Carol O'Meara Gardening After Five

Normally, when an insect attacks the vegetable garden a gardener’s revenge is swift and decisive.  Although we don’t mind sharing, some bugs take more than their portion, stripping plants to the point where we have to show them the door – or the neighbor’s garden – and order them to leave.

If you see these fellows in your garden, usher them to the door.

But this summer a beloved insect is back on the plants, nibbling on members of the carrot family and delighting everyone who sees them.  Announcing their presence with a striping of black, white, and yellow, the parsleyworm (Papilio polyxenes) is one visitor you might want to let stick around.

When little, this caterpillar’s coloration has it dressed up like bird droppings, something that makes predators think twice before eating it.  If the predator is determined to chomp them, the parsleyworm has another trick up its sleeve:  they push a pair of orange, smelly “horns” from their head.  As long as you’re not sniffing their head when they do this, it’s an endearing trick.

Yes, they’re eating the parsley.  And the dill, fennel, and carrots.  This is a small price to pay for nurturing the Black Swallowtail butterfly, which is what these very hungry caterpillars grow into.  Should you want to control them, pick them from the plant or spray with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), an organic insecticide.

But if you choose to let these lovely creatures live to become adults, don’t worry if your caterpillars disappear from the plants.  After stuffing themselves, the caterpillars roam about, looking for a place to spin their chrysalis in which to pupate.  You’ll see your parsleyworm again, this time as an adult, a large black butterfly with yellow and blue spots.

Flitting through the garden, sipping nectar and visiting flowers, this butterfly and its two close relatives, Tiger Swallowtails, are as welcome as fireworks on the Fourth of July.  Attracting them to your garden is simple: plant food for the caterpillars to eat, such as parsley, carrots, or dill for Black Swallowtails and willow, green ash, or chokecherry for Tiger Swallowtails.

Don’t forget to add in flowers to give adults nectar to sip, particularly butterfly bush (Buddleia spp.), geraniums, butterfly weed (Asclepias spp.), or zinnia.  After all, you don’t mind sharing, do you?

Carol O’Meara’s blog at gardeningafterfive.wordpress.com

Anne Dyni Pastimes

As if the rigors of farming along the Front Range weren’t challenging enough, a locust
plague hit Boulder County in the summer of 1875.  After laying their eggs in the fall, they reappeared every spring for the next three years.

This contraption was designed to trap grasshoppers in tanks of oil or water as it was pulled through the fields. Colorado Historical Society photo collection

The species, Melanoplus spretus, is thought to have been a long-winged version of today’s common grasshopper, but is now extinct.  The Rocky Mountain Locust, as it became known, was capable of migrating great distances in huge swarms, devouring everything in its path.

In his diary, Ernest Pease recalled noticing the darkening sky one day as he played with his younger brother in their farm yard.   Looking up, he described a moving mass of dark specks, and as he watched, a few of them began darting to the ground.

“To Clarence and me playing in the yard, each one of those grasshoppers suggested to our minds the swift approach of a ball.  We grabbed our board bats and began striking at each as it came.”  But as the insects came faster and faster, they gave up and “gazed in astonishment at the wonderful sight.”

The Pease family, like so many others, experienced the full brunt of the attack.  When the swarms had moved on, they took stock of their crops.   “They ate the tops of potatoes, beets, turnips and the like, and left us the roots,” Ernest wrote.  “Their oily bodies were so thick on the rails that in places the steam engines could not pull their trains on the upgrade until sand was applied.”

