Since my last post, I have received two utility bills. One for $31.82 and the most recent bill was $33.10. Not much to report on, as this prototype home continues to perform extremely well.
The two pictures in this post are examples of my ever expanding organic produce gardens. I built the three sets of trellis using both purchased and scrap material. I currently have one planted with blackberries and one with raspberries. The 3rd trellis is for raspberries (that I dug up) that are being grown indoors during the winter. It sure is nice to have southern exposure and windows with cardinal 179 glass as the plants are thriving indoors while it gets colder outdoors. In the spring, I will most likely paint the trellis and then use cable or sting to connect the posts for the blackberry and raspberry canes to grow on and over. The other photo is the start of my raised bed organic garden next to the house. The concrete blocks were purchased from a contractor at a job site as they were leftovers. I was able to buy them at about a 1/3 of retail costs. After leveling out the ground for the perimeter, I set the blocks in place and then packed them with clay and it is working extremely well. I plan to put a decorative cap around the top of the perimeter once the rest of the soil is added. Beyond the garden is one of my compost bins and hopefully there will be some great and free compost available for planting the garden in the spring.
One last item I'd like to draw attention to is the SAVE Act: www.imt.org/save-act This proposed bipartisan legislation is an attempt to finally give underwriters and to some extent appraisers the ability to have a standard or guideline to properly value residential energy savings. Considering that, for almost all Americans, the 2nd largest cost of home ownership is their energy bill (more than taxes or insurance), it's about time the financial institutions take a closer look at energy costs. Let's hope that this is the 1st step to making sure that energy savings are calculated into the loan valuation process.
