Pre-fab cottages

EZlog Ontario

EZLog structures are one of the best ready to assemble do-it-yourself log building kits available. Each log is pre-cut for easy stacking with interlocking corners, resulting in easy assembly and a sturdy and air-tight structure. Every kit includes all that is required for a lock up structure, from pressure treated foundation beams, floor, walls, windows, doors to the roof, including all hardware.

EZ Log Structures use kiln dried spruce logs milled to perfection that assemble like a puzzle. Each log is tongue & grooved with interlocking corners for easy stacking. Matching wood windows and doors are included and for multi room models, the interior wall also connect for added strength. Our interior doors are raising panel, sold core and enhance the beauty of the all wood interior.

https://www.ezlogontario.ca/Files/CMFiles/EZLOG-CATALOGUE-2018-web.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dE8u7YUKuA

Tiny Homes

http://www.capebreton.vacations/tinyheaven/engl/

Laneway Suites

What are Laneway and Garden Suites, and why are they important?

Laneway and Garden Suites refers to a Secondary Suite which is separated/detached from the Primary Dwelling. It can be above or beside a garage or self-contained in the rear of the lot. Laneway housing is accessed from a rear laneway, while a garden suites are accessed from the front street via a sidewalk or driveway. Other names for this type of housing include granny flats, garage suites, carriage or coach houses.

Laneway and garden housing is important because it provides an option for intensification and housing choice in existing neighbourhoods that fits with the existing form and scale of buildings, as well as the neighbourhood fabric. Laneways are found in many neighbourhoods in Regina, and are often lined with garages or other accessory buildings. This provides a key opportunity to turn these accessory buildings into livable spaces without changing the character of the neighbourhood. Where no laneway exists, there may still be an opportunity to establish a garden suite without impacting neighbourhood character.

Benefits include: an alternative to secondary suites inside the Primary Dwelling; options for rental and more affordable housing in existing neighbourhoods; more compact and complete communities; additional residents in the neighbourhood to support local businesses and amenities; efficient use of existing services and infrastructure; opportunities for supplementary income for the property owner; increased safety and beautification of residential laneways; and the ongoing renewal and revitalization of established neighbourhoods.

From Regina Pilot Project

Building a Passive Home; an Earthship

My stream of thought these day, in the early winter months of 2018-2019 is building a passive house on a rural lot.

I'm also looking into tiny house design. I got this funny idea of setting out to build a tiny home in my back yard, and then in a few years being able to move it to a location on a property somewhere. Let's explore these ideas over the next little while and we'll see where my mind takes me!

The Conscious Builder
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRHQqTsE4FcEGfm5mF15zUJrtpMaiUQ2-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvfWHx1SKMs&list=PLRHQqTsE4FcHnNKY0p1am80EqmvlNsluo

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRHQqTsE4FcEeMa2wYn8laUaw2fl78-CI


Websites:

https://ekobuilt.com/ontario-passive-house/

https://evolvebuilders.ca/

https://www.gni.ca/insulation-101/passive-house

A Thing About Land

For me the over-arching goal of humankind is to learn how to value water, air, and the things we need to live more than money. We need to be thinking in much larger time scales than a balance sheet. Here we are at this amazing branch point where our science and technology have taken the greatest of leaps and yet I can't help but be haunted by the fact that we are still very deeply mired in our technological adolescence. We don't think about what our short term actions are doing to our long term future, and that of our children and grand children. So, I'm not so sure we should unleash ourselves on the world. 

~ Ann Druyan, Creative Director, Voyager Interstellar Mission, NASA

I've been thinking a lot about buying land recently.

If you buy land, then you can go there and you can sit there, or stand there, or live there. You can look at the trees, and see the animals that come and go. You can listen to the wind in the grass and the leaves. You can hear the raindrops. You can smell the life forms. You can go there for as long as you like and nobody will tell you to go away. You can just sit, watch, listen, smell, touch, and feel. And learn. Accept it. Embrace it. Think about what was there before and what will be there after.

