Do Solar Arrays Save Money?

by | Dec 4, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Energy Efficiency

We’ll soon celebrate the 10th anniversary of our solar electric system. Did our decade-old solar arraays investment save money?
The short answer is YES!

Here’s the back story.

Our system is small with only nine panels on the barn’s roof. When we had it installed our intention wasn’t to produce all of our electricity. It was to tame the sting of high utility bills and produce as much electricity from the sun as possible.

Men on roof installing solar array.

Men installing panels.

Our system was built by the Enphase Company and installed by SiteGen, a part of Paulson Electric. At the time it cost us about $9,000. We received about half of that back on our federal and state income taxes, so our net cost was around $4500.

We are “net metered” with Alliant Energy. This means that electricity moves back and forth through our meter. When we produce more than we use, the excess goes out to provide electricity to other users. When we need more than we produce electricity comes in from the grid. At the end of the month, we pay Alliant the “net”.

When we travel and our electric use is low, we push power outward, but most of the time we use more than we produce. We get a monthly bill from Alliant but it’s always lower than if we didn’t have solar.

Was Our System a Good Investment?

Every month we get a report from our Enphase system through a phone app and an Alliant bill. Monthly production varies based on how much solar energy strikes our panels. Long clear summer days boost production, while clouds and short winter days reduce it.

Overall, we calculate our system averages about $60 worth of electricity a month. In a decade we’ve made about $7200 worth of electricity at a net investment cost of $4500. That’s a good return. Lacking tax credits, it would have taken us another few years to break even.

How Long Do Solar Panels Last?

Solar electric companies project the lifespan of panels at 25 years. So, for many years we will enjoy cost reductions on our electric bill. As electric rates rise the value of our investment in solar becomes ever more valuable.

The Indian Creek Nature Center installed solar on its Sunroom 23 years ago. Despite its age the system produced 3055 kilowatt hours of electricity in 2024, its year of best production. There is no sign of degradation in production due to age,” said John Myers, the Center’s executive director.

Here are things we’ve learned from our system:

  • Our only maintenance is to use a roof rake to remove snow. Panels make no noise and have survived severe storms intact.
  • Annual electric production is a bell curve with its peak during the summer’s longest days and the lowest during midwinter.
  • Shade has a major impact. Even one puffy cloud on a clear day causes production to briefly drop as its shadow crosses our panels.
  • A big oak tree on our property, immediately east of the panels, got first dibs on sunlight. The tree shaded the panels in the morning. After we removed the old declining tree in early 2025 our morning electricity production jumped upward.

Society Going Backwards

The Trump administration and your representatives eliminated tax credits in the latest budget. Next year, credits will no longer be available to help homeowners reduce their electric bills.

Goinig Forwards

Back to the main question: Is investing in solar energy worth it today? Yup.

The payback time is longer but newer panels are more efficient than our decade-old ones and they’ve dropped in price.
We’d do it again, even without the credits.

Want to install solar?

Local companies skilled in setting up systems are found nearly everywhere today. A quick Internet search should yield several companies close to home. For general information check energy.gov solar. We’ve been happy with our Enphase system. Information is at  enphase.com.

 

Feeding Backyard Birds and Saving Money

by | Nov 10, 2022 | Birds, Nature

 

Bird Seed

Sunflower seed, cracked corn, milo.

Feeding backyard birds is fun, but it’s become expensive. The price of black oil sunflower seed has doubled in just a couple of years.

To keep our birds well-fed and our budget under control we use Fourth Story Feeders.   What are they? Well, the first story is the ground. The second is a picnic table or other platform a few feet off the ground, and the third is a metal shepherd’s hook shoved into the ground that gets feeders up four or five feet. We use all these and increasingly have taken the feed up the elevator to the fourth floor.

 

Raccoons, deer, opossums, and even bears love a nocturnal snack of expensive bird seed. Squirrels and wild turkeys gobble it up during the day. These animals easily access seeds on the first, second, and third floor – but not the fourth. Except for bears who can create complete havoc with feeders left out overnight.