Farmers tried many creative ways to rid their fields of the hoppers.  One Longmont farmer devised a horse-drawn burner with an open grate that could incinerate most of the locusts in a field.  But it proved impractical because it burned the crops as well.    Others released flocks of turkeys and chickens to eat them.  But there were just too many, and the putrid smell of decaying insects permeated the countryside for weeks.
Then in March 1877, the Rocky Mountain News reported on a new variety of ‘hopper-dozer’ invented by W.J. Graham and James A. King of Boulder County.   The two farmers claimed that their contraption, mounted on two wheels and dragged through the crop rows by a team of horses, could clear forty acres in one day.  Similar dozers, cobbled together from scrap metal and implement parts, consisted of old water heaters cut in two and filled with used oil.  As they were dragged along, the hoppers flew up, hit a tin sheet mounted over the tanks, and slid into the oil.   At the end of each pass, they were shoveled into oily piles and the horses turned to continue crisscrossing the field.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.

Dave Gardner Money Talks

Perhaps the most critical decision you can make about investment management is how much risk to take. Once you have determined an appropriate level of risk, you can start making asset allocation decisions such as the percentage of your portfolio to be held in stocks. This analysis is vital to your financial success as asset class selection is the most significant factor in investment performance.

Unfortunately, most investors have little idea what level of risk is appropriate. Some common shortcuts used by financial advisers and laypersons alike only give you the beginnings of the knowledge needed to design an individualized investment strategy.

Often when investors design a portfolio, the first step is to fill out a risk tolerance questionnaire. They are filled with questions designed to determine your psychological propensity for accepting risk versus your desire for higher returns. What is your reaction when you lose money on an investment? How do you feel after you make a big financial decision, confident or anxious?

Once you complete the survey, you get a score that shows your investor pain-pleasure index. Those willing to accept the inherent wobbliness of the market as compensation for greater returns will get a higher score.

So what’s wrong with these tests? Nothing at face value.

Risk tolerance is a very important component in portfolio management and these tests can help define how you would react in a market downturn. Your money should serve you, rather than cause undue stress. The problem is that many individual investors and their advisers use risk tolerance scores as the sole determinant of asset allocation decisions.

These tests fail to consider the financial profile, financial goals and other risks of the client. By financial profile, we’re most concerned about your investible net worth and annual spending. It can show us whether you need to take very little risk to achieve your goals or whether you need to be more aggressive in your investments.

Someone with a $5 million portfolio and annual spending of $100,000 can invest conservatively to support themselves, regardless of their risk tolerance. If your portfolio value is closer to your level of annual spending, then you need to take greater risk to achieve your goals.

Financial goals, whether it’s buying a first house or moving up, paying for your children’s higher education, retiring at 65 in comfort, or taking a 12-month sabbatical from your career must be considered.

Imagine that you have incredible tolerance for risk and are in your 30s. Many cookie cutter risk profiles would put you in an aggressive investor category. If you’re planning on putting $150,000 down on a house within six months, the proximity of your goal demands that you take very little risk with those funds.

A client’s other risks particular to their situation, or endogenous risks, are often forgotten. Professional athletes are perhaps the archetype here. They may bring down millions a year, but their earning potential is unpredictable and its duration is short.

Whether you are working with a financial adviser or managing your own affairs, you must consider not only your risk tolerance, but also your financial profile, the proximity and nature of your financial goals, and the other risks in your life when coming up with an appropriate investment strategy. On its own, a psychological profile in the form of a risk tolerance questionnaire is woefully inadequate.

Dave Gardner is a certified financial planner with a practice in Boulder County. His Web site is www.yellowstonefinancial.com.

Ann Miller All About Longmont

There is something incredibly satisfying about archery.  In the moment when the draw is extended you have to be totally present, holding yourself steady, aiming, then letting the arrow fly to the target.  I’ve often wished life could be like that — knowing what the target is, and then adjusting a little to the left or the right to achieve the center.

Recently I found a place where I could practice my somewhat contemplative style of archery at an indoor range just outside of Longmont.  Archery in the Wild is located in Unit E of an industrial park building on 1725 Vista Drive.  Inside the nondescript brick edifice is a pro-shop and a spacious 28-yard long range.