It's possible to buy a piece of land up in the northern part of the province, about 25 to 40 acres of undeveloped, possibly former cleared land or once cultivated as a hay field, for under $40,000.

So then, some of these pieces are in organized townships, while others are in non-organized townships. There's quite a difference.

If you buy property in an unorganized township, building codes are not required.

The story goes on and on. But basically, once you've got your piece of property, you're free to build on it and use it as you please. You can start a business there.

RETIREMENT PROPERTY in beautiful Northeastern Ontario $38,000 CDN - File 35

https://www.recreationland.net/property/file-35-retirement-property-in-beautiful-northeastern-ontario-38000/

File 35- RETIREMENT PROPERTY in beautiful Northeastern Ontario $38,000

Are you looking for a RETIREMENT PROPERTY in beautiful Northeastern Ontario?

A QUIET PLACE NEAR SMALL TOWN ONTARIO?

Are you old enough to remember a television series called “GREEN ACRES”?

Green Acres was an American sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm.

The show was about a successful New York lawyer who gives up the rat race to fulfill his dream: living the life of the traditional country gentleman farmer.

YOU MAY NOT BE from New York or be a successful lawyer but I think that you might get the idea of this wonderful opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle of big city living.

SO, are you wanting to retire to a small community where you are looking forward to a relaxed and quiet lifestyle, where people are friendly and mostly know each other and help each other when needed?

A great place to raise your kids or have your family come to visit.

39.70 acres in Playfair Township $40,000.00 CDN - File 66 -

https://www.recreationland.net/property/file-66-39-70-acres-in-playfair-township/

This property has just been newly surveyed this spring as it was severed off a larger property.

In our story and on our maps we refer to this property as PART 1.

It enjoys 201 meters or about 660 feet of frontage on Cardinal Road just south of the Town of Matheson in Northeastern Ontario.

The depth of the property is 808 meters or about 2,650 feet.

Playfair Township is located within the boundary of the Municipality of Black River-Matheson so it is AN ORGANIZED TOWNSHIP.

Cardinal Road is a year round road that is maintained and plowed in winter by the Municipality of Black River-Matheson.

There is electrical power along the opposite side of the road if you want to hook up to the grid.

You can choose to stay off the grid if you want.

There is no law stating that you have to hook up.

The front of the property is moderately wooded with timber that is around 15 years old as that is when the mature timber was harvested.

The new growth is around 15 years old and anything that was not mature enough to harvest at that time is of course now 15 years older and taller.

What is interesting about this property is that there is about 15 acres or more of old hay fields at the rear (the north end) of the property.

If you put in a long driveway to just where the old fields start you would have some beautiful building spots and real good privacy.

You wouldn’t be able to see a house from the road and hear minimal road noise if any.

The zoning is rural and that means that you can live here year round if you choose, you can start a farm and a home business.

56 Acres in Lowther Township $36,000.00 CDN - File 67 -

https://www.recreationland.net/property/file-67-56-acres-in-lowther-township/

Get away from the rules and zoning regulations on this 56 acre property.



UNORGANIZED TOWNSHIP

NO ZONING

NO BUILDING PERMITS

YEAR ROUND ROAD ACCESS

ELECTRICAL POWER AVAILABLE ALONG THE ROAD

What an exciting opportunity to own a decent sized property with over 740 meters or 2,430 feet of frontage on Highway 583.

Highway 583 is a secondary highway that is maintained and OPEN YEAR ROUND.

18 Acres East of City of Thunder Bay $32,000.00 CDN - File 74-

https://www.recreationland.net/property/file-74-20-acres-east-of-city-of-thunder-bay-32-000-canadian/

HERE IS A NEAT OPPORTUNITY TO OWN A DECENT SIZED PROPERTY WHERE YOU CAN START TO HOMESTEAD

LOCATED IN AN UNORGANIZED TOWNSHIP

GO OFF THE GRID
BUILD AN EARTHSHIP
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD
RAISE A COUPLE OF ANIMALS


A very nice 18.5 acre parcel of land close to the Black Sturgeon River east of the City of Thunder Bay.

