2011.04.13 19:24:28

Austin

I planted sugar snap peas on St. Patrick's Day this year, and four days later it snowed. It wasn't what we'd expect of the second day of Spring, but the weather this year has been anything but common. The pea planting was as much a hopeful gesture as anything else - a way to reassure myself that something edible will indeed emerge from the ground again, just as we will emerge from this heavy dose of winter.

The mailmen may be the only people in Arlington who know it's time to start thinking about the garden, as they deliver seed and garden supply catalogues to frozen gardeners who have probably forgotten how to call a spade a spade. But all it takes is a quick daydream about the taste of a fresh summer tomato with basil to get me to load soil into peat pots and start raising this year's vegetable garden. I claim complete amateur status when it comes to gardening, but that's the main point: it didn't take much effort to get myself up and going and self-sufficient with vegetables for two from June through September. Hopefully it'll inspire some similar experiments around Arlington.

One of the first things I did after moving here a few years ago - long before the furniture arrived - was to dig up the yard. I am not a huge fan of grass and am definitely not a lawn guy, particularly because they require attention but you can't eat them. At first I had plans to turn the entire place into a big terraced garden complete with paths and maybe a fountain or two. Then I discovered how hard it is to dig well-established grass, and my grand visions shrank. A lot. I started with two 11-foot by 6-foot raised beds, which I staked out, dug, and framed with untreated spruce 2X12s from Home Depot. In the second season I added a third.

I filled the beds with a few cubic yards of compost from Boston Bark that were dumped smack in the middle of our driveway. I was pleased until I discovered that the dump truck hadn't been cleaned out before it was loaded with compost, and so right at the center of the magnificent pile was a full two cubic yards of concrete mix. Boston Bark did come back, shovel up the mess, and provide a new load sans concrete but I would have rather seen them get it right on round 1.

The layout.

The arduous digging of sod.

The compost - with a special concrete filling.

While this was going on, the seedlings watched from inside. Although I'd raised the odd cactus or two in my day, this whole vegetable thing was new territory for me. I tried all sorts of containers, from peat pots to cardboard egg cartons to old yogurt containers. In the end, although they're a one-shot deal, I like peat pots the most because they can be placed in a waterproof dish and watered from below. The peat will soak up the water and dampen the soil, which is a great way to avoid abusing your seedlings during watering.

Another suggestion is to label your seedlings clearly with something other than a post-it note. It's a bit of a surprise when you separate a bunch of tiny tomato seedlings only to find out later that they were actually...basil. In the first year I pre-seeded tomatoes, zucchini, kale, leeks, broccoli, parsley, and basil indoors on April 1st. Later I planted beans, swiss chard, marigolds, and a bunch of salad greens right in the garden. I liked this initial set, with the exception of the leeks, which looked like blades of grass when I transplanted them into the garden and took forever to mature into pitiful stalks.

All of my seeds came from Seeds of Change, which I chose because they are from organic plants. I've generally liked their supply, but their seed packs are pretty expensive and I've had problems with items backordered (summer doesn't wait around for the seeds to arrive) or canceled altogether (a couple of times without any warning).

The first set of seedlings.

A tomato gets a transplant.

All planted and ready to grow (Bed #1).

Tomatoes and salad greens (Bed #2).

My first year was the summer of 2009 when everyone's Ark filled with water from June 1st to July 15th. Irrigation wasn't necessary, and the cool-weather crops such as lettuces and broccoli did well. I did install a soaker hose (seen in the photo) but used it rarely, and found that by September it had rotted and had several holes, making it completely worthless. In 2010 I sprung for a drip irrigation system from a company called Irrigation Direct. The weather was warm and dry and with the system on a timer, all I really had to do was harvest, eat, and repeat. (Less work is always good, because unfortunately I am not a full-time yard gardener.)

I'm a fan of planting densely because it means less weeding, and this appears to work as long as crops are rotated from year to year. I border the beds with marigolds, which help deter pests, and interplant a lot - one plant of this, one row of that, and so on. The only pesticide I use is Bt, which stands for Bacillus Thuringiensis and is a naturally-occurring bacteria that takes care of cabbage moths on the kale and broccoli. In June the basil has been decimated by June bugs (go figure) so I cover them at night - problem solved. I was told that nocturnal investigations are the best way to figure out what's eating your plants, and this has been mostly true. Neighbors come in handy, too: ours told me he spotted a squirrel running away with one of my tomatoes in its mouth. I considered it my contribution to the squirrel fund in exchange for free acorn cleanup services the fellow provides in the fall.

