local town where they are going to start teaching people to build their own wind turbines. We set up workbenches and swept and cleaned in preparation for the workshops which will start on Thursday next.

We are part way through building our own turbine and may take advantage of the workshops to do some work on our turbine, it would be good to have it up and spinning before the winter gets any darker.

Because we are depending solely on photovoltaic panels for electricity at the moment we would appreciate having a turbine for the deepest part of winter when the days are short. We are not generating as much power as we would during longer days and we are of course using more power for lighting and more computer use in the long evenings.

We use gas for cooking and heating water at the moment and we have noticed a big difference in the price of a barrel of gas over the last few years. During the winter when the stove is lit I often use it to cook on, its great for stews and thick winter soups cooked in my favourite cast iron pot, the one I bought for himself in a second hand shop the first Christmas when we were dating.

Recently we bought an electric steamer so that when we have the turbine up and spinning we can cook using free energy. We plan on having an electric slow cooker in the kitchen when we have finished building our house and also two electric hot plates along with a gas hob.

It makes sense to us when our electricity is free that we should make as much use of it as possible and reduce our dependence on other fuels such as gas. Quite often during the summer we have more power than we can use, it’s a great situation to be in.

Wishing you good energy…

I just love this time of year, I love the smells, the sounds, the light, the mists, the sunsets and sunrises. I managed to get a few nice photographs lately and wanted to share them with you.

Sunset Lake

Morning Cloud in Leitrim

Is this really 2008? you wouldn’t think so if you read this sad and horrifying article about the current and past treatment of Aboriginal people by the police and prison authorities in Queensland Australia. Perhaps the clue is in the name “queens”land, it is not unusual for ill-treatment and injustice to follow the colonial rule, be it British, Dutch or French but isn’t it time that this behaviour stopped? A big big attitude change is needed right around the world. We don’t have the right to deny anyone a decent life.

I often feel impotent and think - I am not going to ignore this - but it is hard to know what I can do. Today I can write, I can write about it here and I can sign this petition to try to end one story of this terrible treatment.

Today it is the least I can do.