Fourth Story Feeders for Back Yard Birds

Here’s how we created a feeding station that’s easy for birds to reach but inaccessible to deer, turkeys, raccoons, and opossums:

  1. Bought the tallest shepherd’s hook we could find.
  2. Pulled our homemade picnic table to a spot easy to see through our windows.
  3. Drilled two holes in the wooden table exactly the size of the “feet” of the shepherd’s hook. Used a hammer to lightly tap the “feet” into the holes.
  4. Suspended silo and suet feeders from the hooks that are now eight or nine feet above the ground and out of reach of deer and nearly impossible for raccoons and opossums to climb.

The birds love eating from the fourth story but there’s a problem. How to fill feeders so high up? Well, again, here’s how we solved the problem:

We scrounged a four-foot-long stick from a nearby lake that a beaver had cut and chewed off the bark. We bought an “S” hook from a hardware store and drilled a hole in the end of the stick. We pressed one side of the “S” hook into the wooden stick and had a handy tool.

With the hook on the stick, we can easily lift a feeder and hang it on the fourth story. A broomstick works as well as a beaver stick and the telescoping metal poles used to attach to paint rollers also can work. Most already have a hook built into the pole.

Squirrels can climb the steel shaft of the shepherd’s hook, but we foil them by coating its surface with a light spray of grease. Baffles are better at keeping these smart, pesky mammals at bay.

Materials Needed

Bird feeders
Picnic table
Shepherd’s Hook feeder holder
Pole for lifting feeder
“S” hookTube of spray grease

Helpful Tools

Drill and bit the same size as the shepherd’s hook’s diameter
Hammer

Although we still offer birdseed on the first, second, and third floors, now we present most of the seeds on the fourth floor. Saves seeds. Saves money. Frustrates deer, raccoons, turkeys, opossums, and squirrels.

 

Rain Barrels – Money Savers Good For The Environment

by | May 3, 2015 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Energy Efficiency, Preparedness

Many homeowners harvest beans, squash, and tomatoes from their garden.  Some collect delicious eggs from a small

backyard flock. Too few harvest one of life’s free necessities – Rain Water!

We set up five rain barrels at Winding Pathways a few years ago. They are so handy we don’t know why we didn’t start harvesting rain years ago. Rain barrels are relatively inexpensive and easy to set up. Water from the barrels irrigates thirsty gardens, provides drinking water for our backyard hens, and is handy for rinsing off dirty hands and tools when working outside. 

Tap water costs money.  Rain water is free. It’s delivered by nature without chlorine. Too many homeowners swish rainwater down storm sewers and pay their city for tap water to irrigate.

Rain barrels yield free water but also create social and environmental benefits. They reduce pressure on municipal water systems and wells during droughts and reduce erosion and flooding caused by runoff.

A rain barrel is simply a container that collects and stores water falling on the roof. A faucet positioned low on the barrel makes filling a bucket or attaching a hose easy.

They are hardly a new technology. People have been catching and using rain for thousands of years, especially in arid areas. Relatively new are myriads of lightweight attractive barrels on the market, ranging from plain and simple to highly decorative. Most hold about 50 gallons.    Do it “yourselfers” can easily make a rain barrel from a 55 gallon drum and fittings sold in any hardware store.

Most first time rain barrel users are astonished at how much water falls on the roof during even a minor shower. For example   625 gallons of rain falls on a 1000 foot roof during a one inch storm. That would fill nine or ten typical sized barrels, and most houses these days are much larger than 1000 square feet. Even during Iowa’s occasional droughts enough occasional showers fall on our roof at Winding Pathways that we always seem to have water in our five barrels.

What’s Needed to Harvest Rain?

Setting up a rain barrel outside a home that has gutters and downspouts is easy. All that’s needed is the barrel itself, a stand to elevate it, and a way to point the downspout so water goes into the top of the barrel.

