Are you looking to save on electricity bills, collect a carbon co-pay or simply want to experience a different ambiance at home? Living without lights can be an intriguing challenge.
I am into my Fifth Day of the self imposed light ban in the house. I am doing it because I simply love to challenge myself. Plus the co-pay with travel imminent.
I am not using candles or anything else.
The Light Challenge
This is what I have observed so far:
- Have your last meal of the day early while it is still light. (better for your digestion anyway).
- Open up those curtains and let the light in. (I don’t have curtains so this is easy)
- The fridge light is OK.
- Do close work by the window. (drag your reading or writing or sewing chair/desk to the window)
- Organize the pantry well (it is gloomy in there without a light on).
- Go to bed with the sun and wake up with the sun. (after only a few days this comes quite naturally)
Ideas evolve.
Sustainable Sunday Shorts with Celi.
I am off now to record my podcast. I have discovered that I am more settled and productive aiming for short podcasts packed with good stuff. I will still be writing and publishing the long form – but these stories cannot be hurried. And I was becoming anxious to get one out a week and not finishing them well.
So I am writing shorts instead.
So: Stand By all you SubStack Subscribers – we are going to Puketitiri.
Life is full of evolutions and turns – I feel good about this latest rendition in Sub Stack. SubStack is where I push the envelope, after all.
FreeBee has dug such a deep wallow that she has to lay like a stranded elephant seal so as not to drown. So few pictures from yesterday and I cannot work out why! But I guess I was too busy being happy – puddling about in the gardens.
Apples.
One of the apple trees is doing well.
When I get back from NZ I will do the summer fruit tree prune.
My mental list is long today. Because you know – if I don’t store it in my head I lose it!
Most of my list is travel oriented. I think I am travelling with too many books but that’s ok. Rather books than clothes any day!
Most of my list is about setting everything up so John can manage alone. Which he does perfectly well. He will not get back to the farm until the day before I leave so it will be a rushed hand over.
Do you want to join me in the Light Challenge? I will be talking aboout it in my podcast too.
I have five days left. Can you do five days without using electric lights in your house. Or one? Or two?
Take care. Talk soon.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
18 responses to ““A Week of no Lights in Your Home?””
Those pigs have a good life with you!
They do!!
Living without lights is my norm! My curtains and blinds are always open. It is very rare that I turn on any lights- I just don’t need them given the way my windows are situated. Natural light takes care of 99% of my needs. I just never understood how people can live with their blinds/curtains drawn and locked every day- never knowing what is happening just outside their windows.
Oh yes! When I first settled in Illinois I though all the houses were empty. Because all the windows were shut and all the curtains drawn!
Natural light is free!!
Since my husband passed I’ve been trying to cut back on lights and water consumption, except for the garden.
I do have a number of battery operated candles especially in the living room. Right now these give me comfort.
I’ll certainly try to forgo the light switches in areas like the bathroom or bedroom when I go to bed. I’m up for the challenge.
Yay! Diana! That’s great. I like the idea of the battery candles. I never even knew they were a thing! Rechargeable batteries make a big difference.
This is the sort of thing I would do if I lived alone, but I have a frail 93-year-old in the house: lights are a safety issue for her.
I’m right with you Celi ~ I barely use a light at nite ~ TV is on ~ that’s enough!!! And Boo doesn’t need one either!!!
Nope! Boo has not complained!!
We live in the Pacific Northwest with many dark, gloomy days…mostly during the winter months so having light in the house is very important to us…So, we built a house with Tons of windows and skylights to let in as much light as we could..No curtains or drapes to block any light either. Luckily we live surrounded by trees on acreage so we don’t have to worry about privacy from a street or anything. Lights are always kept to a minimum and only at night and even then, I mostly use candles or those little solar or battery powered twinkle lights.
How do you manage your no lights challenge with John..he must be on board with you or that challenge would certainly be a tough one. LOL..
You guessed it – John is away! 😂
I built in skylights too. They make such a difference!
We have the same setup. Built our house 21 years ago with mostly windows and skylights. No curtains here, either. But we live 500′ off the road, and everything is Maine woods around here. The winter is when we use most lights most often. I cannot go to bed at 4 PM!
Same..this challenge would be next to impossible for us in the winter when there is very little light even during the daylight hours which are so short to begin with. Going to bed at 4:30 here in the winter months just because it’s dark would not work. We do, however, only light the rooms we are using. It drives me nuts too when people have every light in the house blazing whether they are in those rooms or not..or not even home.
The few lights we use were switched to CFL bulbs many years ago. Those are now mostly changed out to LED. The two of us keep a low light profile all the time. When we need extra, we go ahead for the short time they are needed.
When we were kids we were taught to switch off the light as we left the room. Sometimes I can walk through this house and switch off six or seven lights that have been left on when they vacated the house. Drives me nuts!!
We have a couple of places with motion activated lights that turn off after a time of no activity. One of those is in the bathroom with a dim nightlight bulb. No need to blind yourself when visiting the throne.
I would find it hard to do at this time of year. It’s winter, and gets dark even earlier than our usual quick tropical summer nightfall. I’m up at first light anyway, but the whole house is set up to keep the harsh sunlight OUT, so finding good natural light on an overcast winter day is sometimes difficult. I do find it easy to navigate the house in the dark because my night vision is very good, so I rarely turn on the lights in other rooms when moving about at night. During summer, it would be a whole different story. But we generate more electricity than we use with our solar panels anyway, so I think I would need to find another way to pay for our fairly short flight to Melbourne…
Lights off is a great way to consider energy consumption. I dislike bright overhead lighting and tend to lamps, dim energy efficient bulbs. At the moment in winter every blind and curtain is open during the day to capture sun and warmth. As the sun drops, everything is closed up to keep the chill out. The reverse happens during the warmer months.