Boyd Wild, owner of Longmont’s Archery in the Wild archery range. Ann Miller photo

I was a little nervous the first time I went there because I hadn’t used my bow in years, and I had lost my string and arrows.  Owner Boyd Wild soon set me at ease.  Acting like it was perfectly natural for a customer to wander in sans string and arrows, he quickly trimmed some arrows to match my draw and fitted them with tips.  He also provided me with a custom made, pre-stretched string.  While Boyd was cutting my arrows, I noticed Dustin, his son, working on a compound bow.  Both Boyd and Dustin, I discovered, are technicians certified to repair longbows, recurves and compounds.

Boyd told me that he opened Archery in the Wild because of his love for the outdoors and because he’d always wanted to have a sporting goods store.

“My dad got me into archery,” he said.  “We started bow hunting in the early 1980s.  We’d hunt  deer, elk and turkey and eat the game throughout the year.”

Generations of Boyd’s family have lived in northern Colorado since the late 1800s, and the range is a family-run business.  Boyd’s wife, Carol, does the bookkeeping, and Dustin manages the day-to-day operations.

As I practiced a little with the target Boyd set up for me (at an easy truncated distance), I tried to decide whether I wanted to join one of the archery leagues that competes at the range.  There is a target league, a hunting league and a traditional league.  The hunting league uses three dimensional Styrofoam animals for targets (my favorite was a large cobra-head with evil looking eyes).  The traditional league is limited to longbows and recurves.  Archers in the leagues compete not only against each other, but also against other archers in the state.  Their scores are ranked among others in the Colorado State Archery Association.  As I uniformly failed to hit the center of the target, I wondered if my scores would be just too embarrassing for a league.  Would I be ranked dead last?  I decided to practice a lot before the leagues begin in October.

Before I left the building, I browsed among the bows in the pro-shop.  There were a few traditional bows like the type I was comfortable with, and a large variety of compounds manufactured by solid designers like Hoyt, Elite, Bowtech and Mathews.  I dreamed awhile over these, and over the huge selection of brightly fletched arrows, but decided I’d stick with what I had.  Practice, I decided, was what was important, practice and the slow, careful accumulation of skill necessary to achieve the center.

Archery in the Wild may be reached at 720-652-9100.
Ann Miller is a travel, essay, and
fiction writer who lives in Longmont.
Email her at fulcan@comcast.net.

Unscrupulous property management companies occasionally disregard tenants’ rights, ignoring legitimate claims for home repairs and mercilessly enforcing one-sided contracts.

However, the victims in a landlord-tenant relationship often are second homeowners who have little experience managing a property as a landlord. Exasperated by their tenants’ broken promises to pay rent and honor other obligations under a verbal agreement or written contract, these second homeowners must turn to local courts to regain possession of their home and obtain a judgment for money damages.

Governed by Colorado’s Forcible Entry and Detainer Statute (Colorado Revised Statutes 13-40-101, et seq.), the eviction process is expedited and fairly straightforward compared to most civil lawsuits. But even this statute features language and requirements that can be as obscure as computer code to a layperson.

That is why a landlord should wait to take any legal action until he has decided whether to retain an attorney or represent himself as a “pro se” party. The advantages of counsel are relatively obvious: the landlord is entrusting a professional with the tasks of following court procedures, meeting deadlines and advancing substantive legal theories that could effectively respond to the tenant’s defenses and maximize the award of a money judgment.

Courts will expect a landlord to strictly comply with procedures that, if not followed, will result in delays in the eviction process, additional expenses and bigger headaches. The nuances of the law make it easy to overlook a step in the eviction process.

For example, a pro se landlord may fail to draft a proper demand notice (that is required, for example, in order to give the tenant an opportunity to avoid an eviction by paying the back rent) or neglect to serve a tenant with a complaint within the time required under the statute. Furthermore, pro se parties often are unfamiliar with legal precedent, including landlord-tenant cases decided by Colorado appellate judges, and related statutes that could affect the outcome of their case.