Located in the UNORGANIZED TOWNSHIP OF LY

Enjoy NO ZONING
Enjoy NO BUILDING PERMITS

Build what you want, where you want on your property, as big or as small as you want and NO BUILDING PERMIT REQUIRED.

37.48 acres in Lamarche Township $40,000.00 CDN - File 111-

https://www.recreationland.net/property/file-111-37-48-acres-in-lamarche-township-40000-canadian/

A nice property only 3.1 kilometers or almost 2 miles east of Highway 11 south of the Town of Cochrane in Northeastern Ontario.

Lamarche Township falls within the boundary of the Town Of Cochrane so it is AN ORGANIZED TOWNSHIP.

What I'm Reading Now: Growing Pains by Gwynne Dyer

A good companion to my earlier reading choice, "The Industries of the Future". Dyer makes a good case for the necessity of humanity figuring out a way to close the income gap in developed countries to avoid excessive anger and frustration from upsetting the delicate balance of democracy.

Here's What I'm Reading Today: The Amateurs

Set in dystopian Hamilton, where a band of 40 survivors are the only ones left in the city. A strange technology has introduced "ports" into households around the world, promoted by a multinational corporation called PINA. The ports have a strange, alluring power and people are being drawn into them under the guise of entertaining themselves with time travel. Problem is, they never come back. They are gone into the multiverse, and nobody knows why they aren't returning.

Fought my way through it to the end. Disappointing and wishy-washy. 

November 2018 - Things Are Cooking

Over the past few months my hankering for building things has taken new direction into the world of cooking and baking.

My Instagram account, known as Hamilton Music Guy, is now taking on a food slant. I'm posting snaps of some of my creations there.

View this post on Instagram

It’s an apple pie kind of day. #cinnamon #apples #baking #applepie #homebaking #comfortfood

A post shared by Glen Brown (@hamilton_music_guy) on Nov 22, 2018 at 9:30am PST

View this post on Instagram

Hamburger buns now calling out for patties! Bread now calling out for butter! @foodwishes #constantimprovement #flour #breadmaking #dough

A post shared by Glen Brown (@hamilton_music_guy) on Nov 12, 2018 at 3:57am PST

View this post on Instagram

Chicken time !! #chicken #poultry

A post shared by Glen Brown (@hamilton_music_guy) on Oct 16, 2018 at 12:28pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Chicken part two #food #stew #chickenrecipes #leftovers

A post shared by Glen Brown (@hamilton_music_guy) on Jun 22, 2018 at 11:29am PDT

40.79 Acres in Chamberlain Township in Northeastern Ontario. $30,000.00 CDN - File 131 -

Chamberlain Township, Near Engelhart, ON

https://www.recreationland.net/property/file-131-40-79-acres-in-chamberlain-township-in-northeastern-ontario/

Click for full size image

A QUIET AREA
A GREAT PLACE TO HOMESTEAD ON
A NICE PLACE TO RAISE YOUR FAMILY
START YOUR OWN HOBBY FARM

Chamberlain Township is AN ORGANIZED TOWNSHIP.

Zoned Rural, this property has 195.4 Meters or almost 641 feet of frontage on the Aidie Creek Gardens Road .

A search of the original patent shows that the SURFACE RIGHTS COME WITH THE PROPERTY and that ALL TREES COME WITH THE PROPERTY.
A review of the mining claim maps shows a full dark circle meaning that both surface and mineral rights come with the property.

You have good access to your property.
From the Aidie Creek Gardens Road you can access the front of your property.

The property is relatively level throughout .

The mature timber was harvested some 10-15 years ago but there was not a lot of it.

There are remnants of old hay fields that are still evident.
It would take a little bit of work but the old fields can be brought back.

