What I've been up to ...

Who ever thought too much blogging would result in no blogging, but that's what's happened to me.

Apart from working on a new blog for the Horton Farmer's Market here in St. Thomas, and planning the design of one for our friends at McSmith's Organic Farm, I've given myself a blog challenge;

I wont throw out a piece of plastic until I know I can't recycle it.
And then post a list so I'll never have to research that item again.

Like the thing that holds a 6 pack together, or a potato chip bag. Or how about the plastic my new underwear is sold in, or all the wrapping containing my PC tea, other than the box? My tofu container, coffee tin seal, resealable bag of peanuts, and the bag containing my cereal in the box.
Seems simple, but it wasn't until I starting looking for it did I realize most of the plastic leaving our home isn't labeled with a recycling code which is another disappointing realization, hot on the footsteps of "most blue box items go to landfill".

So it's better to be informed and a little disappointed, than to be naive and in ignorant bliss. I've begun asking manufacturers to provide me with either the plastic code, or the plastic type. I'm also asking why, with so much labeling, promotion and information on packaging, they aren't provide consumers with the info we need to properly dispose of their often excessive packaging.

Oh, and did I mention a group of us at work are creating a long-overdue Environmental Committee?

Being Fruit (ful)

What is it about apple trees?

Is it some deep DNA-linked force, that their mere presence reassures me?

Knowing birds have a home and bees have a meal certainly works for me on a tree-hugger level, but I wont be sitting under them for shade or climbing them to hide from seekers.
I guess they kind of seem wise to me, once they get old and wizened.

Robin loves the knarriness of a fruit tree that's seen a few years, largely from a painterly point of view, but my connection seems stronger than a visual.
Whatever it is, we've planted three beautiful young apple trees on our west property border, in a spot unencumbered by wires and blessed with full access to sunshine.

We decided on three trees, purchased from our local nursey, Canadale, once we learned we needed more than one cultivar for cross-pollination (Mustsu apple trees require TWO other varieties). A piece of information which will not only help ensure fruitful trees, but also eliminated the need for an embarrassing arm-wrestle in the middle of the nursery (a challenge I would've been forced to win by cheating).


Mutsu - a bakers fav, was chosen by/for Laura for obvious reasons, some of which will by pies and sauce, freshly prepared by mom and daughter (hint hint)

Cox's Orange Pippen - which Robin chose largely due to a nostalgic connection to the UK and partly due to the fact he can now more easily work the word "cox" into a dinner conversation.

Honeycrisp - my choice for it's sharp sweetness and durability (bouncing around in my sweater pocket, it's still firm when I finally decide to bite in)


Thanks to Lisa who provided the supports our saplings will need to survive our increasingly aggressive storms, and to Mom who was our "investor". I guess we owe them both a few pies!

We've been careful to keep their mulched mounds watered during these early days and with luck (and careful pruning) our three trees, snuggled securely into the ground, will give us lots of blossoms, nests and fruit in return.

I expect I'll look back on this post, years from now, with our freezer filled with sauce and our cupboard with jars of sun-dried slices.

Energy Retrofit Masterplan Results

When we bought our house in spring of 2007 we had only ever rented, or owned the "inside" of a house. I know that sounds odd, but the closest we'd been to ownership was our condominium of which we owned only the space up to and including the inside of the outer walls, doors and windows. So armed with only our interior knowledge we started a journey to make a greener home and, hopefully, qualify for some government money.
The time-line was this; an initial inspection; 18 months to complete whatever improvements we considered most valuable; and a final audit inspection which would determine our success, which would then translate into grant money.
In the end, we spent $1,552.64 to insulate our attic and the crawl space under the dining room, install a low-flush toilet, replaced our water heater with tankless and seal our drafty doors and windows (this amount also includes $325.40 for the two inspections).
April of this year we received $805.00 from Natural Resource Canada and last week we received $805.00 from the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.

So apart from covering our costs, the big plus from this experience for me is I now feel very familiar to, and connected to, our house. We've examined interior walls, pressure-tested everything for drafts, had pipes scraped for lead and the water tested for toxins. The foundation has been examined for weakness, our rickety chimney was removed (made redundant by the tankless water heater) and our attic is snug as a bug. So, in this particular case, breaking even is pretty good.
Now if only I could find an energy audit that will give me grant money for installing solar panels and a wind turbine ...

Hoop House Spinach in March

We took a small leap of faith when we dreamt of home-grown leafy greens, hand-picked from our own garden in the middle of an Ontario winter.

Actually, faith tempered with research, good advise, and hope.

One thing for me to quickly realize was I'd have to largely abandon control and embrace weather in ways I wasn't expecting. I found myself loving the absolutely bone-chilling days when it was too cold to snow, for during those periods the sky was so clear that sunshine would melt the ice from the outside of the plastic and the frost from the inside, allowing the house to warm.

And on the overcast days, when white drifts seemed to appear overnight, I was thankful for the insulative properties of snow and ice, effectively sealing any drafty spots. There were days so cold that birds didn't venture to the feeders; days I had to shovel a path to the hoop house door. Yet, once inside, I could remove my hat and gloves to tidy or harvest. All this with only the sun's natural warmth.Of course, there ain't nothing natural about pickin' greens in the winter, though our approach certainly was; plant hardy varieties, enclose with plastic, blanket with garden cloth and let the sun do it's work.