But in truth, even the most untrained person in the law is capable of filing an eviction and recovering a judgment for possession of the property and money damages. The Colorado State Judicial Branch Web site is a tremendous resource for pro se parties, featuring detailed instructions on filing an eviction and recovering money damages.

Landlords should bear in mind that the legal process demands time and patience. For example, a tenant may file an answer to a landlord’s complaint for non-payment of rent, raising defenses and asserting counterclaims that complicate the issues and prolong a final resolution until a judge has heard all the evidence at trial and ruled. In a contested eviction proceeding, a court generally will hold two separate hearings: one hearing on the landlord’s alleged right to possession, and if the landlord prevails, a second trial on the amount of back rent and other damages owed by the tenant.

A tenant might refuse to budge from the home even after a landlord obtains a court order for possession of the property. The landlord must then serve a court-issued “writ of restitution” on the local sheriff’s department, making arrangements with the authorities to oversee the actual ouster of the tenant from the home. If the renter is really uncooperative, the landlord might even be forced to arrange for the tenant’s furniture to be moved from the house.

Which leads me to crux of this column: second homeowners should carefully screen their potential tenants and enter into a written lease agreement that adequately protects their interests before handing over the keys.

Josh Long is a Longmont-based attorney with Greer & Long, LLP and can be reached at josh@greerandlong.com.

Anne Dyni Pastimes

D orothy Dougherty used to say that it was turkeys that bankrolled the Dougherty Museum south of Longmont.

“When I say there are turkeys in this building,” she explained, “people say ‘I don’t see any feathers’.  But really, that’s what made it all possible.”

In the 1940s, her husband Ray Dougherty and his parents pioneered the turkey business in Colorado.  It was their success that allowed Ray to pursue a lifetime of collecting vintage cars and farm equipment.

The desire for irrigated farm land prompted Henry Dougherty to move his family from drought-stricken Oklahoma to the Longmont area in 1918.  Upon arrival in the St. Vrain Valley, Henry purchased land which straddled the Boulder-Weld County line southeast of town.

While her husband raised crops and tended livestock, Mrs. Dougherty augmented the family income by raising brooder hens, selling the eggs and poults in the springtime.

When she began raising classic bronze turkeys as well, she discovered that the two species had to be separated.   The turkeys were susceptible to diseases which didn’t impact her chickens at all.   With relatively small flocks numbering less than sixty birds apiece, it wasn’t difficult to keep them apart.   One year, however, her entire flock proved too easy for someone else to round up, and she lost them all to thieves in the dead of night.

Years later, when Henry and his son Ray launched their large turkey breeding operation on the farm, they incorporated the lessons learned by his wife with her small-scale poultry business.

The potential for highly contagious diseases decimating their entire flock was ever present. How could they keep the birds free from such clinical sounding viral diseases as avian encephalomyelitis, viral hepatitis, and hemorrhagic enteritis?

Their solution — moveable poultry sheds which were large enough to house about 1,000 turkeys each.  They were equipped with wire mesh floors so that droppings settled below, out of contact with the birds themselves.   The portable “houses” were set up temporarily in the alfalfa fields, then moved every week or so to a new location.  This not only left contaminated droppings behind … it allowed the freshly fertilized alfalfa to recover enough for harvest later in the season.

As Ray continued to collect farm equipment, the turkeys had to share space with vintage tractors and implements.    Only while the turkeys were hatching did he have to move his artifacts outside.
Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.

Lisa Trank Biz Mix

I have a confession to make. Over the past four months, I’ve been working hard to do less. For a chronic over-functioner like yours truly, it really has been hard work to learn how to do less.

But as the long summer days roll on, I’m happy to report I’m making progress. In fact, I’ve crossed a threshold into a successful transition to doing less.

