farmdoc's blog post number 131

Six weeks ago my previous girlfriend left me. Now I have another. This one’s 82-years-old, extremely wealthy, and married (to someone else). And unfortunately I’ll never meet her. She’s Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. Though I’ve known of her for many years, until recently she hasn’t impressed me. But now I’ve reconsidered. She has several homes of which the main, and best-known, one is Buckingham Palace. But I've latterly become enamoured of her because of what she’s done with another one: Balmoral Castle, her summer retreat within the Balmoral Estate in northeast Scotland. I’ve been there; in the 1970s I stood outside the Estate’s front gate and peered in. She’s planning to make Balmoral totally energy self-sufficient, mainly by installing on a stream in the Estate a hydro-electric plant that generates enough power for the area’s 1,000 homes, with the excess fed to the national grid. She's registered all the woodlands with the Forestry Stewardship Council, and all the farming practices with the Soil Association which promotes organics. Naturally, all the Estate’s organic waste is recycled; annually 50 tonnes is turned into compost. Her security staff now use mountain bikes rather than Range Rovers. The Estate’s machinery now runs on biodiesel and biodegradable lubricants and oil. And she’s converted the Castle’s oil-burning boilers to run on woodchips. Ah, Lizzy - you’re my kind of girl.