So anyways, with this in mind, we have run through what our expenses would look like under three different scenarios:

The chart above shows the cumulative income at each year were we to purchase panels outright (blue), get a loan which we would pay down fast as our tax credits roll in (red), and get a loan that we would just pay off simply (Yellow). In this analysis, we are primarily interested in two things: payback time, and peak deficit (size of deficit, and when it occurs). Things to note on this, this is for a 2.04 KW system priced by Solterra Systems (who also estimated energy savings), the up front costs to us after energy trust incentives would be $9,728. Under the purchase outright option that would be our peak deficit at the end of year zero, but because there would be a large tax credit just a few months later, we start this chart with year one. The loan is an Umpqua Bank Green Streets loan (no down payment, 6.5% interest, 60 month term).

The interesting thing about this, is that the no loan option has about a 7.5 year payback, both of the loan options have us in deficit for about 9.5 years… The option where we pay back fast starts that deficit immediately with a peak deficit of $3,962 at year two, while with the one where we don’t  aggressively pay off, we are at positive cash flow for the first three and a half years and are then negative until year 13 (2026) with a peak deficit of $2,514 on year five. So that third option is in some ways the easiest financially with the least risk, but it also most relies on the feel good aspect of a solar installation, not seeing a for real benefit until way in the future.

Having said all this, we have yet to reach a decision on what to do.

So while things are quiet here at Harpoon House, head over to tumblr to find out what I’ve been up to and what issues are on my mind.

As we mentioned earlier, we have been filling space with meadowfoam because it is green during the fall and reseeds itself nicely. I had ordered a large packet of seeds for white meadowfoam (Limnanthes alba), and tried sprouting them various ways with some success just throwing seed onto one of our ecoroofs. Of those I tried to start indoors only a few sprouted, and those that did looked quite different from those that were growing on our ecoroof. At first, because of the leaf shape, I thought that they were more Douglas’ meadowfoam that just ended up in the seed packet, but once it started sending up buds it became clear that it was something different. As near as I can tell, they are wooly meadowfoam (Limnanthes floccosa)… A somewhat uncommon meadowfoam with a range that seems to be just a few specific locations in southern Oregon and far northern California. No idea what subspecies, no idea how it got into the seed packet, but we now have a few living happily on our roof.

Update:

Another possibility is that this is the Douglas’ Meadowfoam subspecies Nivea (Limnanthes douglasii ssp. nivea). More common, but not what we expected.

Oregon Iris

Plus, we discovered an Oregon iris blooming in our front park strip the other day:

We planted several shortly after moving in, and hadn’t seen any sign of them since… We had long thought that we had managed to kill them all, and then all of a sudden, two years later, one starts blooming.

One of the nice spring surprises this last week has been that our camas has decided to bloom. While our camas has had a great success rate since planting, we had been wondering if it would bloom at all, or if the ecoroof environment was a little too rough (shallow, nutrient poor soil). But it is more a reminder of just how old some plants can be… Judging by camas that we are growing elsewhere on our yard from seed, and the size these were when planted, they are probably five or six years old.

I’m often surprised that these aren’t a more common ornamental for people to keep in their yards. They’re quite striking and require zero watering and maintenance. They were likely very common in Portland 150 years ago and are talked up often as a great native plant to have around, but it is unfortunately very rare to come across one in town.

We have a whole stand of camas up on our roof, and the few that are in bloom right now are just the beginning.

With the onset of spring, and our recent beautiful weather, we have been able to enjoy one of our favorite aspects of the house: Dinners on our ecoroof. We have a small area of pavers sitting amongst ferns, strawberries and camas with a little round table and a lovely view of the neighborhood, downtown, and the sunset. Just about the best way possible to enjoy a warm spring evening.

We have recently started up with the Portland Audobon’s Backyard Habitat Certification Program and picked up plants from one of their seasonal sales this last weekend. We started a couple of months ago by signing up and having someone come out to evaluate our yard… While we consider ourselves fairly knowledgeable about native plants, its nice to have an extra set of eyes to tell us whats good and whats terrible. The verdict was mainly that we’re generally on the right track for building habitat into our yard, we mostly just need to fill in more. Which we pretty much suspected.

Plant Sale

Which brings us to the new plants and one of the big benefits to starting the program, discounts on native plants.

Our main spots that we’re trying to fill in are the park strips, one of which is quite large. One of the suggestions we got for a quick groundcover and weed suppressant is strawberries, which for some reason hadn’t occurred to us, despite rampantly spreading feral wood strawberries on other parts of our yard and our successful coastal strawberries on our ecoroof. So priority this spring is going to be to transplant as much as we can while the strawberries are sending out runners. This weekend however, we picked up a nice largeish snowberry for what we intend to turn into a more shady woodland area, and well as camas and nodding onions for our more meadowy area.

For the Shade

In addition to our park strips, we have an area just to the north of our house that we are trying to populate that, thanks to our house and our large tulip tree, never sees direct sun. We have been pleased to find volunteer violets, False Solomon’s Seal, and Sword Ferns, but its still a little sparce. For now, we just picked up some more groundcover, but we were encouraged to get something more shrubby in as well like a red huckleberry… Which fulfills two of our needs, native and tasty. So expect it to be planted shortly.

Over the last year we have become pretty enamored with a particular group of plants -Meadowfoam… Due in large part to one great reason, they are an off season plant. Native to California and Oregon, meadowfoams are well adapted to the particularities of the west coast, mainly mild wet winters and hot dry summers. They are annuals who’s cycle is to sprout in November when the rains kick in, grow throughout the winter and spring, and then flower in May/June when the things start to warm up.

Right now, we have two species growing. Douglas’ Meadowfoam (Limnanthes douglasii):

And White Meadowfoam (Limnanthes alba):

The Douglas’s Meadowfoam was planted last year, and did a great job of reseeding itself and is getting pretty established in our front and on our entry ecoroof. Its not really that native, growing primarily in southern Oregon and far northern California in the Klamath/Siskiyou area. The White Meadowfoam, which we started from seed this last fall does live in the Willamette Valley and is cultivated for the oil from its seeds.

Both species have so far shown to do fairly well in an ecoroof environment and seem to not mind being dug up and moved, so we have plans to spread them around our yard anywhere that they’ll grow. Our entry ecoroof in particular is a rough place in the summer so we’re trying to encourage plants with a stronger seasonal shift up there to take as much advantage of the rainy months as we can. And the rest of our yard really could use a little more life from November to February when everything else dies back.

Just as before, it seems that our ecoroofs seem to know when the season is about to change before anything else does. Over the last week or so, camas has been popping up all over the place on both of our roofs that have some. This year, we also have a new early spring indicator, violets:

If anyone is able to identify this for us, we’re curious to know exactly what it is… But some time last spring a small patch of violets started growing on the ecoroof just outside our bedroom. We really didn’t expect it to last the summer, but its still here, doing quite well, and we would be happy to see it spread a little.

New Plants

This weekend we picked up a handfull of new plants from the One Green World Plant Mobile: yuzu, cranberries, and saffron crocuses. Even though most citrus has difficulties with the Pacific Northwest, yuzu is one of the few that can grow outside all year. I’ve read hardiness claims from 15°F to 0°F. Either way, we’re pretty safe and we’re hopeful for a harvest at the end of the year.