What brought this on? Simple – I was relieved of a long-term project that was no longer a good fit for me or the other party. At first, I panicked and launched into my familiar hit-the-ground running mode, frantically sending in resume after resume, scouring my social networking connections for leads and useful introductions.

I did this for about a month, but soon realized that my efforts were without much meaning other than filling my time and paying the bills. I wanted to take this time to reassess the direction I’ve been going in and whether it’s a direction I wanted to continue, or whether this break in job activity could be used for a different, and possibly, deeper purpose.

So I stopped sending out resumes and decided that this summer, I’d concentrate on being less “busy” with the things that tend to fill up our days. If you’re employed, that usually translates into work. If you’re unemployed, under-employed or between projects, this usually translates into frantically looking for the next gig.

I needed to admit that I was tired and deserved a much needed break. OK, I admitted that to myself and my family. We all agreed that I was long overdue for a rest and decided this was the summer I could gently take my foot off the “looking for work” pedal.

Easier said than done.

At first, I filled my days with gardening, which I wrote about recently. I filled several large garbage bags with dandelions (only a handful dared to come back); I seeded and watered and now am beginning to enjoy some of the early bounty from that labor. I even thought about going back to school to study horticulture and spend my days with my cuticles in the dirt, but I stopped myself because it was part of the same frantic cycle.

Can’t find a job? It’s an attractive idea to go back to school to learn some new tricks. But it feels too much like the same compulsion to fill my time, rather than time filling me.

I know this sounds New Age-y and that’s all right with me because I know I’m not alone in jumping off the express train.  I talk to many other like-minded folks who are re-evaluating the ways in which we put together our work life with more thoughtfulness, balance and purpose.  I named my consulting business “One Purpose PR & Communications” because I wanted it to be clear that finding purpose was at the center of what I do.

Why am I writing this? Because I want to share what has been a very interesting time in my professional development. By giving myself this brief gift of time, this self-prescribed mini-sabbatical, I’ve been doing something critical. This gift of time has allowed me to decompress from years of hard and mostly non-stop effort. To take the pressure off of being a “performer” has opened up a side of myself that has never really emerged and one that will serve me, whichever direction I end up going in.

I’ve become more thoughtful, more internal, and, I think, an easier person to be around. I’ve relieved myself from “making things happen” to “letting things happen” and the incredible thing is that things are definitely happening.

The wonderful author Tillie Olsen once wrote: “And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?” We live in a world which makes time a commodity and sometimes, the real value of our time is not in the doing, but in the being.

So if you run into me on the tennis courts, or immersed in a crime novel at one of our local coffee joints, please say hi and stop to chat. I’m happy to say, these days, I have the time.

Lisa Trank is owner of One Purpose PR & Communications, a sustainable public relations, social media and communications firm founded in 2007. Lisa has called Longmont home for close to 10 years and is thrilled to be running her business and raising her family here.

Dave Gardner Money Talks

We have finally come to the end of the first-time homebuyer tax bonanza. First-time homebuyers who signed a purchase contract by April 30 may receive an $8,000 refundable tax credit. Buyers don’t need to wait until next year to receive the credit — they can immediately amend their 2009 taxes to request the $8,000 credit.

But what if you have missed the purchase deadlines? There are still ways the tax code can help, perhaps saving you even more than the well-publicized credit. Through the Mortgage Credit Certificate program, first-time homebuyers may be able to cut their mortgage interest by 20 percent.

Most homeowners realize that mortgage interest on primary residences is deductible. MCCs go beyond this, because they give you a tax credit of 20 percent of mortgage interest. A tax credit is much better than a deduction because it reduces your tax liability dollar for dollar, rather than simply reducing taxable income.

Using an MCC, the 4.75 percent mortgage effectively becomes a 3.8 percent loan. Plus you can still deduct the 80 percent of mortgage interest, which lowers the tax-adjusted interest even further.

