Silence is Golden

I read in a letter to the Editor of the local 'Trader' last week of the writer's concerns at the number of jets flying over Emerald, day and night, seven days a week, and the associated noise. I have noticed the same thing at Gembrook for some time. We must be under a flight path that is becoming busier because I don't recall this level of air traffic before the last few years. The jet noise is not particularly loud as the planes are high and it isn't noticed above other noise, but it is loud enough to grate when it's otherwise quiet.

More annoying is the increasing road traffic noise of cars and trucks. AND MOTOR BIKES. For some reason lately it seems every weekend all the bike riders in Victoria gather in convoy and drive up and down Launching Place Rd. Added to that, I have neighbours who indulge in motor bikes. One in a particular, a man in his twenties, has a machine without a muffler and for some reason he starts it up about once a week and revs the bejiminy out of it till it is warmed then flies up and down the minor road between the properties for several sprints. This only goes on for about 15 minutes so it isn't worth complaining about, particularly when considered in light of the constant drone up the main road.

Another neighbour's son in his late teens has a drum set and practises in a steel shed for his rock band a couple of times a week. It only lasts for a half hour or so each stint so on it's own it is not worth complaining about, especially as I make my own share of noise with mower, whippysnipper and chainsaw on a regular basis, as indeed do all my neighbours.

If that isn't enough, there's a Rhodesian ridgeback dog immediately next door that doesn't like me going anywhere the fence. It booms loudly at my encroachment and keeps it up till I'm well away. And then the helicopters come over with their particularly reverberating blades, in higher numbers every year. I think they are police, ambulance and fire season ones. Sometimes one circles round and round for quite a while. Who would know why? Then there's the hooting foolishness of Puffing Billy who gets into the act most weekends. And screeching cockatoos. And wailing young King parrots nagging their parents for food.

There's no doubt Gembrook is no longer the quiet sleepy town of earlier times. Noise has escalated. I'm sure it isn't good for human stress levels and general well being. I think noise pollution is a bigger problem than is generally recognized. At least the heat wave conditions of mid January gave me some respite as man, beast and bird hid away. The cold and wet of winter will do the same.

Peace and quiet soothes the soul. Silence is golden.      

Washing Dishes

I came across this on Grist. I have always wanted to write up my preference for hand washing over dishwashers but somehow didn't get around to it. This does it well. I scrape off all food thoroughly, stack dishes neatly with cutlery on top and pour very hot water from the gas stove sparingly over the stack with a little detergent then brush and rinse items with ultrathin stream from tap. This uses minimal water and it makes washing dishes easy and enjoyable. 

Q. I’d like to see fairer comparison of handwashing dishes vs. using a dishwasher. I calculated how much water I use washing dishes by hand efficiently (with a tub, not running water) and my highest use (by day) was the same as an efficient dishwasher. Most days, I use less. Also, I don’t run on electricity.

Saying that dishwashers always save water is misleading and only true in the circumstances most favorable for dishwashers and least favorable for hand-washers. Please revisit. I can’t be the only reader who knows they use far less water washing dishes by hand.  

Beth R.

Sharon, Mass.

A. Dearest Beth,

Indeed, you are not the only astute reader who wrote in after my recent column on disposable vs. reusable dinnerware. And you’re right: Though the average washer of dishes will use far more water when scrubbing up by hand than when loading the dishwasher, I should have known my readers are far from average.

Let’s back up and take a look at the numbers: According to a widely cited European study, hand-cleaning 12 place settings guzzles, on average, 27 gallons of water. Compare that to a load in a new, Energy Star-certified dishwasher: All machines must use less than 5.8 gallons per cycle, and the best of the bunch sips just 1.95 gallons. The difference sounds stark, but that’s not the whole story.

In that study mentioned above, many of the test subjects – brace yourselves – ran the hot water continuously as they washed up. Some left the tap on even as they dried the dishes (!). Based on anecdotal observation from myself and others, this isn’t far from what plenty of Americans do, too. (My word, do they think clean water grows on trees?)  It stands to reason that washing dishes with conservation in mind will use much less water. But with the kitchen sink spewing 3 to 5 gallons per minute, can the conscientious cleaner really beat the dishwasher standard of 2 gallons or less? I believe she can.

There are several methods you can use to do so. Take the “two sinks” strategy and the “tub within the sink” approach, both of which employ one basin of hot, soapy water and one cold-water rinsing bath. Another variation substitutes the rinse tub for an ultrathin stream of running tap water, shut off after the suds wash away. Then there’s this method modeled by permaculture guru Paul Wheaton, in which he stops up the sink and reuses rinse water as scrub water.

To increase your chances of success, scrape every bit of food you can into the compost before washing and do dishes quickly, before food has a chance to congeal. You can even install a faucet aerator to choke off the flow to a mere 1 gallon per minute. And if you reuse the greywaterto fill your toilet tank or water plants, you might not even have to count it against your dishwashing total.

So, let me state it loudly, and for the record: An energy-efficient dishwasher will not always beat a careful hand-washer in water savings.