Which isn't to say I was willing to let Winter have it's way with my leafy greens, and it wasn't without occasional struggles.
Like that morning in December when I woke to find the hoop house largely collapsed under snow-weight, all of our greens inside still unpicked. Surprisingly, after a few frantic minutes of me in my jammies desperately dislodging snow from the roof which was now below waist level, one by one the hoops sprung back into place. The end walls had remained intact and the interior was eerily warm, having snuggled under the snow all night. That day, Lisa dropped everything and constructed make-shift supports which will surely outlast our remaining winter storms.
What I've learned about our winter hoop-house garden is that I need only embrace what will happen naturally; slow growth and dormancy, some die-off, some consumption by whatever creatures found a way in (good for them!) and our increasingly volatile weather. If I let all this happen and remain diligent with my snow removal I'm confident we'll continue to harvest our spinach and herbs through to Spring.

Instantaneous Results

Tread Lightly, and Leave No Trace.

Tread Lightly
Tread Lightly
and
Leave No Trace.

I repeat this mantra every once in a while, especially when I've judged myself harshly for being wasteful, or for taking more than my share. I have to remember that living respectfully is not about punishment or doing without; for me it's about taking control and doing my best to responsibly enjoy one fair share, one equal portion, of our earth.

In my past, while apartment and condo living, I've been frustrated by my inability to live "lightly". I was determined to make it my ability when we moved to an environment more readily controlled.

Having settled into a house (recently discovered to be built in 1940), our 2007 Energy Efficiency Assessment came with a deadline of 18 months in which to complete whatever retrofits we could afford (in dollars and time), in order to qualify for government grant money.

As the completion deadline approached, I found myself obsessing about calculations - did we spend our money wisely, investing in the improvements which will give us the biggest rebate?; if I quickly weather-strip the back door, will I get $5 more for air-tightness? I had clearly forgotten the point, my own the big picture.
Tread Lightly
Tread Lightly
Further, when we had our tankless water heater installed, I was pretty much ready to plan the holiday we could afford with the $ $ savings it would generate (Molly Johnson, who hosts the weekend morning program on CBC Radio 2, just mentioned having spent her renovation grant money well ahead of (hopefully) receiving it).

Of course, it's not as simple as hooking up an energy meter to the heater and watching the dials spin in reverse, tallying the negative calculations needed to undo my life's energy gulping moments, all the while making me a better person and validating my decision to spend more money each month to rent this miraculous invention. Whew!
Perhaps a little too much to ask of a machine.

Although I had faith in the logic of instantaneous hot water, I needed reassurance; it was time to spreadsheet our gas bills! Both our furnace and the water heater run on gas so it was necessary to cross-reference average outside temperatures to factor in variances in the amount of gas used to heat the house;
So, in spite of the fact that we used more fuel heating the house (our programmable thermostat ensures consistency), our gas bill has still dropped, suggesting less gas used to heat our water. As a safeguard, I also checked our water consumption to ensure we weren't running the tap more, waiting for the water to heat, which wasn't the case;

So, we are definitely treading lighter than we were at the same time a year ago, while still living more luxuriously than most of our global neighbours.

As much as I am happily anticipating our grant money, having spent the money as Molly did, some months ago, I am also pleasantly aware that we've achieved the real reason for undertaking the retrofit; to Tread Lightly.



Just a note to put our water consumption into perspective, as I realize I've taken only a small step toward real conservation;

At 180 litres/day, we're under our regional average of 258 litres/day (a 1999 total, which I've extrapolated for 2009 in which it will exceed 262) and well under B.C.'s average of 550 litres/day (610 in adjusted numbers). However, globally we're certainly letting the tap drip; Africa is at 47 litres/person/day, Asia is 85 litres/person/day, UK is 334 litres/person/day, and, of course, US tops the list consuming 578 litres/person/day (all numbers from 1999 stats)

Now, to Leave No Trace ...

Three Bs and an E

Bea's big reveal

Buster's bushed after opening gifts

Ben gets toasty

echos of Ella

Fairmeadow Farm Hoop House

Helping our friend Michelle at Fairmeadow Farm as she assembled her really big 20 by 100 foot hoop-house, was a good trial-run for our own hoop-house construction, though we could put 10 of covered gardens under her roof, with plenty of room to navigate!).

Not long after erecting the cover, inside and out her crops looked sumptuous, as if carved out of marzipan, obediently lined into their rows, patiently waiting for harvest.

A winter CSA is quite a different animal from a summer operation. Along with the challenges of growing with radically reduced warmth and sunshine, our weather here is unpredictable and can be quite aggressive (as we saw two weeks ago when our sudden, very wet snowfall weighed-down our hoophouse to the degree that I thought it had collapsed, though it sprung right back into shape as I removed the snow - whew!)

We've had two Fairmeadow Farm pick-ups to date and thank goodness we're proceeding with work on our cold cellar.
Potatoes, carrots, white and red onions and garlic, mixed greens, spinach, leeks and radishes, pumpkins and gourds, celeriac and herbs. Brussel sprouts and cabbage ... so far.


Michelle posts recipes on her blog (like Martha does on the Orchard Hill blog), giving information, recipes and tips for enjoying the veggies we might not otherwise serve.

Winter never tasted so good!