The mortgage industry is like a rabbit warren, with strange programs tucked into nooks that are not generally known even by mortgage experts. MCCs are one of these programs. Your lender must be qualified by the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority to offer MCCs. But first let’s see if you could qualify for a 20 percent discount on your mortgage.

First-time homebuyers and a few others. You must be a first-time homebuyer to qualify for an MCC. This means you haven’t owned a principal residence for the past three years. Some veterans and those refinancing subprime mortgages may also qualify.

Purchase and income limits. In Boulder County, as of July 1, the purchase limit for homes to qualify for the MCC program is $414,000. Families with three persons or more can earn up to $103,000 and qualify for the program. The purchase limit in Broomfield is $365,000, with income limits at $87,200 for three-person families. Households with one or two people have slightly lower limits.
Primary residence. You must occupy the home you purchase with an MCC mortgage as your primary residence.

Like any government program, there are caveats and gotchas. If you sell your house acquired through an MCC mortgage, it is possible that you would have to refund some of the tax credit.

It depends on how long you owned the home, whether you had a CHFA loan, the appreciation of your home, and your income level when you sell the home. If your income increases dramatically and you sell or rent your home out within nine years, it’s possible you would repay part of the credit.

Finally, there’s one unexpected bonus with MCCs. You can use the projected credit to help qualify for a mortgage. Using the example above of the 4.75 percent mortgage, the lender could use the 3.8 percent after-tax rate, which could improve your mortgage application by lowering your debt-to-income ratio.

If you would like to know more, your first stop is CHFA’s Web site at www.chfainfo.com/mcc. There you can also see the lenders that originate the most CHFA loans by region. These lenders are familiar with CHFA programs and can work with you to see if an MCC could help. Your average lender will not likely be aware of MCCs, nor will be authorized to make an MCC loan.
With a little elbow grease on your part, you could save tens of thousands over the life of your mortgage.

Dave Gardner is a certified financial planner with a practice in Boulder County. His Web site is www.yellowstonefinancial.com.

Ann Miller All About Longmont

There is an undertone to our lives, a kind of background that accompanies our work, sleep and dreams and the interludes in the garden or the walks in the city.  Lately for me this undertone has been crowded with images of conflict in foreign lands, environmental disasters, and the ruinous consequences of the actions of the powerful and corrupt — things that I have little power to remedy.

When the buzz and noise from these images threatens to overwhelm, I seek refuge in the quiet pockets of Longmont where I know people have chosen kindliness as a way of life.  One of these places is Leenie’s Southern cafe.  It’s a small restaurant located in the Southmoor Plaza on the Southwest corner of Ken Pratt Boulevard and Main Street.  When you walk in, you are immediately comforted by the sight of those old-time, black-and-white checked tablecloths that your grandmother used to have.  There is artwork from local artists on the walls and the cupboards are filled with lustrous crockery.

Glenna De Simone, Lindsay Preston and Eileen Gilmore at Leenie's Southern Cafe. Ann Miller, Courtesy photo

Eileen Gilmore, one of the café’s two owners, is in the habit of making her customers her friends, and the first time I met her I found myself telling her stories about my life that I hadn’t told anyone in years.  Mel Flores, Eileen’s partner, has an engaging personality that just makes you want to smile.  One of the waitresses, Glenna De Simone, is Eileen’s best friend.  She has blond hair and quick wit.  “Eating at Leenie’s,” she says “is like taking a mini vacation for your mouth.  It transports you to a part of the country that has unique regional flavors.”

Lindsay Preston, another waitress, is quietly courteous and quick to see to her customer’s needs.  Eileen’s children, Scott and Geordann Gilmore, have also been with the café since its inception.  Scott is the computer expert who designs the menus and flyers.  Geordann, who waitresses, is so well-known by the customers that she can hardly go anywhere in Longmont without meeting a friend from the café.

Mel and Eileen started Leenie’s four years ago because they both loved Southern cooking, and because they wanted to provide customers with a choice of whole foods cooked from scratch.  They shop daily for ingredients, and the recipes they use are the treasured ones passed down in their families for generations.