I haven’t run this experiment myself, Beth, but I trust in your results. So much so that I have a New Year’s challenge for all hand-washing devotees out there: Put on your lab coat and find the absolute, rock-bottom amount of water necessary to get your dinnerware clean. Try the methods mentioned above, or create your own. Competition is a motivator, so it may help to jockey with your friends for position in the name of saving water. Strava for dishwashing, anyone?

Dehydratedly,

Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Send your green-livingquestions to Umbra.For even more green goodness, you can follow Umbra on Twitter (@AskUmbra) or become a fan on Facebook.Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Bluebottle

On a hot day recently, it was the Saturday before last, I stooped down near where I park my van to see if the basil seed I had tossed in the adjacent garden was germinating. I was disappointed that I could see but one tiny seedling, but not surprised as I had not worked up the ground properly, had not watered nor put out snail protection.

I saw a cricket come out of a small hole and scurry along. It was followed by a bluebottle 'ant' which was in pursuit and quickly caught up whereupon it grappled the cricket bending its abdomen to sting. The bluebottle was a grand specimen appearing to be over 25mm in length yet shorter and finer than the bulky cricket, which broke free and took off only to be quickly overhauled and stung repeatedly by the thrusting abdomen. Soon the cricket was inert and the bluebottle dragged it with considerable exertion and manoeuvring around snags back to the hole and underground.

I knew that bluebottles are not ants but wingless female wasps, the male being smaller, winged and of different colouring, and that some wasps, particularly solitary wasps, capture other insects and bury them paralyzed by sting, laying their eggs on them so their hatching larvae have a ready food supply. I have watched 'spider killer' wasps catching spiders, and come across wasp nests containing multiple spiders.

I concluded that the bluebottle was doing this with the cricket. Tonight, before writing up this observation, I search engined bluebottles to find that this particular wasp is Diamma bicolor, the only wasp of the sub family Diamminae, and it hunts and feeds exclusively on mole crickets. How about that?

I can imagine that a bluebottle sting would be painful to humans. Apparently there is a danger of severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) in a small percentage of people, as there is with ants and bees. A friend of mine is allergic to jumping jack ants and has to carry medication to keep her conscious if she is stung, giving her a small amount of time to get to doctor or hospital for life saving injection. I knew a commercial beekeeper who had no problem with bee stings but a wasp sting was life threatening.

Bird Treat

At Woody Head near Iluka on our recent holiday, it would have been the 19th November, Lib and I took an afternoon walk along the shore around the rocky point to the sandy beach which stretched toward Iluka and the mouth of the Clarence River.

It was a spectacular vista with views across water to Evan's Head where we had spent the 4 previous days. Storm clouds massed dark and threatening over the hills and smoke billowed from what we assumed was a sugar cane burn off, then rounding the point heading south in the distance we could see the Norfolk Island pines and high rise apartments at Yamba on the other side of the Clarence. The rocks and pools gave way to sand and the tide was out.

Returning, as we walked the edge of the beach where grass and scrub met the sand, two beautiful birds caught our attention as they settled close together on the naked twigs of a dead shrub. We both had a good look at them with Ian's binos. They had a chestnutty gold crown and chin with black across their eyes, strong beaks not quite as long and curved as honeyeaters and paler chests and olive green wings with a touch of blue. When they flew the blue was more pronounced. It was a light blue, almost irredescent. Strong flyers, they moved from place to place before settling and watching us for a minute or two at a time.
They were medium sized, a little longer than common blackbird, especially in the tail.

I didn't check the bird book when we got back to camp, we were busy setting up a tarp ahead of the approaching storm and preparing for dinner and lighting a fire in the barbecue fireplace. As it turned out the thunder and lightning show started and the heavy rain followed as we began to cook, Lib with an umbrella on the barby and me under the tarp on the gas stove. It was serious rain for a couple of hours or so.

Next morning the mozzies were thick and aggressive and we decided to pack up and move on as soon as things dried out in the brilliant morning sunshine. I didn't get to check the bird book to identify the beauties we saw  but I wasn't worried, they were so distinctive and colourful that I thought they'd be easy to find as I wouldn't forget their features. As it happened a couple of weeks went by before I sat down at home to look them up and I could not find them at all, which baffled me.

Then at last on Saturday just gone I picked up another bird book and found them quickly much to my immense satisfaction. Rainbow Bee-eaters they were. Not really bee-eaters according to the book as they eat any insects, bees among them, they should be called rainbow bowerbirds it suggested. They are migratory and quite common, even in Victoria apparently from time to time, although I'd seen them infrequently enough in my time to not know what they were, leading me to think their commonality is more a northern thing. They nest in sand dunes and banks with the entrance protected from prevailing weather and seem to have inbuilt weather instinct, the book said.

  Our birds were juveniles I think, I didn't see the the black under the chin and the green was more olivey

Our birds were seen near here

Towards north

The point



The beauty of these birds and the magic setting stand as a highlight of 2013.