You'll find me in the issues offered at Ralph's in Mission Valley and Hillcrest, Whole Foods in Hillcrest, and Henry's in North Park.

In the September 2009 edition, we looked at some fun uses for free solar energy. I tried my hand at making a solar oven and doing solar woodburning. Here is a photo of my solar oven. I bought the windshield visor at the 99 cent store. Instead of velcro-ing it into a funnel shape, I just tucked the visor in under the oven rack. My pot was dark gray, not black, but it heated up WAY too hot to touch and cooked up a pot of quinoa in about five hours. The line across the middle is a bamboo stick to hold the funnel open. Turns out this is a stay-at-home project because you have to keep moving the reflector to follow the sun. This will be a great addition to my disaster preparedness kit, plus a fun thing to do with the older grandkids to teach them about the power of the sun.

The other interesting solar project involved using a lens, like a magnifying glass, to burn wood. I used an eight inch round lens that I found, and burned a house address onto a piece of soft pine in just a few minutes. It's amazing to see the wood smolder in a matter of seconds when the sunlight is focused just right.