Adjusting through the 1930s study

Little by little our house is feeling more like the era that we are studying.  

The quiet of the home is due to little running to make noise in the house.  

In my previous studies I have talked about how the cities may have been modern but the small communities and rural areas still did not have electricity.  

We recently found that another reason for not having electricity during the 1930s was that they could not afford to have electricity which they called the light bill. 

I have been torn about how I use electricity during the study.  As I was growing up old enough to remember in the 1950s I had family members that still did not have electricity. So I know many more of them did not have it during the 1930s.

Today we need to save all the money we can and that is by not spending.  Since Candles and Oil for the oil lamps are expensive I did finally find a way to use the oil lamps and regular lamps using our solar bulbs.

I just turn it on and then hook it over the lamp frame.

When we get up in the morning we simply use the solar bulbs instead of the electric lights.  It is working well for us because now we have a routine with charging the solar bulbs using the sun.

I even made a night light putting a solar bulb inside the milk glass chicken.

This would not work for us had we not started a routine for charging the bulbs. I do not use the night light all night long because that is not needed but I turn it on when it gets dark before bed and early morning.

The people that still relied on oil or gas lightening would have had to spend money for that so we have an advantage today using solar bulbs and since we truly are starting to resemble a possible great depression we chose the best choice for us and that is to learn to use the solar bulb to reduce our electric bill.  

Charging the bulb is as simple as putting the bulb and panel out in the sun to charge.  Right now these bulbs are two for $16.83 including the solar chargers. This is what we started with using solar lighting.

Or charge everything using the solar generator and then recharge the generator on a sunny day.  This is what we prefer to do now since we have our Jackery solar generator explorer 240.  We have solar panels that charge the Jackery. 

We have hurricanes here so over the years we have added to our equipment to manage without power during storms.  We have three lanterns called LuminAid seen in the photo above.  We have had several damaging storms here and one year we had a straight line wind that came through and damaged our neighborhood.  

Our lighting helped during this event and when it was over we started adding to what we felt we needed to get us through power outages that were not dependent on expensive batteries. 

These lanterns are a bit expensive now costing  $29.99 each.  To me the light bulbs are the best to have.  The lanterns are easier to charge and put out good light and are useful for going out in the dark.  I hang mine over the sink in the morning.  I am working on turning one into a hanging lamp with some pretty cloth.  

Flashlights use expensive batteries and it seems every time we have gone to purchase them they are more expensive. 

I have been doing some mending and also making patterns out of old worn out clothing so I can start sewing my own clothes again.  My eyes are not as good as they used to be so I am using solar lighting for this.  I am using a light that goes around my neck and I charge it using my solar generator so another item that does not require electricity or batteries. 

I move this lamp with roses in different areas of the house.  I can carry it around as they did with an oil lamp. The top of the lights I have put a small vintage Pyrex cup upside down so you do not see the solar bulb, and to me it looks like it is suppose to be that way  :)

Once I got everything figured out how I was going to do the lighting, I cleared a drawer to keep the solar panels, cords and extra light bulbs so that they are not sitting around.  It feels good to keep it all put in place and now I have the vintage vibe in the house once again, except for my sewing light.  I might have to make a cute fabric cover, yes I will do that!

We are going to bed earlier now and getting up earlier in the morning, and we have a better routine.

My household cleaning has gone back to my one room proper.  I have gone back to using the push carpet cleaner and it is really surprising how well it works.

With Charles helping me to keep things lined up, I papered the back of a cabinet in the kitchen and moved the water filters to their new area. This is a small chest of drawers and I am using one of these drawers for the solar items. 

This paper cozied up the space and made it a bit more vintage. 

My small writing desk was moved to the dining/sitting room. 

The little sitting area here and Elizabeth is at her look out window watching squirrels play.  The pets enjoy the quiet home, it does make quite a difference for them to not have a television blaring and mechanical things running.

We are finally getting baby zucchini, but we still need bees!

This is my most favorite plant in the garden, Lemon Verbena.  Oh the smell of it is wonderful!

The onions are multiplying, the cucumbers  are getting big enough to eat, the beans are starting to make and we are picking a few here and there and throwing them into the pot.

If there is not enough to make a side dish we put it into the boiled chicken.

This was a nice meal that we enjoyed, added the few beans we picked to the canned beans. 

We made some currant scones and put the leftovers in the cake tin.  I still have not made the vinegar pie due to busying around with other things such as touch up painting in the kitchen. 

It is that time of year when the bed quilt was put away and the chenille spread is back on the bed. 

And Carley has decided that she wants to be on top of the writing desk for awhile.  

Ellie is not so sure she is happy about Carley's decision to leave the buffet. 

So that is what is going on around here.  I continue to research and found some interesting articles about telephone operators.  I may talk about that in the next post along with some menu planning.   

Have any of you made some adjustments due to this study?  If you have questions or need help with your study just ask in the forum so others can read the answer.  If you do not want to use the forum and you have a private question send an email.  

The forum link is located at the top of the blog in the menu section.  You can read without signing up, the sign up to post is just to keep spam out of the forum, it cost nothing either way. 

Grandma Donna