From seedling to garden jungle in a matter of weeks.

Rows offer the illusion of order and method.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and even though many of my techniques were experimental and haphazard, when the sun shines in Arlington things really start growing. We had more salad greens than we could eat, and managed to can a bunch of tomatoes in the form of salsa. Butternut squash has lasted through the winter in the basement, and I think there's a loaf or two of zucchini bread still in the freezer.

It may seem a long way off, but soon we'll be in shorts and t-shirts and I'll be feeling lucky that there are 200 fewer square feet of my lawn to mow than when I moved in. If luck smiles on me again this year, I'll be feasting on another chaotic pile of plants that are as local as it gets.

1 ½ lbs of zucchini.

A late-season harvest: tomatoes, squash, beets, and everything else.

Summertime on a platter.

2011.04.13 19:23:33

charm

At the Windows on Water film series screening of Liquid Assets, DPW Director Mike Rademacher gave the audience an update on what the Town is doing to maintain our water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure. Thank you, Mike, for making yourself available to the communuity-we learned a lot.

To read more about Arlington's drinking water, here is the most recent Mass Water Resources Drinking Water report, just click on "Arlington".

To find out more about what's happening in Arlington, sign up to receive Town notices here or visit the DPW page here.

Mike Rademacher | Town infrastructure | MWRA | drinking water | water quality

2011.02.03 21:25:40

saadmin

Salt on the roads: Good for safety, bad for environment

By Sandy Bauers

Over the last 60 years - pretty much since regular use of sodium chloride on roads began - the annual average sodium concentration in the Delaware River has nearly tripled and chloride has increased fivefold, researchers have found. Because the department, like many others, can switch intakes and mix in water with lower salinity, the final product contains lower levels, said Chris Crockett, director of planning and research.

If current trends continue in the coming decades, however, experts say that aquatic life will suffer and water supplies could be threatened. Sodium is a concern for people with medical conditions such as hypertension.
"This cannot go on indefinitely. It is not sustainable," said Jonathan Husch, chair of Rider University's department of geological, environmental and marine sciences, which has been researching salt issues locally.
Unlike the pollutants that are typically removed by water-treatment plants, getting the salt out can require entirely different technologies such as reverse osmosis.
Eventually, said Crockett, governments may need to decide on which end of the process to spend precious public funds: more environmentally friendly deicers for the roads or new treatments for the water. Both cost more.
Officials - especially those in more northern areas - have been aware of the problems with salt for more than a decade. But it's only been in the last few years, with increased public focus on the environment, that significant innovations have emerged.

Highway crews in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey have been spraying ahead of time with a salty brine solution. The liquid - look for the stripes down the lanes before a storm - stays on a bare road better than salt, it delays the formation of ice and, when salt is spread later, it speeds melting.

In 1940, an estimated 149,000 tons of rock salt were sold in the United States for highway use. Now, we're up to about 18 million tons in a bad winter.

Meanwhile, study after study has found that from the Great Lakes to mountain streams, salinity in water bodies has been rising. In isolated cases, municipal water wells have had to be shut down because of contamination from road salt.

Wetlands have been affected. Salt-tolerant species have become more common along highways with high salt use.
In 2009, a U.S. Geological Survey study found that 40 percent of streams in and around Northern U.S. cities underlain by certain kinds of aquifers had salt levels high enough to damage aquatic life.

Earlier this year, USGS researcher Steve Corsi and others collected water fleas and flathead minnows in streams around Milwaukee. They found that during winter deicing, water in more than half the streams sampled was toxic to the organisms or affected their growth and reproduction.
Eventually, salt can change not only a stream's plants and aquatic organisms, but its entire ecosystem, said Philadelphia's Crockett. "You go from things that are not tolerant of a salty environment to things that can handle that kind of shock."

Spreaders have been reengineered and recalibrated to reduce overshoot and to keep the salt from bouncing onto the shoulder.

In some cases, workers can clean the same amount of snow with half the salt that they once used.
Officials employ elaborate calculations to project nuances of temperature and precipitation as storms approach and intensify.

