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Trying to reduce your family's electric bill is a good idea at any time of the year. However, doing so in Rye Hollow can have unexpected rewards, especially in the summer.

Our plan is a simple but effective one. Rather than using an air conditioner, my wife and I take advantage of the cooler nights to regulate the temperature inside our house. Each evening we closely monitor an inside/outside thermometer. When the temperature outside is cooler than inside the house, we open the doors and windows and use a fan to draw the cooler air inside. We reverse the procedure the following morning, closing up the house when the temperature outside begins to rise above the temperature inside.

Except during the hottest nights of the summer, our system works well enough. And even then, any discomfort can usually be minimized by one or two strategically placed fans. Several fans still use a lot less energy than an air conditioner.

This method of cooling the house has two distinct advantages. First, it saves electricity. My wife and I share a concern for the environment, so we're always looking for ways to minimize how much energy we use. Our strategy isn't for everyone, though. Because we live in the woods, our house doesn't get as much sun as some do. For that reason, we're better able to take advantage of the morning and afternoon shade.

Second, with our windows open each night, we hear all the night sounds that attracted us to living in the woods in the first place. Rather than thinking about the environment in abstract, global terms, we need only open a window or two to cultivate a more immediate, personal connection to nature. It's what we hear when we fall asleep each night.

Of the many animal calls we hear on a regular basis, some are more familiar than others. For instance, in the spring the first calls we hear through our open windows are usually those of the spring peepers. Most of the time the peepers stop singing well before summer begins. However, because our spring was so dry, the peepers began singing later this year than they usually do.

Late spring and early summer also are when we hear more owls. Here in Rye Hollow, screech owls and barred owls are common, and it's easy to tell them apart by their calls. The screech owl's subtle trilling is quite different from the barred owl's "hoo, hoo, hoo, hooo-aw," which some people say sounds like "Who? Who? Who cooks for you?"

By midsummer, tree frogs and toads have taken over, filling the night with their calling. Other than the familiar croaks of the bullfrogs in our little water garden, I'm unable to identify the calls of most of the amphibians that inhabit the woods around our house -- except for one. And he was hard to miss, because he chose our hot tub as the arena for his nightly serenades.

By the way, the water in our hot tub isn't usually heated, unless we plan to use it, so it's perfect for an occasional tree frog. And the way the weather's been lately, who could blame him?

Using a guidebook and a prerecorded CD of frog calls, we identified our hot-tub crooner as a gray treefrog, which is common in Appalachia. The little frog has been singing every evening for the past few weeks, and I've heard others responding from the woods that surround the house. I guess that means he's developed a wider audience.

For now, we'll continue to consider the frog singing in our hot tub as one of the many benefits of living in Rye Hollow, providing the little bugger doesn't invite too many of his friends to join him.

After all, it's a hot tub, not the amphibian equivalent of the Grand Ole Opry.

Steve Kark teaches writing and coordinates the internship program for the English Department at Virginia Tech.