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We have recently put in a 12-Volt DC solar system with lighting throughout the house, mainly highly efficient LED lighting and some low voltage compact fluorescent lighting. We also have all our landscape lighting (LED) operating off of the solar system. In addition we have a few small appliances that operate off of this system.

We recently put in several raised garden beds and a drip irrigation system. We recently modified the guttering around the house to direct all the water collected into a rain water harvesting tank. We are in the process of choosing a suitable tank(s) for this system.

We sold our gasoline powered lawnmower, weed eater and leaf blower and replaced these with three totally manual reel mowers (one for each member of the family) and a "solar powered" weed eater. The weed eater is actually a battery-powered unit whose charger we adapted to operate exclusively from our solar system. Thus when we are doing all lawn and garden work all work is totally non-fossil powered.

My wife is from India so she is well aware of how people cope and operate with intermittent or non-existent electrical power and motor fuels. She has a substantial expertise of the many seeds and edible plants from South Asia as well. This has came in most useful in recent years as we have found that most of the plants that grow in North India grow very well in North Alabama with very little maintenance required. In fact a vine called "Ghiya" grows very very well with hardly any "inputs" other than the sun and rain and a little composted fertilizer for good measure and produces a huge amount of very tasty vegetable similar to squash. There are other gourd-like plants such as Torri that also produce good food with minimal effort. The many other vegetables as well from India are remarkably robust and give "the weeds a run for their money". In fact they grow "like weeds".

In addition we grow the usual "American" vegetables such as yellow squash, green beans, tomatoes, egg plant, okra, potatoes, etc. The raised beds and drip irrigation system coupled with a totally recycling compost system keeps everything "organic" and healthy.

We all total vegetarians and that speaks volumes for carbon reduction and efficient use of resources. In addition, all food scraps (what few there are) go into the compost.

We have recently obtained two Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats (Nannies). They serve as wonderful family pets plus provide an additional source of "organic fertilizer" for the vegetable garden. In addition, we hope to start milking them after they become "first time mothers" in the early spring.

We recently put in several fruit trees that produce apples, pears, cherries and peaches. We also have grape vines.

We live in a typical subdivision, however, we have set this up as a "sustainable micro-farm". We are fortunate to have a fairly deep back yard and with the privacy fence and internal divider fence (for the goats) we are able to manage to keep things going. We are quite busy harvesting and processing vegetables right now.

We recently purchased new bicycles for the family along with a trike to use to carry small loads. We plan to acquire bike trailers in the near future. We live close enough most services in our town to reach either on foot or by bicycle in case gas shortages ever occur.