Cottage August 2018

Janelle Burton and Ian

Trying to relax, and succeeding for the most part!

My other 2018 project: waterproof the tool shed. The walls had been rotting through because snow was piling up against the wood and soaking it for weeks at a time. With the siding in place the snow won't touch the wood.

What a beauty

Ian and Janelle on the Sauble River

Ian gets the edges measured and cut. We dodged rain all day long, and then got it done the next day.

Spot The International Space Station

Cottage Wildlife July 2018

What The Heck Am I Reading Now? - Summer 2018 Medicine Walk

Very worthwhile. I've reserved other books by this same author from the library. This is my own journey of reconciliation. I need to try and understand the way things are, the way things were, and the way things ought to be. I need to hear these stories and understand the struggles and injustice that were done. I need to see and learn the value of the indigenous culture which I have only been given little bits of.

What the Heck Am I Reading Now? Summer 2018 - I Married the Klondike

This book is a Thrift Store find. I picked it up at the Owen Sound Salvation Army Thrift Shop. Brenda, Olivia, and I popped in there last week. It was a good visit. We picked up a few nick knacks including a Pyrex pie plate for me to get crazy with when fresh fruit or chicken comes along.

Laura Beatrice Berton is the mother of famed Canadian journalist, writer, and historian Pierre Berton. In Pierre's introduction we learn that he hiked up the Chilkoot Pass with two of his seven children in 1971, and then the next year he published a book called Drifting Home along with a number of special features in McLean's magazine in which he drifted from down the Yukon River to Dawson City with his wife and all seven of his children to re-live the journey he had taken as a boy.

Pierre Berton was born in Whitehorse and grew up in Dawson City. His mother, while always a writer, did not at first think that the life and times of Dawson City in the early 1900s was anything worth writing about. But of course it was. The pioneers of the gold rush from 1896 - 1898 were still around, and the city had kept all of its culture and trappings while the population declined from 8000 at its peak to 800 in 1932 when the family left. Berton arrived in 1906 and the city was already in decline. 

Lots of stories of the lives of courageous men and women who basically carved out a life based on a dream. Tales of survival, adventure, raising kids in the sparest of conditions, wilderness boating on wild rivers, and cultural anomalies in an isolated city that was cut off in the winter from all supply lines.

What the Heck Am I Reading Now? Summer 2018 - The Last Neanderthal

Interesting as a thought experiment, about how a female neanderthal would live in the years of the species' decline just before extinction. Neanderthals are a thing, scientifically speaking. Not made up. Human DNA has a large chunk of chromosomes that are the same as neanderthal DNA. Which indicates that humans and neanderthals are two separate species originating from a common ancestor, but that they also co-existed on earth and that they inter-bred.

The book illustrates the idea of how a human child could be found, adopted, and raised by a neanderthal family, and tries to explore how the neanderthals were different. Their bodies were more in-tune with the environment in terms of smell and sensing what was going on in the air. The author creates a theory that the family unit sleeps and dreams together and exchanges information from their ancestors through dreams. The body of knowledge of the family unit is the life force that keeps them going.

The young human who has been adopted by the family ends up running away when he sees the landscape pointing to his homeland. It is across the prairie where the neanderthals would never go. The boy tries to explain to the woman that she needs to follow him to survive and give birth to her baby, but she can't make herself go. 

The buries herself in an underground den to survive the winter. She gives birth to a baby which doesn't survive. She keeps a bone from the baby's fore-arm and wears it around her waist.

The modern connection is the woman archeologist who has discovered two skeletons in a cave in France. They are a neanderthal and a human, obviously buried facing each other, or perhaps they died in that position of looking into each other's eyes. A small human arm bone is found beside the skeleton of the neanderthal woman.