This year, PennDot is piloting a sophisticated storm-fighting computer system - with touch screens in the trucks - that helped Indiana reduce salt use by a third. Using radar, it forecasts road conditions and fine-tunes how much salt should be spread.

Manufacturers are coming out with new deicers, including one made from beet juice. Transportation officials in Maryland, New York, and Chicago are trying it.
Marketed under brand names such as GeoMelt and IceBite, it is less corrosive for bridges and cars - another issue surrounding salt. Also unlike salt, it doesn't cause potholes.

This, like many other salt "alternatives," is really just an additive. It helps a brine solution stay put and enhances the melting effect.

But some have complained that the beet juice stains and stinks like rotting vegetables. It has unwanted environmental effects, too. Bacteria that break down the organic chemical consume oxygen - and low oxygen levels are another problem in many urban streams.

And a Madison, Wis., study found that substituting the beet product for the salt brine it used in 2008-09 would have cost more than 10 times as much.

So good old road salt is still the cheapest thing going and the primary deicer. Although anything that melts in water will lower its freezing temperature, no other broadscale substitutes have taken hold.

2009.12.06 00:29:14

saadmin

At our last SA meeting there were quite a few stories about the uselessness of the NSTAR energy audits.  I had one done about a year ago and was told that my house was pretty tight.  I was skeptical because it seemed unlikely that the previous owner had done much to update the insulation and seal leaks and I was really ezpecting to be told that there were lots of things I could do to tighten things up.  When Jeremy Marin from the A-HEET program came over to do an audit to evaluate my house to see if it was a good fit, I found out just how bad the NSTAR audit really was.

Jeremy spent the better part of 2 hours looking at both the exterior and interior problems and found that there were lots of leaks and things that needed to be addressed.  The basement had lots of issues including gaps around the windows and especially around the foundation where it meets the first floor.  There were gaps around the water spickets that had never been filled with caulk and lots of places where cold air could get up to the first floor living space.  The forced hot air ducts had lots of leakage at the joints between sections and the hot water pipes weren't insulated either.

Jeremy thought the house was a good project for A-HEET and scheduled a blower door test.  This revealed lots of additional opportunities to do air sealing on the first and second floors of the living space.   One big source of cold air is the crawl space on the second floor.  In addition to needing more insulation, there was no insulation under the plywood floor in the crawlspace and there was a big hole that openned directly into the roof allowing cold air to get into the crawlspace and then into the living space.

We're making plans to schedule the A-HEET event and I will be posting updates here to document what was done and how much improvement we are able to make.

UPDATE - 1-7-2010:

Jeremy arrange for a blower door test and it revealed lots of leaks that could be plugged.  It took less than an hour to go through the house and identify all of the leaks.  It is amazing how much different this was from the NSTAR energy audit.  This really highlights how important it is to get a "real" audit complete with the blower door test.

The date has been set - Saturday, January 16th from 9am - 1pm. The materials are in the process of being purchased and collected.  Jeremy will be doing some prep work in the crawl spaces a few days before the actual event.

UPDATE - 1-13-2010..

We're getting close now.  Jeremy came over this morning to do some prep work in the crawl spaces.  We decided that the insulation that was in the crawl space was adequate for now.  I will wait until the spring and add some rigid foam insulation on the wall to the living space at that point.  There was also some dampness that I'm going to look into (hopefully not a big roofing job) and also look into having some isonene blown into the space between the floor of the crawlspace and the ceiling to the living room.

All the materials have been purchased and I'm now preparing to get the food for the event lined up.

In order to get at the crawl apace I had to remove all of the boxes and bags that were in storage there which created the perfect opportunity to toss a bunch of old stuff!  It's amazing how much stuff gets accumulated over the years.

UPDATE - Jan.22nd, 2010

The event was very successful.  31 volunteers showed up between 8 and 9am.  They broke into teams and attacked all of the items that Jeremy had identified during the walk through and blower-door test.  A team headed for the basement to tackle the leaky windows and doors, filling the gap around my foundation, wrapping the heating ducts, caulking the holes around pipes and the chimney.   Another team headed up to the second floor to attack the crawlspace to add insultaion and to seal all of the doors to the crawl and closet spaces.  Another team went to work putting gaskets behind all of the outlets and caulking around the bathroom vent.  After 4 hours of work the moment of truth came - the final blower-door test.  The baseline from the first test was 3100 CFM.  After all the work was done the result was 2160, a reduction of 940 CFM or about 30%.

