Supergirls

They were back again last week: the Ontario Junior Rangers, for their 3rd annual visit. A group of positive, fun, hard-working girls who spend their summer working on all kinds of green/environmentally sustainable projects, including ours. 

We kicked the day off with a house tour and cold drinks, but then they got into their gear and unphased stepped outside into the muggy heat.

The previous two years they helped us paint our place (see here and here); this year they cleared trails, weeded and hilled our potato plants, stacked firewood, and sanded down the stucco guest house walls. They worked so hard we almost ran out of chores for them!

It's become a summer highlight to have these girls around with their infectious energy and laughter filling the air. Positive vibes all around.
Thank you so much, gals! Here's looking forward to next summer!

Heat Wave? What Heat Wave?!

Up here in NW Ontario we're never sure if summer's actually here. Winters are crazy long and cold, and it's been known to snow on some Canada Days. But this time there's no doubt about it. The heat wave we've been having lately leaves little room for thoughts of snow, although this stifling heat almost makes you wish for some of the white stuff.

It's just too darn hot to do anything other than trying to keep cool. Stay in the shade, go to a beach, eat ice cream. Crank up that air conditioner and try not to think about your next Hydro bill, not to mention your carbon footprint.

As for us, we stay inside and enjoy our built-in "air conditioner": plenty of heat-absorbing thermal mass, 3-feet overhangs that keep direct sunlight out and especially the thick, super-insulating straw bale walls keep the indoor temps at a very pleasant 20C to 21C. Costing us not one penny.

Outside: pushing 35C.  Inside: a cool 20C - without air conditioning

Yup, life here is good - as long as we don't have to go out and do stuff. Hmm, but the grass needs cutting, there's still lots of firewood to be split and stacked, and the gardens need watering... Guess we'll have a cool one first, though!

B&B Bonus

One of the bonuses of our Eco Bed & Breakfast is we get to meet these wonderful people without having to go anywhere. This week for instance we had Larissa McLean spend a night here as she was travelling from Calgary to Southern Ontario. Larissa plans to one day build an off-grid straw bale home herself, but also turned out to be an accomplished print maker and water colour artist. A lady of many talents!

A summery stroll through our fields full of flowers produced a gorgeous field bouquet, the perfect subject for two water colour paintings she did that same evening (in about the same time we need to do the dishes).
Here's one of them:

water colour by Larissa McLean, July 2011

Most of our guests share sweet, funny or inspiring stories with us and leave delightful comments in our guest book. Not many leave a piece of artwork behind, a delicate souvenir of summer and a reminder of another wonderful guest.

Get Me To The Market!

Have you noticed? Local country markets are sprouting up just about everywhere. More and more people are aware now of the the many benefits locally produced produce and baking offer. Here in Nolalu the local local market went into its second year, with even more vendors than before. It found itself a new place, too, on the Nolalu Community Centre's parking lot, well visible and easy to find, every Friday from 4:00 - 7:00 pm.

So next time you're heading out to the lake or going for a drive in the country, stop by at the Nolalu Country Market for delectable pies, fresh veggies, baking, plants, even some arts and crafts. You'll get to meet the folks who grew/baked/made it all themselves, you know it's as fresh as it can possibly be, and you're supporting the local economy. Oh, and did I mention it's healthier and tastes noticeably better, too?

Buying local is a big part of a greener life style. Everyone benefits of a strong and healthy local community, it's a win-win situation for everyone. And as far as shopping experiences go, buying at a local market sure beats going to any super market, any time.

You'll find the Nolalu Country Market every Friday afternoon from 4:00 - 7:00, until October 1st. And if you're not in this area, go shop at any of the many other local country markets! Enjoy!

(for the latest info, visit the market's Facebook HERE.)

Firewood? Must be summer!

After a long winter that just didn't seem to want to let go, summer's finally here. And with the hot, seemingly endless days, the summer chores kick in: putting in gardens, setting up watering systems (thank you, water barrels!), some basic house maintenance, encouraging a few dozen insecure 3-year old trees using home-made compost, but most of all: getting next winter's firewood bucked, split and stacked.

