I love the south-facing passive solar aspect of our house. It's kept winter heating bills very low for all these year but we do suffer a few weeks of 90-100º heat every summer. The solution has been to keep the window shades down but it makes for a darkened cave-like atmosphere inside.

This year we've had an unusual number of birds flying into the windows so we were spurred to action to find some solution to both problems. The Plow and Hearth catalog introduced us to Coolaroo shades - problem solved! Luckily, we found them cheaper at McGuckin Hardware (sorry P & H) and installed them in a couple of hours or less. I love the product.