Oct

31

Let me plant a seed with you

Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9 

Because I rise at about 2 a.m., and want to be with my bride in the evening, I sleep in two shifts: from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., and the next afternoon from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. It’s actually more complicated than that — if I don’t get enough in the afternoon I might turn in sooner at night, for example, and I also find that when you sleep in shifts you can get by on fewer than eight full hours most of the time — but you get the idea.

That’s not the real topic of this post but I’m getting to it.

The thing about sleeping in the afternoon is that the heat of the sun zaps through my south-facing bedroom window and can make the room too hot for sleeping.

Now we’re getting really close to the true topic of the post. But let’s go first to a fellow who appeared on “Sunrise” this morning.

Jason Sickmiller has a great job. He’s an arborist with Hawaiian Electric. HECO has 15 crews of people who care for trees that stand near power lines, pruning them so they don’t endanger the lines (which would lead to their being cut down altogether, of course.)

These men and women also play a role in the company’s annual Arbor Day Tree Giveaway, which is this coming weekend.

HECO and its partners will give away 2,600 native and exotic trees and shrubs this year at six sites on Oahu. Experts are on hand to tell how to care for the free plants.

It happens Saturday. Visit http://www.arbordayhawaii.org for locations and more information. If you’re going, go early. They usually run out of trees in two hours.

“Strategic placement of trees and shrubs along the sunny sides of a house will help cool the home and will reduce air conditioning costs,” HECO’s Janet Crawford said. 

There it is: the true topic. One of the simplest ways to reduce your electric bill is to put something in the way of the afternoon sun before its beams reach your windows.

Living on the 33rd floor, I don’t have the shade tree option. So I’m curious — have you had a good experience with that plastic tinting you can put on windows?

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