The distant sound of chainsaws whining is the tell tale sign that we're not the only ones working at it. Common wisdom has it you'd better have your wood bucked and split by Canada Day (July 1st) so it has enough time to dry out before winter rolls around again. It's hard, hot work, yet strangely satisfying. We pretty much hit that target, most of our wood is ready for next winter and it even looks like there's enough left for the winter after - bonus!

Getting your firewood done is one of the bigger chores connected to living in the country. It's also a vital one: no firewood, no heat! And given our long cold winters and temps that routinely hover around the -30C to -40C mark, you'd better have your woodstove going!

Fortunately our large straw bale house proves very well insulated, using only about 3.5 cords of wood each winter - about one half to one third of similar sized homes out here. That saves a lot of work! And as I'm slowly working my way through what seems like a mountain of wood in the summer heat and surrounded by hungry mosquitoes, that's something I'm very grateful for right now...!

Going, going...

Life has been too busy for regular blog updates lately: putting the vegetable garden(s) in, work, new studies, setting up new courses through Confederation College - and a full blown estate auction.

Good friends of ours are moving away and asked to have their estate auctioned off from our property. We happily agreed, as this was a great opportunity to get rid of some of our own things, too.
Jacomyn quickly realized that an auction like this is not just an occasion to sell stuff, it's also a community event. Posters were distributed, people informed, and judging by the number of phone calls we got, pretty soon the community was aware of this upcoming event.

Auctioneer Peter Kantola in action on a large Douglas fir timber

Just after 8:00 am that morning the first lookers dropped in to go through the many things waiting to go, and around 10:00 auctioneer Peter Kantola kicked things off to rapidly work his way through the long list of items. Chairs, hammock, mud buggy, power wood splitter, paint, tractor, timbers, buckets full of screws and nails, power tools, scaffolding, you name it.

It was a lovely (and windy) day, turnout was great and the mood was excellent. Just after 1:00 everything was sold, often for next to nothing. A good time was had by all, we met some new neighbours, and on top of that our property got cleared of a lot of stuff we otherwise wouldn't have known how to get rid of.
Our friends also got rid of all their things and are now getting ready to move on. That's one thing this auction removed: a good friendship. We'll miss them.

Yay for Terrace Bay!

There aren't many recurring events we make a point of attending, but the Green Trade Show at Terrace is an exception to that rule. This year marked already the 4th time we attended; it's almost routine now and we now look forward to seeing the friends and familiar faces who make this show the success that it is.

Despite this town's modest size of 1800 souls and a depressed resource-driven economy, they somehow manage to organize one of this region's better "green" shows. Near-flawlessly organized, infectious of mood and a pleaser of crowds it's a true community event and the reason we keep coming back.

This time things were a little different: as we pulled into Terrace Bay, the clear Lake Superior air got replaced with the smell of the town's paper mill which had finally re-opened. Good news for the community that depends on the mill for jobs, but not necessarily good news for the environment. It encapsulated the difficult tension between economy and ecology...

Once again a shout out to the indefatigable Sean Irwin and his tireless team of volunteers who made it happen. See you all next year!



Opening speeches: show coordinator Shaun Irwin (right) and the mayor of Terrace Bay (left).



Nolalu Unplugged

So Nolalu is maybe not the centre of the universe. And maybe you think we don't have easy access to any culturally relevant entertainment (other than watching our amazing starry nights and northern lights).

Well, okay, maybe. But then our friend and neighbour Larry Watson thought: if we can't go to the entertainment, the entertainment shall come to us. And he organized a wonderful concert in his big and acoustically excellent woodworking shop.

And so, between wood planers, band saws and press drills, about 30 people enjoyed an exhilarating evening with the unique and exciting music from BC's Fish and Bird, as they made a stop-over here on their Canada tour.

Fish And Bird performing amidst woodworking equipment (for better acoustics)

Despite the fact that the 5-piece band (plus "road manager") only arrived about an hour before the show started, their performance was tight, musical, absorbing, and a qualified success (click here to hear some samples of their music).

Those in Thunder Bay who would like to enjoy what we in Nolalu enjoyed first, your chance will be May 30th in the Apollo. Highly recommended!
And to give this entry the required green edge: very soon this band will be touring this vast land of ours in a van that runs on vegetable oil!


Thank you to Fish and Bird for a wonderful musical experience in every sense of the word. And a big shout out to Larry and Liz who organized this neighbourhood concert and offered the band meals, beer and a place to spend the night.