You can read more about the event and about A-HEET in an article posted by Bob Sprague on YourArlington.Com.

2009.11.21 21:47:44

saadmin

New Links to East Arlington Liveable Streets website and rss feed have been added to the site.

I've added a link to their website in the "Links" section of our site under "Town of Arlington Websites".

I've also added a link to their rss feed in the "newsfeeds" section of the website" under the "Other Local Organizations" category.

We should do the same for other local related organizations as well.

Scott

Local Sites

2009.11.21 05:10:07

saadmin

Natick approves zoning change for clean energy businesses

This is an article from the Metro West Daily News about Natick approving changes to its zoning codes.

Link to article

As part of the Green Communities Act, we are advocating for Arlington to adopt the zoning stretch codes.  Marc Breslow will be presenting to the Arlington Board of Selectmen on Dec. 14th.

Stay tuned for more details.

Scott

GCA

2009.06.13 12:42:21

saadmin

All,

I purchased a new tool for creating templates and had to try it out on our website.  I built the new template around our logo but wanted to crate a template that would be lighter in feel and add a dropdown top menu.  I hope you like the new look and feel.  I'll be making some adjustments to the menus and organization of things.

Scott

2009.04.02 22:42:37

saadmin

I wanted to share my spring project with everyone through the blog.  I'm in the process of building 2 new raised beds on what has always been my large grassy lawn.  I have always planted a garden to grow vegetables in a plot next to my house.  I've done pretty well with that plot but last year I decided that the sunniest part of the yard should be tapped for more garden both to grow more vegetables and to reduce the amount of space that was covered by otherwise unproductive grass.

I'm now putting my plans into action.  The plan is to add 2 4X8 foot raised beds.  I've purchased the lumber (18  4X4 by 8 ft. untreated fir fence posts) and I've also ordered a Juliana Mini 3 green house for my seedlings, etc.  I'm also going to setup a composter which is something I've also been meaning to do for some time now.   I'm planning on using the "Square Foot Garden" method.  (I'll provide a link to the site shortly).  This method uses a amixture of 1/3 each compost, vermiculite, and peat.  There's no "soil" involved.  This method divides the garden into 1 foot squares rather than planting in rows.

As I build my beds and greenhouse I will post pictures and more details about what I'm learning along the way.

Stay tuned for more details....

UPDATE:

Lots of progress to report.  I've now purchased all of the materials and constructed my raised beds.  I purchased 4"X4"X16' fir fence poasts for the beds.  I got the lumber at Cambridge Lumber.  For the amount of lumber I purchased delivery was free.

I purchased corner brackets and mending plates to connect the lengths of fir together to form my two 4'X8'X1' boxes.  I treated the wood with pure tung oil combined in equal parts with citrus solvent to help it penetrate the wood and dry more quickly.  The coats dried in a few hours.

I purchased peat, vermiculite (coarse), and 5 varieties of compost to start things off.  These three ingredients get mixed 1/3 each to product the growing medium.  I put a layer of cardboard in the bottom of the boxes to kill the grass and weeds while letting the water drain through the bottom when saturated.

I used eyelets to connect nylon chord to mark the 1'X1' squares (square foot gardening) and planted my first bunch of plants.  I will be getting the second box into production this weekend.

The boxes cost about $150 per for the materials.  The soil mix cost quite a bit as well and I will add some details when I get a chance along with pictures.

I haven't had a chance to dive into the other piece of this project which is to assemble the leanto style greenhouse that I am putting on the side of my house.

In the meantime, I also decided to replace my traditional lawn with a "no-mow" lawn of fescu grasses....I'll write another blog on this as I get going on it.  The basic idea is that the new grass will be over-spread on top of the current lawn.  The fescue grasses will crowd out the old grass and the weeds.  It will provide a nice looking and feeling lawn but require very little water and no mowing!

More to come...

2009.03.06 12:04:37

scott

I've added a new links directory to the site.  It adds functionality and makes it possible for registered users to add links.  If you are a registered member of Sustainable Arlington please login and contribute to our growing list of links.

