Endings and Beginnings

This weekend was Labour Day weekend, marking the last long weekend of the summer, always a sweet and sad occasion. Camps and cottages get closed for the winter, the countryside is busy with the traditional fall fairs, and ice cream places see their last line ups of sun-burned customers before the cool weather moves in.

It was a pretty busy weekend for us, too, with a number of EcoB&B guests staying with us (always delightful company), the cutting and splitting firewood for the winter (and stacking it in our brand new wood shed), and a few house tours.

One house tour stood out from the others: about 20 students from Confederation College's Architectural Technology Program with their program coordinator Butch Petrone as part of their Orientation Week.

It was great to have architecture students visit with the specific purpose to learn and experience more about unconventional methods of building and designing. After all, these are the folks who will be part of the new wave of environmentally more sustainable ways of building, and we were pleasantly surprised to notice their keen interest and smart questions.

It was an encouraging experience for us, seeing the enthusiasm the next generation of designers and builders has for new ideas; it's all about being open-minded and interested in new concepts, avoiding the traps of conventionality.

A warm thank-you to Butch Petrone for getting his students to tour this unconventional place, and for introducing them to environmentally saner building methods. We're looking forward to continue this relationship!