We are left to image how this might have come to be, and the book tells an interesting and informative story to help us along the way. It also helps illuminate and describe the feelings and physical forces that take over when a woman is pregnant, and how the demands of being pregnant and producing a baby, giving birth, caring for it, all fall on the woman no matter what walk of life she is from. There is that place of commonality for every woman, even across the line separating neanderthal females and human females.

Interesting. I would recommend it.

JUNO Jazz Soloist of the Year Winners

Bobcaygeon

I left your house this morning
'Bout a quarter after nine
Coulda been the Willie Nelson
Coulda been the wine

When I left your house this morning,
It was a little after nine
It was in Bobcaygeon, I saw the constellations
Reveal themselves, one star at time

Drove back to town this morning
With working on my mind
I thought of maybe quittin'
Thought of leavin' it behind

Went back to bed this morning
And as I'm pullin' down the blind
Yeah, the sky was dull and hypothetical
And fallin' one cloud at a time

That night in Toronto
With its checkerboard floors
Riding on horseback
And keeping order restored
'Til The Men They Couldn't Hang
Stepped to the mic and sang
And their voices rang with that Aryan twang

I got to your house this morning
Just a little after nine
In the middle of that riot
Couldn't get you off my mind

So, I'm at your house this morning
Just a little after nine
'Cause, it was in Bobcaygeon
Where I saw the constellations reveal themselves
One star at time

Songwriters: Gordon Downie / Johnny Fay / Joseph Paul Langlois / Robert Baker / Robert Gordon Sinclair

Bobcaygeon lyrics © Peermusic Publishing<

Here's Me Playing Drums

The Chicken was always one of my favourite groovy tunes to play. I chose it for my graduation recital at Mohawk College way back in the dark ages (1984), and the tune is just as good today.

Kitchen Renovation Complete Except For Tiles

You may joke when I tell you I built a "Cereal Cupboard" but it's actually true. This is how I envisioned it, with room for the broom in front.

The sink area is now lots brighter and more open because the window is bigger and there is now upper cabinet to the right. We re-used the faucet since it was in very good condition.

An overview of the whole kitchen and dining room.

The best view for birdwatching.

Range hood installed. New stove installed.

The stove is beautiful. I love looking at it. The range hood was a pain to install but worth it!

Trying to keep the clutter cleared.

New Kitchen Nearing Completion

This space is reclaimed for a cereal cupboard and broom closet!
The enclosure hides a post and a heating duct but is basically
just empty inside. 

Here's the colour refreshed, and the new wall cupboards in the dining room.

This is the new kitchen eating "peninsula" with granite top and the new countertop
and cabinets. New stove is not yet delivered. Main window is now turned horizontally
and the new window is installed above sink.

Note To Self

Astronaut Peggy Whitson returned from the International Space Station in September after a 288-day mission. Whitson has spent more time in space than any other American. While in orbit, the 57-year-old biochemist started writing a letter to her 9-year-old self.

---

Thought I should write my own version.

Note To Self

Dear Younger Me,

Over the years I've learned a few things that I would like to share with the younger, nine-year-old version of myself.

It was a couple of days before your birthday in 1969, and you watched on TV as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first steps on the moon. Although at the time, it was an unbelievable moment in history, seeing it with your own eyes made it real and believable and achievable. You were amazed to see what cool things science was enabling people to do.

Your brothers for the most part are putting up with you hanging around, you lucky guy. Their projects and creative ideas inspire you, and soon you will get up the courage to build your own model planes and learn to fly control line. You'll watch your dad build, fly, and crash his own model planes. You'll get to watch your brothers work a radio controlled race car, and you'll wish that you had a turn. This is where you will learn your patience from. You will know that you can't always be "the guy."

One day very soon you're going to be in tears about your piano lessons. You will be so frustrated with the crappy music you are learning in piano lessons, you will finally say out loud to your mom, "I want to play the drums." Hey dude, your mom is the bomb. She know's where it's at. She will say, "You can buy your own drums. It's okay with me. Just finish up this one last year of piano."

