Hooking Up the Sun

We are in the process of installing alternative energy devices. That's a fancy way of saying, we're putting in solar panels. There is a big bank of these going in across the way that will be selling power back to the grid, but right here on our garage we're putting in solar collectors that will heat the water used at the resort.

The installation continued yesterday on the solar tubes on the garage. After all, it's not enough to capture the sunlight, it needs to be put to productive work -- otherwise all you get is a sunburn! (which Blackstone Solar notes on their license plate!)

Now that both tiers of solar panels are installed, Carl and Dave were hard work connecting the various pipes and wires and valves and do-dads. The pump transfer station might make sense to Carl, but to me that was just a snarl of connections. Dave, connecting the water tanks, was on more familiar territory for me!

The sun is shining brightly, up here in North Muskoka, so we should soon be able to report on the progress of these panels once they are up and running. In the meantime, the process has been an interesting one, and we think the tubes look rather spiffy and a little science-fictiony on the garage roof.

As interesting and funky as they are, these tubes, for sheer size and Science Fiction, don't hold a foot-candle to the "Array" across the road, which is currently awaiting the panels to arrive and so still looks like something communicating with Alpha Centauri. Achmed hiked up with me last night to check it out, and see if there had been any successful communications with distant planets. He had nothing to report at this time, but remains optimistic...

Stay tuned.

Shining in the Sun

During the winter months, the wood furnace heats our water, our office and our Lodge. We get the wood from our managed, sustainable several hundred acres of forest - and yes it is very true that wood heats you three times. The first is when you cut it. The second when you split and pile it. And finally, when you burn it.

During the summer months, however, firing up the furnace is not an option. Doing our Green Best to reduce hydro consumption, we researched alternative forms of energy. Bondi has always been pretty Green... nowadays, even more so.

The answer is the sun. Brian has installed solar panels on the garage that will provide the heat for the water this summer. No doubt they will also provide a conversation starter for many of our guests. Perhaps they will spark some environmental awareness, trigger some bright new ideas. Maye it will cause folks to pause and think, and turn off the unnecessary lights. We'll see.

In the meantime, Blackstone Solar have been hard at work attaching the panels to the roof of the garage. This array, unlike the big one across the way, consists of long slender vacuum tubes. Within each of these tubes is another tube, containing a glycol-solution. That heats in the sun, and rises to the top of the tube, where the heat is tranferred to the piping that carries it to the end destination.

Yes, I'm fuzzy on the details... it is new... I'm learning. Brian is the man to ask. Or the folks at Blackstone.

Suffice to say we are not only the greenest, but we are by far the 'coolest' garage on the block!

Carnage

Monday night was a bad time. The chickens come home to roost as the daylight fades. Prior to that collecting them is like, well, like herding chickens. They hate to come to bed before it's dark.

But Monday night, there was a serial killer roaming the property...

We're not sure if it was a fox, or a fisher. We didn't see the perpetrator... we, like CSI, arrived after the fact.

Piles of feathers were the first ominous clue, as Nancy walked up in the late evening to close up the stable. Now, it is not unknown for us to lose chickens to predators: over the years, we've had a hawk lift a few. We had a fox one year who was taking them like vitamins, one a day. We had a fisher who only failed in his murderous mission because David came round the corner at an opportune time. Raccoons have taken their toll. Not to mention cars speeding by, oblivious to the scientific research being undertaken by chickens to answer the age old question, Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

There is an expectation, when chickens range so happily and so freely that there will be predators. We do our best to keep the girls safe, but sometimes Nature simply happens. Foxes and fishers and weasels and hawks... everybody needs to eat. We get that. But sometimes, it's just not fair.

The worst was the night a weasel broke into the old henhouse. He killed seven. Weasels simply kill... all those tales that the predators never kill more than they can eat? Not so much. Weasels just keep on killing as long as they can. That was a bad moment in Chicken-dom. What made it so upsetting was that the coop is supposed to be a safe place, predator-proof, and evidently we had failed in that mission. The weasel was able to pry loose some wire and get in while the chickens were asleep.

Monday night was far worse. On their way home for the night, still not close to their safe coop, thirteen chickens were slaughtered and left lying on the property. Well, ten were left. Three were taken away, no doubt to be dinner. But we found the rest. It was a slaughter of the innocents, and it was heartbreaking. The killer simply killed, and killed, and killed...

So our flock has been tragically reduced for the time being. We are all on extremely high predator alert... We are bribing, herding and harrassing the chickens into safe harbour long before the sunlight fades. If it is a fisher, it will move back into the forest -- we rarely get them on our lawns. If it is a fox, especially a fox with a nearby den, we will need to take more permanent measures to keep the girls safe.

In the meantime, we must sadly report this catastrophe, because life is not always sunshine and sweetness. Sometimes the bad things happen.

For all her fans, however, who know and love the almost five year old BIG chicken we call Greenback (because she spent her first summer covered in green paint after helping paint some lawnchairs)... well, she made it through. She's fine. We're glad about that!

May Snow

Snow on the first weekend in May isn't unusual, but it is always unexpected. Particularly after the early spring we've had, with hot weather and high fire hazard warnings, it was a bit of a seasonal disconnect to find ourselves in the midst of a minor blizzard today!

There is an old English proverb that runs:

"Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" Loosely translated, it means 'don't put away your coat and boots until June, folks... Nature might just surprise you yet!'