Thanks,

Scott

2008.12.14 05:48:44

landskov

Hot, Flat, and Crowded is essential reading

Thomas L. Friedman has hit many nails on the head in his analysis of what this country needs to do to deal with global warming, population growth, and the expansion of the world's middle class.  This book is the current selection of the Arlington Democratic Town Committee Book Group.  All are welcome to attend the discussion of Hot, Flat, and Crowded on Sun., Jan. 4, from 3 to 5 at Ken Larsen's house at 4 Frost Street.  Please contact Ken at 648-5332 if you have any questions.

Here's my favorite review of what I feel is an essential-to-read book.

-- David Landskov

from Washington Post | September 7,2008

A Climate for Change

Tom Friedman says Americans can prosper by "outgreening" everyone else.

Reviewed by Joseph S. Nye Jr

Sunday, September 7, 2008; Page BW03

HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED

Why We Need a Green Revolution -- And How It Can Renew America

By Thomas L. Friedman

Farrar Straus Giroux. 438 pp. $27.95

Like it or not, we need Tom Friedman.

The peripatetic columnist has made himself a major interpreter of the confusing world we inhabit. He travels to the farthest reaches, interviews everyone from peasants to chief executives and expresses big ideas in clear and memorable prose. While pettifogging academics (a select few of whom he favors) complain that his catchy phrases and anecdotes sometimes obscure deeper analysis, by and large Friedman gets the big issues right.

Almost a decade ago, in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he celebrated the arrival of "globalization." Three years ago, in The World is Flat, he warned that borders, oceans and distance no longer protect us from the information revolution that is leveling the global economic playing field and relocating our jobs. Now he updates and expands this diagnosis by showing how population growth, climate change and the expansion of the world's middle class are producing a planet that is "hot, flat, and crowded." Unchecked, these trends will produce dangerous instability; but Friedman remains guardedly optimistic that we can stave off this nightmare, particularly if the United States changes its wasteful energy habits. In this important book, Friedman says we can survive, even prosper, by going green.

Of course, rousing a full-bellied nation, groggy from decades of energy overconsumption, is no small task. As the current election debate reminds us, the United States has proven inept at developing a serious energy strategy. Our approach, says one expert quoted by Friedman, is "the sum of all lobbies"; we have energy politics rather than energy policy. In the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush ignored calls by Friedman and others for a "USA Patriot Tax" of $1 per gallon on gasoline. Instead, the president offered tax cuts and urged us to shop. Rather than stimulating the economy to move toward fuel-efficient vehicles and renewable energy, we became more dependent on China to finance our deficit and Saudi Arabia to fill our gas tanks. Americans wound up paying even more for gas in 2008, but we enabled OPEC to be the tax collector instead of using the revenues ourselves. Friedman calls this a "No Mullah Left Behind" policy and quotes former CIA director Jim Woolsey: "We are funding the rope for the hanging of ourselves."

Friedman believes we need to become "green hawks," turning conservation and cleaner energy into a winning strategy in many different arenas, including the military. ("Nothing," he writes, "will make you a believer in distributed solar power faster than having responsibility for trucking fuel across Iraq.") We should stop defining our current era as "post-Cold War," he says, and see it as an "Energy-Climate Era" marked by five major problems: growing demand for scarcer supplies, massive transfer of wealth to petrodictators, disruptive climate change, poor have-nots falling behind, and an accelerating loss of bio-diversity. A green strategy is not simply about generating electric power, it is a new way of generating national power.

Incremental change will not be enough. The three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the New York Times scoffs at the kind of magazine articles that list "205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth." In the 1990s, global carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.1 percent annually, and many nations (not including the United States) signed the Kyoto Protocol to try to curb those emissions. But from 2000 to 2006, growth in CO2emissions tripled to 3 percent per year.

Friedman cites an estimate by Royal Dutch Shell that it typically takes 25 years for a new form of energy to capture 1 percent of the world market. Shell predicts that if we do things right, renewable energy will provide 30 percent of global needs by 2050, but fossil fuels will still provide 55 percent. Friedman says we need to do better than that. "Carbon neutral" is not ambitious enough; companies and institutions should seek a "carbon advantage" over rivals. This will require innovations in clean energy; greater energy efficiency (including the use of information technology to create smart grids and smart buildings); and a new ethic of conservation. Friedman argues that rather than costing too much, such initiatives can create investment opportunities, new jobs and global leadership for the U.S. economy. Here one wishes he had provided more evidence from some of the pettifogging academic economists.

