Getting back to nature

is worth every penny By Jeffrey Page WEST MILFORD — One way to observe Earth Day on Sunday is to open your checkbook and see how much you spent for electricity last year and compare it with what Allison Hosford and Roger Knight paid Rockland Electric. Chances are, you paid more. From May to October they pay about $3.85 a month n a result of their conversion to solar energy in 2004. The rest of the year, their monthly cost is about $60. They use the sun n still free n to power both their 200-year old home and Two Pond Farm, their 43-acre farming operation. That was no typo. Hosford said the $3.85 is essentially the utility’s administrative minimum. Their higher winter costs are due to the fact that when sunlight is blocked from their solar collectors due to long stretches of overcast skies or snow on the panels, they draw power from the utility. “It could be a beautiful sunny day,” Knight said. “But if the panels are still covered, we’re out of power.” The company that manufactured their solar energy system estimates that in the 30 months since Hosford and Knight made the great leap to solar, they have avoided burning 44 gallons of oil or 24,939 pounds of coal, and they did not send 27,569 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Hosford and Knight made another green switch in 2001 when they chose to heat their house and water with a wood-fired boiler that stands outside and is connected to the house through underground pipes. Why an exterior boiler? “No ashes in the house, no dirt, no bugs, no smell, and no possibility of fire,” Hosford said, adding that she also greatly relishes the idea of using wood as a heating fuel over gas, oil, or electricity. If nothing else, it’s cheaper. It does create carbon dioxide, and Hosford and Knight are thinking about devices that are available to reduce CO2 emissions. The boiler involves a lot of work. Knight said he and Hosford spend the equivalent of two weeks a year chopping and cutting about 13 cords of wood to fuel it. “It’s work that keeps you in shape,” said Knight, 60. The boiler sends superheated water to the house where it circulates through a closed heating system. Knight explained that the pipe feeding water for washing and cooking passes through a larger pipe of 160-degree water. Essentially one water system heats the other. The conversion to solar and wood wasn’t cheap. The cost to go solar, for example, was about $63,000. “Roger and I had been looking for something like this for years,” Hosford said. But the expense stopped them cold. Then they discovered several aid and grant programs that made the change affordable. For instance, they applied for a grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities that covered 70 percent of the costs of switching. “That program doesn’t exist anymore, but you have to keep your eyes open for similar programs that come along,” Hosford said. In the meantime, there are things a homeowner can do to lower the cost of heating and electricity. “Keep the house tight; seal the windows against winter weather,” said Knight, a carpenter by trade. “Also, we dress for the weather in winter, even indoors,” he said. “We don’t walk around in T-shirts.” He and Hosford stay cool in summer with electric fans and cross ventilation. They own no air conditioners and don’t have a clothes dryer. “I don’t believe in them,” Hosford said. “We just hang up clean clothing to dry.” Hosford and Knight have lived at Two Pond Farm for 30 years. For the first 25, they did part-time gardening. Then she dropped out of corporate America n she was a systems analyst n to start a small farm. He kept his day job. They sell eggs from hens that have not been treated with antibiotics or growth hormones, and tomatoes, peppers and other produce. Hosford said she grows organically but the crops aren’t officially certified as such because she won’t pay the $500 fee for federal recognition. The cost represents one-half her annual garden profits. She and Knight also raise chickens, turkeys, pigs and lambs. Her deal on pork: She’ll raise a piglet for you, and several months later contract out for the slaughtering and butchering, and you wind up with plenty of pork at about $3 a pound. Hosford, gesturing toward her house and little farm in the woods, said her change in lifestyle is no big mystery and that “regular people” can make such changes. “You have to seize the moment,” Knight said.