Archives

I'm in Bradford, Ontario now, visiting my parents for a few days. Tonight, they had some lovely Beretta Organic Farms' tenderloin for dinner. I'm almost 100% vegetarian, so I only ...
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Each year on the homestead, I've made at least one significant change in habit or consumer choice to lower my carbon footprint. It seems that businesses and governments don't feel ...
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(This post has no photos because I didn't think it was as brilliant an idea to blog about before I did it - but my technique worked so well, I ...
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This back-of-the-envelope sketch is my ambitious plan for my SPIN (small plot intensive) urban farm. It needs some explanation. The upper left corner of the sketch is at my front ...
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Dirt is a living expanse, it's not supposed to be sterile. Over the years, the soil underneath my back deck has been a home to ground-dwelling bees, a rat or ...
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Ever since I moved in here six years ago, I've had a skunk living under my deck. I'm quite fond of the beast, despite that it eats my day lilies ...
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Now that I've posted a happy outcome for animals living under my deck, I now have to post a sad outcome: wildlife poisoned. A rat, but he wasn't hurting anybody ...
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After expecting to blog every week about how my garden grows according to my ambitious plans, I've met with embarrassing failure. The peppers, garlic, dill, mint, pole beans, carrots, chard, beets, and ...
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In my house, I have a rule: All rooms can have a resident spider, but only one per room. It also depends on what kind of spider. A daddy long ...
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Dammit, Janet! I misplaced my good camera, the one I used to take the following photographs. Until I find it, I'm limited to grainy iPhone snaps, or the marginally better ...
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Last week, I went to Ontario for a little family/business/pleasure roadtrip. I went to volunteer at Gami'ing Nature Centre. So I took a little walk around Fenelon Falls. Here's a ...
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I took this photo of a wild rabbit that has made my parents' front lawn and garden hedge part of its territory. She, or he, stayed stock-still, just a few ...
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My SPIN farm plans have not panned out this season. Harvesting is underwhelming: I've come to admit that none of my cucurbits will be producing any squash, melon, or pumpkins ...
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It's a good thing I haven't updated in a month, because the posts would have been obsessed with squirrels. (No squirrels for you! Trust me, I've got pictures.) They are under strict ...
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On Monday morning, I had planned out an awesome Homestead day. The weather was beautiful so I was only lacking one person and one tool (a post-pounder, an auger, or ...
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I enjoy looking after the birds out back. Even out front, as the Virginia creeper produced berries that the starlings raided one day. Enough berries remain that the house sparrows ...
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Come New Year's, I always ask people what their resolutions are. (It's more than just being polite because I want to tell them one of mine.) Most people say "None, ...
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"Can an urban homestead work in Montreal?" This was the query of someone who found my blog last week. "Yes." But. (You know there is always a qualifier!) You must ...
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At long last, I finally have a new front fence. I could go digging through my blog posts or photographs to show you its somewhat ugly predecessor — which I ...
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I'm not that much of a birder. I recognize about 50 to maybe 80 species of bird (now, which used to be less than 20) but I do like to ...
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After a brief warm spell in May, we've had a rainy June so far. I prefer rain to heat at this time of year, but I'm watching my plants, wondering ...
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I love having garden visitors of any kind. A few weeks ago, these two young raccoons spent the day in the tree overtop of my backyard. And then, a couple ...
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I went to the Eastern Townships for Labour Day weekend to get a good hike in at Mont Mégantic (I also visited Lac Mégantic for one of their evening benefit ...
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On the original version of this blog, I posted about my pets from time to time. I still have Hervé, you can sometimes see him in my photos and blog ...
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First, do this test for your electricity efficiency! the reno-climat program There's a difficulty with most so-called economic behaviour in the world: it pays attention only to the first price ...
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I was born on Groundhog Day. I therefore became inordinately fond of rodents. (Even so, my dog used to drag home dead groundhogs, probably killed by the neighbouring farmer or ...
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This March, I avoided planting my garden seeds until this past weekend. Though I knew I was blowing the schedule for many seeds, I hadn't done any additional homework about ...
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If you have bird feeders and trees at your home –and even if you don’t – you're likely to have a couple of window crashes per year - and you ...
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We have a lot of strategies to attract the animals and insects we want, and repel the ones we don't. Here I discuss nuisance wildlife that we might want to ...
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This post is based on a meeting I had with Eric Duchemin, Associate Professor of Science and the Environment at UQAM, who has taught students working in urban agriculture for ...
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When I came up with the idea for Green4r | V3rt [now Rewilding], I wanted to learn the business by doing it for myself. I identified a bunch of green ...
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Here in Quebec, our hydro-electricity is so readily available that we have the cheapest rates in North America. Electricity is abundant, the valleys are already flooded, ecosystems lost ages ago ...
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In November I blogged about changing the lighting in my home, removing recessed lighting from a place it shouldn't have been (pot lights should not recess into an attic; it is an ...
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As the fall harvest was winding down with frozen vegetables (no pickling this year) and seed preparation, my efforts returned to Green4r, the renovation project consultancy I felt was needed (and I'm ...
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What Rewilding is about is making your architecture and garden hospitable to nature. We want to help you do that - and so we'll offer you a free backyard certification ...
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If you've had a frustrating spring with all this rain and insufficient heat, or just a lack of inspiration so far, don't despair. You can still have a garden this ...
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Although the month of July isn't quite over, today's post is because when August really sets in, the wasps come out. It's true you've seen them all year, but in ...
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This is going to be the shortest blog post ever. In fact, here in October, I feel some chagrin for not posting this earlier, but if you still have tomatoes in the ...