The Barrel:   Many websites detail how to make a rain barrel from common materials. Simply GOOGLE How to Make a Rain Barrel and several excellent well illustrated instructional sites appear.   Manufactured rain barrels can be purchased in big box stores that sell yard and garden equipment. They can also be ordered from numerous places online.

The Stand:  A stand gets the barrel up off the ground. Normally a hose fitting is situated near the barrel’s bottom to allow complete draining. We made stands from lumber scrounged from construction site dumpsters. They are about 18 inches tall. Placing the barrel on several cinder blocks is even simpler and requires no carpentry. Remember that a rain barrel holding 50 gallons of water weighs around 400 pounds. Stands must be stout.

The Downspout:   Most downspouts extend from the gutter to the ground. Situate the stand and rain barrels below or near a downspout. Common soft aluminum or plastic spouts are easy to cut with a hacksaw.  Cut it off above the height of the rain barrel so water falls directly into the top of the barrel.  Or, if the barrel needs to be set to the side of the downspout buy a 90 or 45 degree angle elbow from a hardware store and attach it so water reaches the barrel. Be sure to drill a few holes in the joint and secure it with sheet metal screws.

Where to Locate the Barrel. Obviously a rain barrel needs to be located near a downspout, but most houses have several of them.  Put the barrel as close as possible to the garden or wherever the water will be used.

Hooking More Than One Together. Most people start with just one rain barrel and then discover that it fills quickly in just a light rain.   And, it’s easy to use all the water quickly. The solution is simple. Set up several rain barrels in a way that once the first barrel fills water flows through a small tube into the second, third, and any subsequent ones.

Rain Barrel Maintenance. Barrel maintenance is important but simple. Every five or six weeks we drain our barrels, brush the inside to dislodge the slimy material that forms on the plastic, and wash it out with tap water from a hose. Ice can crack a rain barrel, so in late fall we drain ours, turn them upside down for the winter, and put a rock on top (actually the inverted bottom) to keep the wind from blowing them away.

A Caution.  Most roofs are constructed of nontoxic materials, but some may leech toxic chemicals into rainwater.  Most cedar shakes have been treated with chemicals so don’t harvest water from such a roof. It’s best to wait three or four months after installing a new asphalt roof before collecting rain.

It’s exciting to bring fresh eggs into the kitchen from a flock of backyard hens, and another satisfying delight of the yard is the delicious beans, chard, and other vegetables that come from the garden.  Harvesting free rain after a summer shower is another pleasure offered by a wondrous yard.

Rainwater Solutions

COMPANY PROFILE

RAINWATER SOLUTIONS

 A few years ago Lynn and Mike Ruck, owners of Rainwater Solutions, helped the Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa mount a major effort to encourage residents to buy and install barrels they make.    Eager residents retrieved barrels they had ordered from the back of a huge semi-truck, and soon nearly 1000 residents began harvesting water.

Many companies make and sell excellent rain barrels. We use ones made by Rainwater Solutions at Winding Pathways, and they’ve served us well. One of their models, called The Moby, holds 65 gallons while its slimmer cousin, The Ivy, holds 50.

Rain Water Solutions rain barrels are made in the USA of 100% recycled content. It is their mission to work with government agencies and non-profits to use rain barrels as an education / outreach tool for water conservation and water quality issues. They also design, consult, and install above and below ground rainwater harvesting systems. For information check their website at www.rainwatersolutions.com.

Got Cash? Money Talks In A Power Outage

by | Nov 3, 2014 | Preparedness

Zombies and Ebola are all the rage and have people worried, but they are a less likely threat than power outages.

Massive storms, like this year’s East Coast Halloween Horror, that dropped up to a foot of snow in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and have caused power outages in the Northeast and curtailed transportation are the serious hazard people should prepare for.

Could your family ride out a couple of weeks without electricity following a blizzard, ice storm, or major flood? Or leave on a moment’s notice if a fire or even lava flow threatens? (Think California and Hawaii) Taking simple steps in advance will make enduring days without power and out of your home a relatively comfortable time.

