What to do next?

No, I’m not talking about what to do for the day ahead on the croft but asking what we can do to further cut our consumption of resources, reduce our amount of waste and cut our emissions.

The Other Half and I make a conscious effort to minimise and reduce our electricity useage, to not make unnecessary journeys, to reject buying consumer goods, to reduce, reuse and recycle what we do buy, to grow our own fruit and vegetables to reduce food miles and so on.

But where we start to falter is in taking the next step, where on our small scale you can see the problems in cutting back on a larger scale while still bringing other people along with you.

I’d like to move a couple of steps further along on our programme of reducing domestic consumption both to cut what we consume and also to show that it can be done without too great a loss of comfort and convenience.

But, the OH does prefer a somewhat greater level of comfort and convenience than I do - although she’s definitely a lot further along the path to worldly asceticism than many people.

I’ve suggested we make a number of changes that would not only have the effect of curbing our consumption, but would also cut our financial outgoing considerably.

The savings made could then be ploughed into providing our own power generation, making further reductions in consumption and cash outflow possible.

I’d like to start by selling one of the two cars. That’s a big step when you live in a rural area with limited public transport and longer distances to travel.

We’re fortunate in that Insch does have a railway station and that our travelling distances are less than they could be but it would still require a greater level of thought and coordination to plan our journeys.

One car is used primarily for getting the OH to work and for family journeys, while the other is used for the croft-related journeys (collecting feed, taking animals to slaughter, collecting animals, tools and timber, etc) and taking the Wee ‘Un to playgroup.

I’ve worked out that we can use a single car to cover all the croft journeys with a bit of organisation. The main problem is the abattoir runs and collection of the butchered carcases.

But, I can take the animals for slaughter very early and be back before the OH leaves for work.

Collecting the meat is more complicated but at this point could be accomplished if I take the OH to work, collect the meat on the way back and then pick her up again.

It would be a busy day with a fair amount of driving, but much less than two month’s worth of journeys in a second car. (And there is a further option that I will consider later.)

The real sticking point is the Wee ‘Un’s playgroup. He enjoys the socialising and has thrived since he started going, so taking him out is not an option.

I’ve walked him the two miles into Insch a number of times, but it takes a quite a lot of time. We walk in, he stays at playgroup, I walk home, I walk back to collect him and then we walk home.

Repeat that five times a weeks and I’m losing a lot of time that would be better spent around the croft. Walking in and out once or twice a week would be more feasible, but I decided to look for other solutions.

The obvious one is a bike with either a child seat or a trailer. This would be much faster than walking and I could carry more of a load.

Then I stumbled across another possibility - a tricycle and not one of the old-fashioned single front wheel, dual rear wheels types. Although some of the traditional trikes with an electric motor for assistance were initially tempting.

No, I found a modern Danish interpretation of the trike which puts the dual wheels at the front and the single wheel at the back.

The Kangaroo bike “is is a state-of-the-art, environmentally-friendly transport solution which carries up to two children in a front-facing cabin with a large luggage bay behind the seats.

“It can also be modified ‘in seconds’ to a one seat carriage for passengers with Special Needs up to 100kg (over 15 stone) and up to 150cm tall (about 5 foot 6 “)”.

The Kangaroo can carry a maximum load of 100kg in the cabin, has adjustable seats fitted with “three point” safety belts and, as I found out from the UK distributor, an electric motor for assistance on steep hills will soon be an option.

A trike like this would enable me to take the Wee ‘Un to playgroup, do the shopping in the local shop and cycle back home with him and the groceries on board. Windy days and heavy snow would be an issue, but missing a few days of playgroup here and there would not be an issue.

And why would I need an electric motor? I am reasonably fit after all.

The problem is that while the trip into Insch is straightforward, the road towards Huntly is fairly steep in places while the back road to our feed merchant is extremely steep.

I could make it up these hills on a mountain bike and, after doing it for a while, do it even with a child on the back. But cycling a trike up the hills with a child and 60kg of poultry feed aboard?

No, an electric motor would be a good investment and could be recharged from a solar panel or wind turbine.

So, step one would be to sell the least practical car (the Land Rover Discovery) for between £1,800 and £2,000, then buy something like a Kangaroo (£1744.99 including delivery but excluding lights and an electric motor).

This would save around £180-200 a month on diesel fuel, servicing, tax, insurance, and car tax while cutting our consumption of fossil fuels and reducing emissions. Of course, my consumption of oatmeal porridge would have to increase…

We could cut fuel use and costs still further, but I’ll keep this for the next post. I’ll also look at other areas where we could cut back on “conveniences” and “luxuries” but where the OH and the boys might disagree.

In the meantime, I’m open to more suggestions on the transportation side…