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I've long used the clothesline to dry my laundry out in the sun and fresh air. Unlike some other people, I don't give a flip if somebody thinks I'm poor ...
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Don't you just love curling up by a crackling fire on a cold winter's eve? Lord knows, I do - just as much as in summer, because I love camping! ...
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A chimney swift is a bird, an aerial insectivore that consumes more than 1000 insects per day. It roosts in brick-laid chimneys. It's not a dusty child from a Charles ...
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If you like gardening, there's always a weekend in May that's our big gardening weekend. It's like a coördinated extravaganza to get people motivated to get their plants into the ground ...
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Window crashes, also known as bird strikes, kill millions of birds with *every* migration. You might not think it happens to you, but it does. And we can stop it ...
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Hello, fellow wildlife gardener! Last year, I certified Big City Little Homestead's garden as Wildlife-Friendly with the Canadian Wildlife Federation (you can too, and I'll help!). Here's the certificate I received: The ...
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This is a very short and sweet curated list about attracting wildlife: 10 Cool Ways To Attract Endless Wildlife To Your Backyard! Here's a list of the ideas you can ...
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My house is almost famous for the green wall of vines I have growing on it - which you can see in on our Facebook page. Of all the neighbours, the only others ...
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With the onset of truly cold weather now, with snow on the ground that sticks around, water is pretty much everywhere - in solid or powdered form. That makes it ...
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In 2011, when I lived at the cottage on Sand Lake, I started reading up on patchwork and cutting up blocks of cloth to make a queen-sized quilt for my ...
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In 2015, I posted about converting a standard residential parking spot into a green driveway. It's a pictorial, part of our Project portfolio. Three months after completing the job (from ...
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The other day, I watched a documentary by New Hampshire Public Television on bird migration. I learned a few startling facts about habitat loss and other pressures that decimate bird populations ...
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Are you getting ready to plan or plant your garden? If so, Plants for Birds is for you! It's a native-plant database (plants that evolved in local landscapes) cross-referenced with ...
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It's said that birds, bats, bees, butterflies, beetles, and other small mammal pollinators are responsible for one out of every three bites of our food. Pollinating flowers is a serious ...
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Last night I saw something charming enough that I posted it to the Facebook page, and I'm just going to copy it here. Without a direct video or photo (sorry!) ...
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Six weeks before the frost sets in (traditionally, people consider Canadian Thanksgiving the first-frost date, but it comes later), gardeners can often get an early start on the next year's ...
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Early Saturday morning, I got up early to make it up to Pepinière Jasmin – where you can always find some native/indigenous plants, even at the end of the planting season. One ...
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This little guy or girl comes by my backyard every day and raids my two bird feeders, sometimes with the help of another squirrel. Because it has sarcoptic mange, I've ...
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Once upon a time when I was at the Westmount Public Library, I saw something to get excited about: they're reusing their old card catalog, situated near the main circulation ...
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Well, here we are, late March! Are you ready to design the layout of your garden? For those who have space, those who've not planted a garden before, or those ...
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Two weekends ago, I participated in the Good Friday Migration to save the Technoparc Wetlands. Read more about it - and see the French-language Pimento Report on YouTube (embedded) here. With this ...
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If you've been to this blog or my Facebook page at least once before, you've probably seen photos of my green driveway. They're all over the place, like in the ...
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Migration is pretty much over now, and all birds are where they want to be if they're sitting on eggs in a nest, or raising a clutch of nestlings. It ...
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A quick note to readers from outside Quebec: now that the dams are over 40 years old, our hydroelectricity is probably the cleanest in the world (this acknowledges that dams ...
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I love marmots sooooo much, and my Fat Sassy Groundhog Babies post is one of my more popular… so here it comes again. My Groundhog Day February 2 Birthday Fundraiser ...
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Spring is in the air, the first migrating birds (red-winged blackbirds!) have reportedly arrived, and I've been remiss in giving you interesting things to read over the winter months. But ...
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Folks, you could be anywhere in the world and not have a specific service like mine or local resources to make your urban home have a real, rustic appeal (whether ...
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If you've been looking up at the tops of the trees, or watching neighbourhood feeders, you've noticed the flitting of unfamiliar birds, newly arriving on their spring migration. Or if ...
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Photo caption: A legion (hah, get it - not army, but part thereof!) of sugar ants committed mass suicide in my bottle of honey. In honour of those that might ...
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The spring gardening season is upon us with even more speed than it usually assaults us, since winter lingered just a little longer than some people had hoped. So it ...
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It's been on my todo list for a few weeks to build a couple of bird houses with the scrap wood I have leftover from other projects and so finally ...
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Do you hate mowing the lawn? Holy cow, I used to. We had a lawn that was half the size of a football field, and I spent many hours doing ...
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In April 2017, news got around about the first bee to land on the US endangered species list: Bombus affinis, commonly known as the Rusty Patched bumble bee. It has ...
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This quick tutorial on getting your tulips ready for next season is something I first posted on BCLH's Instagram account. Please follow me there! Did you know it helps your ...
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Acopian Bird Savers are a relatively inconspicuous (visible, but not unsightly) way to prevent bird crashes, guaranteed. They're a light curtain of strings that wave in the wind, in front ...
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Oh, hai, my patient or happenstantial reader! While I may have disappeared, I haven't gotten sick and/or completely wasted away. I simply took a solid year off, using COVID as ...
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Sorry about my over-long absence – it’s been so long that the interface WordPress shows me is unfamiliar, and I'm distracted by its novelty and the maintenance backlog —and more ...
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I’d have updated this site BEFORE submitting the rewrite of a certain article that helps people (like you) design and market an idea. But that’s not how I do things, ...
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