Your mom and dad are leaving an open door for you. Looking back from where I am now, the fact that they left the door open wide has made it natural and healthy for you to take full responsibility for my actions, and to become a "successful" adult. Nowhere along the way will you feel pushed or cajoled into this or that career, and you will not be "guilted" into doing one thing or another. I want you to realize how freeing it will be to have mom and dad's general confidence and approval, and to not be hampered by critical expectations! Dude, this is a precious gift. It will bode you well.

It took a lot of effort to save up that money from working at the family laundromat business to save up for your first ten-speed bike. Man, you are going to be SO EXCITED on the day your dad brings that bike home! You learned how to save and make things happen.

Yeah. You're learning now that life will be what you make it. Nobody will be dropping anything in your lap.

In your teenage years you will learn how to work with engines, and you'll become a licensed motorcyclist. You'll paint the green Datsun, but eventually you'll get rid of it for scrap when the engine needs rebuilding. Hey idiot! Don't get rid of that Datsun! Don't do it! In forty years that car will be the sweetest thing on wheels! Don't get rid of it! CAN YOU HEAR ME?

You IDIOT. You sold it. Oh how this burns me today...

Over the next few years of your teenage life you'll spend hundreds of hours building models of all types and will become skilled at following written instructions on "how to assemble so and so." Eventually, your first job will be doing just that at Canadian Tire where you will assemble bikes for display and do repairs. WHAT A SWEET FIRST 'REAL' JOB.

In a couple of years dad will take a big step and quit his stable "career" job to start his own business and eventually his own company. You won't realize it at the time, but you are going to experience first hand a hard-working risk-taker/entrepreneur in action.

Your mom will stand by his side every step of the way. You'll eat bologna and pancakes for supper. You'll learn to make your bed and put away your laundry, mow the lawn, how to light a campfire, how to chop wood.

Your dad will take time out of his busy schedule to step you through a small engine rebuild, including replacing an engine block and cleaning breaker points. You should thank him for loving you so much to take the time; I'm sure he could have been working on other things. You were lucky to see your dad share with you what he was passionate about. It will pay off throughout the next four decades because you will be able to appreciate and mimic those same values with your own kids.

Do you realize that the hundreds of hours you spent watching The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family will someday have an effect on the choices you make? You're going to want to be a musician. Whoa. Where did that come from? Oh yeah, I remember now. You will be in LOVE with the idea of being a famous, cool drummer. In high school you're going to follow your siblings into the school band. Then your buddy will invite you to join the Teen Tour Band. Then you'll meet a bunch more music-loving teenagers. Some of them are going to be seriously shit-hot players. They will a big inspiration for you. You'll want to be like them.

Yessir. You love a show. You will love the big parades and field shows. You'll love the excitement and the production and the rehearsals, and the travelling and the practising, etc. You'll love the camaraderie and the cute girls you'll meet doing music. It will be overwhelming to you someday, so much that you will not be able to conceive of any future that doesn't have you doing music somehow.

But be happy and content, my nine-year-old self. You are seeing things happen around you that are monumental and hugely significant. The disappearance of the analog dial phone. The fading from view of the transistor radio. The ubiquitousness of colour television. The invention of the personal computer. You'll get to ride the glorious wave of the introduction and adoption micro-chip and integrated circuit glory. Calculators. Digital cameras. Digital video. CDs come and gone. Internet. Windows 3.1, 95, 98, XP. Smartphones. Smart TVs. Siri. Alexa.

DANG! Young man, you have no idea what you are going to see. There is no way I can make you ready for this! You wouldn't believe me if I told you what type of gadgets and widgets are coming. You are going to ride the biggest wave of technological change ever. It's going to rise up and lift you and you won't even realize you are on the biggest wave of new technology until about twenty or thirty years down the road. By then the wave will already have crashed ashore, sweeping the entire culture along with it.

Welcome to the '70s my young self. Life rocks. It will continue to do so.

Sincerely,

The Older You