Winding Pathways encourages families to  prepare for a big storm by  assembling a kit containing  easy to acquire and relatively inexpensive items like nonperishable food and water, and things most people never think about – like having a stash of cash on hand.  Remember, credit and debit cards don’t work without electricity. A backup heat source that doesn’t require electricity keeps pipes and people from freezing should a power failure knock out the furnace.

This is the time to get ready for that weather emergency. For details check the Winding Pathways Blog on Preparedness . It includes detailed tips for disaster preparation.

 

Autumn – Changing of the Guard

by | Nov 6, 2025 | Birds, Nature, Trees

Fascinating Changes

Dark-eyed Junco

Juncos migrate south to the Upper Midwest each fall.

“There’s a junco!” Rich exclaimed as he pointed toward the tiny bird on a mid-October Walk. We knew the changing of the guard had happened.

Sighting the first junco each fall is, for us, a sign of the changing of the guard. They arrive for the winter at about the same time house wrens depart Iowa for warmer locales down south.

Changes in both bird species are fascinating to watch. On the same walk that we spotted the junco we saw dozens of robins. Unlike wrens and juncos, robins aren’t ambitious migrants. Come spring they cavort on lawns and love suburbia, but when the weather cools, they pack up and move to nearby orchards and brushy places that offer dried berries to eat through the cold winter.

We like watching birds, but we’re not serious birders. Serious enthusiasts will drop whatever they’re doing and drive a couple of hundred miles to see an unusual bird.  We’re content to sit on our back deck or walk local trails to watch changes in bird numbers and species. We love the changing of the bird guard.

Birds

Geese on the wing

Geese flying

Big changes come in mid-autumn and late winter. Waterfowl are the most obvious “changing of the guard” as they wing overhead on their way back south, or north in the spring. Unnoticed by many people are the earlier migrants like the shorebirds that head south as early as August. Wrens hang around in late summer after fledging but are quieter. Nighthawks and chimney swifts stage to head south. Vultures soar overhead and drift to warmer climes when they need to. Often, we just don’t notice these changes in bird activity until we realize we have not seen a species for a while. Or when we see birds that have been “quiet” for a few weeks, begin to flock.

 

Spring Changes

In late March Robins on lawns, waterfowls calling from aloft, and Vultures circling overhead herald spring’s return. Figuring out when the last junco leaves is tougher as they simply seem to melt away. Often, we’ll ask each other, “Have you seen a junco lately?”  If the answer is “no” they’ve likely left for northern breeding grounds.   In April we anticipate the first wren’s arrival.

Busy Summer Months

April and May are fascinating months as the summer guard arrives. Some, like many warblers, stay just for brief stops to rest and eat. Then they head north. However, orioles, grosbeaks, phoebes, and a few warbler species, stick around all summer to delight us with their songs and color. It is sad when they slip away as summer transitions into fall.

Trees Change, Too!

Many people anticipate the change of tree color and travel to catch “the height” of fall foliage.  In New England these “migrants” are called “leaf peepers.” The come, catch the color, spend money and go back home. Here is one road trip that is worth reading about. Marion is familiar with many of these places in her home territory.

Around here, we notice more color in towns and cities than the countryside as the tree species are more varied. Ashes turn purple or yellow, maples are known mostly for reds and oranges. Yellow Cottonwood leaves dance in autumn breezes before winds strip them off. The driftless area of Northeast Iowa, Southern Minnesota and Wisconsin, and northern Illinois are always worth a jaunt to for color and birding.

Glorious weather of warmer days and cooler nights feel good all around. Fall sports have cranked up. And, there is a longing in the air. When our avian friends slip away unnoticed, we feel slightly bereft. Time is moving on.

Steppping Into Winter Mode

So, the first junco sighting stirs pleasant memories. We find few winter activities are as delightful as sitting indoors embraced by our woodstove’s warmth while enjoying a cup of steaming tea while watching juncos along with, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, cardinals and bluejays that visit our feeder. The latter here all year and bring joy and color during the drab winter months.