Selections on their menu range from Oyster Remoulade to New Orleans Po Boys To Mississippi-Fried Catfish.  Eileen’s favorite dish is the American Meatloaf made from pork, turkey and beef, and glazed with a secret brown sugar recipe.  Mel’s favorite is the Chicken Fried Chicken.  The chicken has a crispy batter and is served eggs and grits.  “I’m a Texas boy, Mel says, “and the combination of eggs, grits, homemade gravy and chicken is just sheer bliss.”

Me, although I’m partial to the shrimp Creole, I have to say that what’s really got me hooked on the Leenie’s cuisine is the homemade jams and the smooth, strong coffee.   The rich brew reminds me of my childhood on the ranch where we boiled coffee on a cast-iron stove.  We always threw in a few eggshells for flavor.  Whether it’s because of the home-style cooking or the friendly grace of the owners and staff, I find myself returning often to Leenie’s in these times when “the world is too much with us.”

Contact Leenie’s at 303-776-4195.

Ann Miller is a travel, essay, and fiction writer who lives in Longmont. Email her at fulcan@comcast.net.

Katy Sinclair Parental Units

M y grandfather, Carl N. Sarles, was a lifelong saver.

An accountant by trade, he kept meticulous details of his spending.  After he bought something, he carefully recorded  the time, date, description and total of the transaction in a little black book. For him, money was sacred. He pondered every purchase and used cash for almost everything.

He didn’t believe that successful people spent money to make money. His mantra: Save, save, save.

I am much less thrifty than he was and as a result, much less financially secure. I believe though that sometimes his “save at all costs” directive can be misguided.

Right now, my household is spending a lot of money. And in the end, we will save more for it. All in the name of energy conservation.

Our mission began in February, when I lucked into a free energy audit from Boulder County’s Energy Corp. (Free audits are rare but reduced-cost ones still are available; see box.)

The energy audit was painless. For about an hour, the experts inspected my house, looking for energy drains and suggesting changes. Some were easy fixes; they replaced our lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lights and even switched a showerhead to a more water-efficient one.

Other suggestions were more time consuming, such as caulking around the window frames and adding an insulating layer to our external wall outlet gaskets.

The biggest project: Hiring a contractor to add more insulation to our attic.

I was overwhelmed by the energy crew’s estimate of cost (around $1,000) and the prospect of finding a contractor on my own.

Fortunately the Center for Resource Conservation is part of this energy initiative. With their Residential Energy Action Program, they help homeowners take the next steps with their energy plans.

My point guy at REAP helped me find a reputable contractor who offered free estimates. He also explained the various rebates and discounts that were available for our project.

After stacking the Xcel and Governor’s Energy Office rebates, I discovered we could save about $600, making our final out-of-pocket cost about $700.

(Up until last month, larger residential energy conservation projects could be financed by the Boulder County ClimateSmart Loan Program. Due to some regulatory issues, that program is now on indefinite hold. Since our project was relatively small, we didn’t use the ClimateSmart program.)

It took about a month to get the estimates done and paperwork finalized. In early June, the half-day project was completed, just before a slew of unseasonably hot days hit the area. The benefit of our investment was immediately apparent; our house cools down faster, and we keep the thermostat higher.

It’s a win-win situation: More efficient heating and cooling means lower overall utility bills. But saving a few dollars each month isn’t the only advantage to the project.

The Iceland volcano eruption, Chile and Haiti earthquakes and Gulf of Mexico oil spill all remind us how fragile this planet is. I want to teach my children the importance of treating our Earth with respect and how to reduce our impact on it.

I think even my Grandpa Carl — who refused to turn on the air-conditioning unless it was 90 degrees or hotter — would appreciate that we spent money to do so.

Contact Katy Sinclair at KatySinclair09@gmail.com.