Photo of the Day

A few more on Flickr (click to view, then click Next). I liked this one best, but I'm partial to purple :-)

Caterpillars

When I was walking home from work today I noticed some "dirt" on the path. I wondered about it but kept going. A few step further, it crossed my mind that it might be droppings from caterpillars in the tree overhanging the path. I went back and looked up. Sure enough, there were stripped branches and a bunch of caterpillars busily eating the leaves. They haven't done too much damage yet, just a branch here and there. Hopefully they don't spread - I like all the trees at Innovation Place!
(click on the photos to view larger)



A few minutes later I came across one of the caterpillars on the path and attempted to get a decent photo. It didn't cooperate very well and kept "running" away.



Does anyone know which butterfly or moth it is?

Home Insulation Project

Another step in making our house more energy efficient was adding more insulation to the walls by putting 8 inches of styrofoam on the outside, taking us from 2 inch walls to 10 inches. Ronn Lepage of VerEco Homes designed this system, and Evolution Developments did a great job of installing it.

There are various ways to make well insulated walls when you're building a new house, but it's not so easy with an existing older house. And there are a lot of poorly insulated older houses.

You have to remove the old siding, so this process makes most sense if you want to replace your siding anyway. (We sold the old vinyl siding, so thankfully it didn't end up in the landfill.) The next step is installing the deeper window boxes (visible below). When they delivered the insulation it filled our driveway.





Because it's only the second house in Saskatoon to get this treatment the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) installed sensors in the walls to monitor it. It'll be interesting to see how it performs.

Here's the end result. Other than the deeper windows, it looks pretty normal. We put on Hardie Board cement fiber siding. It's a fairly green option that is tough, durable, long lasting, and fire resistant.



Our new climbing themed house numbers.



We've already noticed the house is quieter and cooler. We have air conditioning (it was in the house when we bought it) but we haven't used it this year. Even with the recent heat wave the house has stayed a reasonable temperature. It will be interesting to see how it does in the winter.

We're pretty happy with our little "green" house, even if it's not anywhere close to current super-sized McMansion standards. I recently talked to someone who was planning to enlarge their garage because it wasn't big enough for all their "toys". (The real problem is that the world isn't big enough for all our toys.) He was only a little sheepish when I pointed out that my 1100 square foot house would already fit inside their 1300 square foot garage.

Related posts:

• Solar Powered
• Rock Paper Sun
• Where Does the Energy Go?
• Energy Update

Photo of the Day

Later in the evening and not much light, so not the sharpest. But a pretty flower nonetheless.

Pond Flowers

After enjoying sitting by the pond at Innovation Place to eat my lunch I couldn't resist taking a few shots of the flowers. Noon is not the best light for photos, but the flowers are still beautiful. I was leaning so far out over the pond with my camera that I was afraid I was going to end up in the water! (as usual, click on the photos to view larger)

Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation

Yesterday Penny, Shelley, and I went to visit Jan Shadick of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation. (see the post on EcoFriendlySask) She does an amazing job of looking after all these creatures.

There wasn't much light for taking photos (and I didn't want to scare them with the flash) but I managed to get a few. (click to view larger)

arctic wolf pup

These were taken with my Pentax K7, mostly at 3200 ISO, with noise reduction and adjustments in Lightroom 4. It's pretty amazing (to a geek like me, anyway) what digital photography can manage hand held in a dim basement.

Succulents at the Farmers Market

I love all the succulents that Solar Gardens sells at the Farmers Market - such a variety of shapes and colors. Here are a few shots I took of them yesterday morning. (click on the photos for a larger view)