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Amish also feel strain of high fuel costs
Jonathan Starkey The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal via USA Today
... The Amish, widely known for their horse-drawn buggies and a lifestyle that shuns many modern conveniences, are as susceptible to the sting of rising oil prices as anyone else.

From the diesel fuel for tools used in milking cows, building cabinets and sawing timber, to the gasoline used to power washing machines and freezers, the pinch is real.

Amish are banned from driving cars and trucks because Amish leaders worry that faster transportation could "pull the community apart." The prohibition, however, does not extend to fuel-powered motors and engines such as those used to run power tools and washing machines, says Donald Kraybill, a scholar on the Amish at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa.

"I don't know that there ever was a categorical taboo on the engine," Kraybill says. "They used steam engines in the late 19th century."

In addition to his own fuel costs, Troyer says, the Baltimore company that provides him with stains and finishes has tacked an additional $12 on each delivery. He says he may have to raise his prices to compensate.

"If this keeps on, we're going to have to do something different," he says.
(24 July 2008)

Schools look to save money with four-day week
Voice of America
As we said last week, American schools are looking for ways to save money on bus transportation because of high fuel prices. More children may have to walk, ride their bikes or find other ways to get to school.

But, as another effect of the high prices, they may not have to go to school as often.

Some schools, especially in rural areas, are changing to a four-day week. That means longer days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday schedule...
(24 July 2008)

Will clotheslines turn dryers into relics?
Sheila Simon, Chicago Tribune
Hang out with me.

In my most rich environmentalist fantasies I am off the grid, self-sufficiently solar. In real life I'm still on the grid because I'm not rich.

But even in real life with a budget, my family and I have scored big with one simple lifestyle change—we hang dry all of our laundry. It has reduced our power bill, and turned us, like converts to a new faith, into proselytizers.

We had long ago taken steps to reduce our electricity use. We replaced all of our light bulbs with fluorescents, use less air conditioning in the summer and turn the heat down in the winter when we're all out of the house. But nothing made such a dent in our power bill as abandoning the dryer. That simple change dropped our average monthly bill by more than $100...
(27 July 2008)