Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Harvesting the Sun

We spent a bit of time over the last winter thinking about ways to better utilize the natural resources of our place - clean air, exceptional water, lush grass and of course sun. Lots and lots of sun. More than 300 days of sun. So that became our focus. How could we better use the sunshine both directly and indirectly? 

The next few blogs will offer more detail on our two projects but here's a little something to peak your interest.


That's right - beehives! 2015 became the year we quit talking about having bees and actually got started. Don spent the winter building and painting the hive boxes in anticipation. We got two bee colonies from a master beekeeper in northern New Mexico in early June and collected a local, feral swarm in early July. All three hives are buzzzzzzzing!


Yup! Solar power. Compared to the bees, this project involves a bit more work from us and is still ongoing. By the end of this year we'll be producing enough power to handle all the office equipment and backup of key appliances when the conventional power is down. And if all goes well we'll double that by the end of next year. 

So stay tuned for lots more information as we complete these projects and plan new ones to harvest the sun.