Sunjuice Showers

One of my most favorite things about this house is the solar water heater. It sits on the roof with Gwyn's water heater and together they spend the days soaking up all the vitamin D and golden delicious sunshine they can, storing it in their water tanks. And in the morning, I get an amazing, piping hot, sunjuice shower... most days. Some mornings, following a rainy or cloudy afternoon, my sunjuice shower is maybe not-so-piping hot (though never cold)... The temperature is determined by the weather the previous day. But I like that too- taking what is given. Not more. Not less.

Now, I suspect you scienc-y folk will give me a knowing and ever so slightly condescending look as you tell me that there is, in fact, no qualitative difference between water heated by sun and water heated by electricity. But I assure you there is. I do have an electric back-up switch, which has been called upon on rare occasion, and it is just not the same. Its harsh. Metallic. Cold, though its scalding hot. Sunjuice, on the other hand, is warm and embracing, gentle even if you need to add cold so as not to get burned...

(The only down side to my shower bliss is the mornings I wake up and find a spider or spiders (!!) in the tub... Last week I had to forgo a shower altogether one day due to a very LARGE spider that was stuck in the tub. Thank you Molly for helping me escort that particular unwanted visitor off the premises later that evening...) (Ok, maybe he was midsized... but he definitely wasn't going to fit down the drain holes... which required removal out of the tub from above. And I don't squish things bigger than mosquitos. I'm not that kind of tough.)

This photo doesn't have anything to do with the wonders of my sunjuice showers... but it is a lovely sunset from my porch, looking down over the neighbors roof top towards the distant hills. (Now if I could just scoot that house over a couple of yards and get it out of my lovely view... )