Save electric energy in home
By ROBERT KESSLER Penn State Cooperative Extension Franklin County office

COMING EVENTS

Tuesdays through Nov. 13 - 7 to 9:30 p.m., Principles of Landscape Design Classes, Franklin County Master Gardners, Franklin County Human Service Building, Call 263- 9226 for information.

Nov. 8 - 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Holiday Daze, Chambersburg Mennonite Church.

Nov. 13 - 6 p.m., Commodity Queens Reception; 6:45 p.m., Farm-City Banquet, Kauffman Community Center. Call 263-9226 for tickets.

Nov. 13 and 14 - 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., Composting Workshops and Frree Backyard Compost Bins, Franklin County Extension, Call 263-9226.

* * * * *

FARM CITY BANQUET

The 38th Annual Farm-City Week Banquet will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 13, at the Kauffman Community Center. There will be job exchanges this year to hear about between the farm and city community. You don't want to miss these job exchange experiences, so come out to our banquet on November 13th to learn more about them.

The Commodity Queens Reception will begin at 6 p.m. with dinner following at 6:45 p.m. To purchase tickets for the Farm-City Banquet, contact any Farm-City Committee member or call Penn State Cooperative Extension office at (717) 263-9226. The deadline for tickets is Thursday, Nov. 8.

SAVING ELECTRICAL

ENERGY IN YOUR HOME

If you live in an area where you occasionally lose power because someone takes out a pole, you realize how dependent we all are on electricity. Everyone has a cell phone and each phone has its own charge. We light up everything inside and outside the home these days. This list can go on and on about how we depend on electricity.

I recently read an article by Larry Barr of Rebel Wolf Energy Systems and he gave several suggestions to save electricity that I thought I would pass along.

The first is so obvious but we all are guilty of leaving lights on. When I had teenagers at home I would get

up in the morning and every light in the house was on. We need to develop the habit of switching off a light when we

leave a

room.

Don't heat or cool more than you need to. Set temperatures at a reasonable level. Some people will keep their house at 65 - 67 degrees during winter and not cool lower than 78 degrees in summer. This will save a lot on your electric bill. If you have unused rooms like guest rooms, turn off the heat in those rooms if you can.

Lower water heater temperature. If you can hold your hands under the hot water faucet, it is probably set at a reasonable temperature. If you can't, you need to lower the setting on your hot water heater. Most laundry today is done in cool or cold water so there is no reason to keep a hot water heater setting very high.

You can also save electricity if you add an insulation blanket to your hot water heater, especially if it is an older hot water heater.

Replace your incandescent bulbs with fluorescent lamps. You will pay more for the bulb, but they use about one quarter as much electricity for the same light. Be careful using them in ceiling lights that are completely enclosed with a glass globe. These get too warm and fail early. I found this out the hard way. Now that I leave the globe off, the lamps don't fail as they did when I first started using them.

If you need a new appliance, look for one with an energy star rating. These are known to be appliances that will use less electricity.

Unplug devices you don't use often but still use electricity or put them on a power strip you can turn off. These devices include chargers for your phone, camera, adapter for kids' games, computers, printers, and automatic night lights. Look around for things plugged in that are warm but they aren't doing anything. That warm feeling is costing you money because it is using electricity.

If you do an energy review of your home, I am sure you'r going to be able to find a way to use one or more of these ideas.

COMPOSTING YOUR

LAWN

As we reach the end of the growing season, our trees are putting on a colorful fall display of color. As this color fades and the leaves start to fall in your yard, you need to find ways to deal with them.

Your first option is to mow them with your lawn mower and chop them up and blow them back onto the lawn. This will work well for a light covering of leaves from small trees. If you have a large build up of leaves, you will need to rake them or use a bagging lawnmower to get them off the lawn. One way to dispose of these leaves is to compost them. If you use a bagging lawn mower this will help the leaves compost quickly.

Composting in the back yard can be in a structure you build or buy, or it can be as simple as just making a pile. Which ever method you choose, you should do the same thing with your leaves as you add them to the composting oven.

Leaves break down into compost by the action of bacteria and fungus. We try to speed up the process that Mother Nature uses to break down leaves in the forests. So we modify the process slightly, because we wet the leaves and mix in the microorganisms. This means as you add a layer of leaves, you wet them down to the point they have the moisture content of a wrung out wash cloth. You want enough moisture in the leaves so they are damp, but when you squeeze a handful of water doesn't drip out. If you just use dry leaves, they will take much longer to compost. Make your layer of leaves about 4-6 inches deep. Sprinkle a few shovels full of soil over this layer. If you have grass clippings of other green material, add 2-4 inches of them and then do your next layer of leaves. The green material provides the fuel for the organisms to do their work. Without the green material the process goes a little slower. An alternative to the green material is to use about 1/3 cup of fertilizer to sprinkle over each 6 inch layer.

Continue to make your layers until you have your bin full and your pile gets to be about 4 feet tall. A 4x4 bin is the best size to compost. If you get bigger than that you will not get enough air in the pile.

Composting will happen if you do nothing else, but if you want to speed up the process you can do what is referred to as the "hot process". Stir up the compost to really get the bacteria and fungi working and as they are stirred, they create heat. If you turn your pile every few days, turning the outside of the pile to the inside, you will have completed compost in 4-6 weeks. If you turn less often, it will take longer. If you don't turn at all, you will have compost on the bottom of the pile in 9-12 months. The

harder you work the pile, the

quicker you will get compost.

Composting workshops and free bins offered

CHAMBERSBURG - The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Penn State Cooperative Extension are teaming up to offer composting workshops and free back yard composting bins to Franklin County residents.

Each person who pre-registers for a workshop and attends will receive a free composting bin, as long as supplies last, and with the limitation that only one bin will be given per household.

The workshops will be held at the Penn State Cooperative Extension Office which is located at 181 Franklin Farm Lane Tuesday, Nov. 13 and Wednesday, Nov. 14. The morning workshops on Nov. 13 and Nov. 14 will be from 10 to 11 a.m. and the evening workshops will be from 7 to 8 p.m. To attend the workshops and receive a free composting bin, pre-register is required by calling the Penn State Cooperative Extension Office at (717) 263- 9226.

The workshops are being sponsored by PADEP, the Franklin County Recycling Program, and Penn State Cooperative Extension. The workshops are handicapped accessible. If specific accommodations are needed, contact the Penn State Cooperative Extension Office at 263-9226 in advance