There are so many ways in which to try and go green, and I have just heard about a family with the strangest, but apparently very successful way of producing hot water.This is done by using their compost heap. Apparently this heap has to be kept at a certain size, and a tank is then put in the middle of this, filled up, and covered completely. The heat that the compost heap generates is so used to heat the water, which flows to a geezer whenever the pressure becomes high enough! I was quite intrigued, but wondered about the times that there is no sun, but according to my informant, a compost heap on the inside is not heated by the sun, but by the gas, forgot what, that the decaying organic matter generates. I will have to see if I can get some more information on this.
I walked around with a very stiff back and almost completely ignoring my new neighbour because of the old Pepper tree she had sawn down, for about two weeks, vowing that I will greet her, but that is all. I do not want to go about with anybody who could kill a three hundred year old tree, just because she didn't like it! But I am not one to keep up a stiff lip, and I was getting tired of stalking around like a bear with a sore toe, so my greeting were becoming friendlier by the day. But I know that I can never really be friends with her for that old tree was like a family heirloom!
A few mornings ago I woke up, to find Sheila's calves had broken the fence, and was happily chewing away at my flowers, and the few veggie plants that had withstand the terrible frost. I went out in the bitter cold to chase them out, but as it was raining lightly, and I was in my pyjamas, I sent a message to Sheila that the calves were again in my garden. The big problem, apart from all my plants they devour, is that I had not yet fixed the sewerage where one of her cows ha previously fell in. She would take no responsibility for that mishap, just like when her cows ate up all my young trees, and my strawberries, and trampled my front garden into a mess. At first I darkly thought to leave the animals, and let one fall into the sewerage, but I realized in time that it would be very spiteful.
Then this morning a sharp scream of rage resounded from the deep mist lying over Haarlem, and this scream came from none other than my new neighbour! felt quite faint, wondering what ailed her, and sprinted over like a hare before the hounds, to find the poor woman standing in the middle of her veggie garden. Or shall I say her veggie garden that was! And in this garden was a troupe of Sheila's cows, happilly munching away on the last of the plants! I was horrified, as she worked very hard to get the garden going, and her winter crop was coming on nicely, and now there was just nothing! As she intended to sell the veggies, it was a huge loss, and I forgot my wrath about the tree, and helped her get the cows out!
As she is not a person that does a lot of talking, I don't know what happened between her and Sheila, but that whole day Sheila's farmhand was busy strengthening the fences around her place!
My son, who sold the place to her, and was extremely upset about the tree where he and his family used to enjoy the shade before his wife died! She loved the old tree. So Jan was a bitty ugly when I told him about the veggies, and he said flatly : 'Poetic justice!'