Years ago, I recall leaving the start box at the Grandview Horse Trials on May 10th with the snow coming down so hard we couldn't see as far as the first fence on the cross country course. That was a big plus -- it helped to back-off the big thoroughbred I was riding: Archdeacon. Arch, who had enjoyed a very illustrious career as a stakes-winning racehorse, had a philosophy that life would be better if it just went a little faster. At that early stage of his career we were in frequent negotiations about speed over fences. Snow blowing straight into his face encouraged him to slow down and perhaps listen to my suggestions. Of course, that was the up side. The down side was my hands were so cold I couldn't feel the reins, which were a very necessary part of our negotiations... It all ended well.

And it will all end well today, despite the snow sticking on the trees, and blotting out the statue of the otter by the lake. The guests that are here had a wonderful morning in Algonquin, hiking through patches of snow on Peck Lake trail and spotting (as young Alex told me in great excitement) two moose.

Bundle up and get out there... and what a wonderful excuse when you come back in to curl up by the fire with a lovely hot mug of hot chocolate, or tea, or even a rum toddy... After all, having braved the elements of May, you've earned it!

Looking Gr8

In naming Deerhurst as the location for the 2010 G8, coming up at the end of June, Stephen Harper described the resort as being in Muskoka, the "jewel in Ontario's crown."

It's certainly a happening place right now, as fences go up all over the place and personnel move in. Huntsville is in major construction with the Summit Centre Olympic sized skating rink and new University of Waterloo satellite campus that will be part of the G8's legacy here. That's the good news - some $50 million has been spent in the region in infrastructure, ranging from roads in Parry Sound to a Bandshell in Baysville. Another $700 million, if the newspapers are to be believed, is being shovelled into the party itself... That's a lot of cash for a bash that sees the World leaders arrive Thursday afternoon and leave on Saturday morning.

Our "Eye in the Sky" provided us with these photos, taken this week. Deerhurst looks green and blue and inviting from the air.

Not so inviting the temporary barracks being erected near Huntsville. According to the newspaper, there will be about 800 units... You can just see the red crane on the left side lifting another one off the flatbed trailer. These will house some 5000 people who will be working on the event. Parking? Port-a-Potties? Don't even ask...

They don't get much of a view from the barracks site. And you will note the strategically placed swampy bits to the top of the photo, the de rigeur breeding grounds for the Mighty Muskoka Mosquito. This will be their Muskoka... at least for the duration of the event.

We're planning on just hunkering down here, in our own fabulous jewel in Ontario's crown. That's Bondi, the oasis at the centre of this bit of paradise. Lumina Resort is just visible at the bottom left corner (with red rooftops) and Dwight bay at the top of the photo.

We'd like to suggest that when the G8 morphs into the G20 (and having heard today that another 5 nations have been invited to the party, it is now more like the G50...) those of you living in Toronto might like to consider getting out of town and coming here. It's just plain better here, and who knows? After that big a party, there may still be cake...

De-Vine

Every few years we have to take a run at the vine that grows at Nancy's house. We're told that this is a type of wild We're not sure what kind of vine this is, to be truthful. It just appeared, about 20 years ago, and it has grown ever since.

We call it the "Killer Vine"... it is a tough, hardy creature, that climbs and climbs. Over the years, it has outgrown every trellis we've built. The current one is constructed of two by fours. In the spring, briefly, it has tiny white flowers, but the rest of the time it is simply green. It provides a wonderful screened and shady arbour over Nancy's deck.

But as I say, every now and then, we have to just grab cutters and knock it back. This was one of those times. The vine was covering the second floor window... it was getting it's little viney fingertips into places it shouldn't.

Dave and Brian took away three truckloads of vine. Which didn't seem to make a lot of difference.

Napster, taking a break from his artist's easel, sat on the hood of the truck and supervised.

Just Ducky

It's the same ducks. It has to be. They arrive back here in the spring, and almost right away, Mom Duck shows up at the stable to chat up

the chickens and invite herself for lunch. She flies directly to the stable, and walks up to the entranceway as boldly as if she lived here. Which, in a sense, she does.

The chickens tolerate her. Interestingly, they are less tolerant of her mate, resplendent as he is in his full plumage. The vivid colours in the drake's feathers is mostly a trick of the light. While pigmentation melanins and carotenoids can provide colours for bird plumage, the blues, greens and other iridescent variations arise from the physical presence of minute structures on the surface of the feathers which reflect only one wavelength of light. It's like having tiny little prisms on the feathers -- sometimes a tiny crystal, sometimes the presence of strategic tiny air bubbles within the

feather itself. This gives the drake his iridescent green head, and it gives the bluejays their striking blue. If you hold one of their brightly coloured feathers up to the light (after they are done with the feather, of course...), the top of the feather will gleam and flash with colour, but if you turn it over, the feather will appear gray, because the underside doesn't refract the light the same way.

He's very dashing, our drake, and let us get a close-up of his pin-tail feathers!

Thanks to Mike Hodgon we have a lovely photo that really gives you a sense of the stunningly vivid colours our drake is currently wearing.

While Mom duck is busy chatting up the chickens -- which she truly does, her little beak clacking away as she tries to infiltrate their ranks and get to the grain, the drake stays off to the side. If he comes too close, the chickens chase him away, but he won't leave his gal, so he hangs out on the edges, looking cool. The chickens seem quite envious that when the ducks are finished schmoozing, they simply fly away.