Friedman is skeptical of treaties, and he argues that "a truly green America would be more valuable than fifty Kyoto Protocols. Emulation is always more effective than compulsion." He makes a good case that "outgreening" other countries would contribute to America's soft power as well as our hard power. "We are still the city on the hill for many Chinese," he notes, "even though they hate what we've done at times at the top of the hill." But the problem of China could overshadow what we do at home. In 2007, China surpassed the United States as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide. Chinese argue that on a per capita basis each of their citizens is responsible for only one-fifth the emissions of an American, and that developing countries should not have to cut back until they reach rich countries' CO2levels. This is a formula for global disaster. As Friedman says, "Mother Nature isn't into fair. All she knows is hard science and raw math."

China uses coal, a particularly CO2-intensive fuel, for 70 percent of its commercial energy supply, while coal accounts for a third of America's total energy. China builds more than one new coal-fired power plant each week. Coal is cheap and widely available in China, which is important as the country scrambles for energy resources to keep its many energy-intensive industries running. But Friedman does not deal with the issue of cleaner coal in China, and no amount of renewable energy in America will solve the problem. At the rate China is growing, a Chinese switch to renewables will come too late.

What can the United States do about this security threat? The bombs, bullets and embargos of traditional security policy are irrelevant. A 2007 report from the International Energy Agency urged a cooperative approach to helping China and India become more energy efficient. In other words, to promote our own security, the United States and other rich countries may have to forge a partnership with China, India and others to develop a full range of creative ideas, technologies and policies to prevent dangerous climate change. This requires a reframing of what we think of as national security and a more inclusive strategy than we have had in the past. If we finally move in that direction, Friedman will deserve some of the credit. ·

Joseph S. Nye Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard and author, most recently, of "The Powers to Lead."

2008.11.23 04:27:31

saadmin

A couple overheard on the bus in Arlington discussing the recent Globe article about a family trying to become independent of their car by using their bicycles: "…even with panniers…how much can you carry on a bike?…" In response to their skepticism about being able to do their weekly shopping by bike I offer this alternative.

I received this BicycleR Evolution trailer as a holiday present this year and I have been loving how well it works for me. It weights very little, attaches to the bike extremely easily, is very stable and rides well behind the bike, and carries up to 100 lbs. I use it to go to the grocery store and can easily fit 4 full-sized paper bags full of groceries. Since I do not drive this trailer has made my life much easier. Before I got the trialer I went to the store frequently and had to consider very carefully what items to purchase and how many in order to fit everything in my bike bag on my rack and in my backpack. This often meant that I had to forgo sale items because I couldn’t fit 3 of something. Now I can go to the store and shop normally with confidence that I can fit everything in my trailer. You can find lots of variations on bike trailers including flat-bed trailers that will haul up to 300 lbs. You’ve probably seen the baby trailers on the bike path. Here’s a picture of my configuration.

2008.11.23 04:24:35

saadmin

I just installed a new EarthPC at work. The EarthPC uses the 80+ power supply to reduce energy consumption and meets the new EnergyStar 4 standard. So far I’m very impressed. In addition to being green (not the case which is black) the system is the quietest I’ve ever come across. I had to place my hand on the machine to feel the vibration to make sure it was running.

The EarthPC is being produced and sold right here in Boston by Tech Networks of Boston (http://www.techboston.com) which is located in South Boston across from the Andrews T stop.

In addition to desktop PCs they also have green servers. While other PC manufacturers are beginning to release EnergyStar 4 compliant PCs, servers that meet the spec are not available yet. Servers account for huge energy use in businesses and being able to move to less power hungry machines could reduce energy costs tremendously.

2008.11.22 21:08:30

saadmin

Check out this video from CNN about a family in Pasadena, CA that has been practicing all kinds of interesting urban homesteading techniques and has learned to live off of their 1/10th of an acre lot in Pasadena….

Link to CNN video

and a link to their website

They’ve got some really interesting appliances like a bicycle powered grinder and a solar oven…Just goes to show you what you can do.

Scott