Double Coverage

Nice view. Manly men doing manly things I don't care to do.

So Big Ag and Groceries were outside today, digging holes for the buckthorns we'll be putting in as a privacy hedge.  Neighbor comes out and asks what we are doing.....and I decide to go for it.  I explain that I like to do backyard astronomy and that his yard lights are killing our view of the Milky Way.  He says he'll work on remembering to turn them out more.

Pleasant conversation, no weirdness or resistance.  Will he remember to shut off his lights?  Not sure.  But I figure we have double coverage now.  He'll be our first hope, but if that fails, we have our buckthorn hedge as our back-up.

Double coverage to give us darkness at night.  Definitely something worth over-planning for.

Hail the Mighty Buckthorn

I have posted in the past about our issues with light pollution, specifically from our neighbors' lights.  This weekend Big Ag and I were at the nursery, picking out some drought tolerant and freeze hardy plants to replace those we lost in the Big Freeze back in December when we stumbled upon some small versions of this attractive looking shrub/tree:

Meet the "John Edwards" Italian Buckthorn.  Drought and freeze hardy, loves well-drained soil with lots of calcium, and evergreen. Grows 2 - 3 feet per year, or more.

Meet the solution to our light issues.

We bought three of these to add to our backyard landscaping, and another four to plant along the south fence of our house, where our neighbors have six spotlights, which shine all night long.  We have a similar light-loving neighbor along the north side of our property, and will be planting a high hedge of 15 - 20 buckthorns there, to completely block the lights from that direction.  It will also give us a bit more privacy and block the unsightly view of his assorted cars and trailers.

We shopped a fence which would do the same thing, and the price came in at approximately $3500.  We're not willing to spend that much on something that will only decrease in beauty as it grows older. We can buy the Buckthorns and get them planted for about 10 percent the cost of the fence, and they will actually grow in beauty and majesty as they age. I love hedges, and finding a plant we can use for one that is also drought-tolerant is a boon for us.

I'm looking forward to a much greener view outside with these lovelies in view, and especially to a darker yard, which their thick foliage will help provide us.

A Light Issue, Part II

So I never like to be one who presents a problem without presenting a solution.  Regarding light pollution, there are some easy solutions.

The easiest solution, by far, is to just turn off lights you are not using, or if you live in an area where you need to be concerned about your safety or the safety of your livestock, install a motion detector, which turns your lights on only when something moves. (How much outdoor lights actually deter predators and criminals is a subject that is up for debate, but I'm going to leave that be for now.) 

Adding motion detectors to your lights assures you that when all is calm, as the song goes, all does NOT necessarily have to be bright. (A little Christmas humor for ya)

Modifying existing lighting so that there are baffles on it or moving toward lighting that has more recessed receptacles allows more light to reach the ground and less to shoot off in the direction of the sky.

All these ideas, if used widely, could do a great deal to ensure more of us grow up seeing a night sky that at least partially resembles what our ancestors saw when they looked up at night.  It's a legacy worth preserving.

A Light Issue

Pretty

One of then nicest things about living atop a hill this time of year is being able to look down at all the beautiful Christmas light displays on the surrounding farmhouses.  There are lights of all colors, some in the trees, some bordering the eaves of the houses below.  These are lights that are a pleasure to look at, which bring out feelings of wonder and joy.

There are other lights in our area which are not so lovely.  There are the yard lights, aimed straight out rather than downward, which blast light into their neighbors' bedroom windows two miles away.  

Not so pretty

There are barn lights mounted thirty feet up when their only purpose is to illuminate the ground below. And of course, the many, many security lights, back yard lights, coach lights on garages, porch lights, and even landscape lighting (including spotlights).

Then there is the light of the Milky Way, an opaque stream of stars culminating at the constellation Sagittarius, the center of our galaxy.  It stands above us, a magnificent and silent reminder of our place in the universe.  Its light is perhaps the most meaningful of all.

And yet, with enough halogen barn lights, porch lights and garage coach lights, the light of the Milky Way above us is dimmed, sometimes to a point where it becomes invisible. And when that happens, although we may feel safer in our mercury-vapor-lit world, we have lost something important.

Absolutely magnificent

You could once see the Milky Way late at night on the outskirts of cities like Los Angeles, but that is no more.  Even in the country, dark night skies are getting more and more scarce. Since moving here 18 months ago, we have seen several new neighbors move here from the cities and proceed to light up every nook and cranny on their property, almost as although they are afraid of the dark, of the country night sky they moved to and its shades of black, silver and gray on the fields and hillsides lit only by the stars or moon.

Of all the pollution issues we face on this planet, I hope we also include light pollution whenever we get around to actually cleaning it all up.  To miss the swirling nebula, open clusters and deep, open space of a dark night sky would be a tremendous loss to the human race.

I'm all for enjoying the Christmas lights while they are here, but I hope after the holidays are over and done with for another year, we can once again enjoy our nights lit by a different sort of light -- the light of a billion stars and galaxies who we share this universe with.  

To replace that magical zodiacal light with mercury vapor barn lights or ultra-bright LED yard lights seems an awful waste of the light of a billion suns, which move across our night sky faithfully, noticed only when it's dark enough that we can actually

see them.