Earth Day - Prince Edward County tour April 20, 2008

[Rob Beckers]

Prince Edward County Green Homes Tour on Sunday April 20, 2008

To help celebrate Earth Day this spring, the doors will be open for you to visit between 10 am and 5 pm at a number of homeowners properties in Prince Edward County (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=prince+edward+county,+on&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=53.741627,59.150391&ie=UTF8&ll=44.00862,-77.140503&spn=1.542789,1.84845&z=9), where they will happily share their GREEN experiences with you.

Drop by to see firsthand & get information on: solar hot water heaters, solar photovoltaic power systems ( off-grid and grid-tied ), passive solar, wind power turbines, heat pumps, straw bale construction, hybrid vehicle, living ( green ) roofs, energy efficient designs, Bullfrog Powered homes, composting, conservation, waste reduction, safe homecare products and more.

Maps marking the locations of the participants will be available from Apr. 18th to 20th at Century 21 Lanthorn Real Estate offices on Main St. in Picton & Wellington during regular office hours . We encourage the use of carpooling & cycling.

For further information please e-mail donrossc21@hotmail.com or call Don Ross at 866 2942100 or 613 4768016. We look forward to you taking part in this environmental awareness initiative.

You can see some of the homes that will be open for visits that day in last year's member tour thread (http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=2854).

-RoB-

[Don Ross]

Here is the list of participating homeowners for our Green homes tour along with addresses, contact info & description of what will be offered. If you'd like me to e-mail a copy of the tour map just contact me & I'll send it along. Thanks....look forward to seeing you on April 20th in The County........

Prince Edward County Green Homes Tour on Sunday April 20, 2008 . To help celebrate Earth Day this spring, our doors will be open for you to visit between 10 am and 5 pm ( with some exceptions as noted ) at any of the following list of homeowners properties, where they will happily share their GREEN experiences with you. Drop by in any order to see firsthand & get information on : solar hot water heaters, solar photovoltaic power systems ( off-grid and grid-tied ), passive solar, wind power turbines, heat pumps, straw bale construction, hybrid vehicle, living ( green ) roofs, energy efficient designs, Bullfrog Powered homes, composting, conservation, waste reduction, safe homecare products and more. Maps marking the locations of the participants will be available from Apr. 18th to 20th at Century 21 Lanthorn Real Estate offices on Main St. in Picton & Wellington during regular office hours . We encourage the use of carpooling & cycling, & the route you take is totally up to you . For further information please e-mail donrossc21@hotmail.com or call Don Ross at 866 2942100 or 613 4768016 We look forward to you taking part in this environmental awareness initiative.

#1. 2377 County Rd. 15 (Northport Rd) Les Macdonald & Gwen Hoover
phone (613) 482-1141 Available from 10-5
-Off-grid, passive and PV solar, wind turbine, solar hot
water, masonry heater, straw bale walls, green roof, peat moss septic

#2. 1478 County Road 35 ( Northport Road ) Mario & Brenda DeCastris phone (613 ) 4764991
*****Please Note Time……ONLY AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING FROM 11-5 ******
- 2 wind turbines at 1900 watts……2 solar P/V arrays at 1800 watts…..grid-tied with battery back-up

#3. 1398 Old Milford Road, Milford Frank & Shirley Roloson ( 613 ) 4766268 Available from 10-5
- Off-grid home, solar with tracking system & wind powered with diesel generator back-up….Norwex safe homecare products

#4. 18 Chapmans Cres. Milford Don & Heather Ross (613 ) 4768016 Available from 10-5
-Enerworks single panel Solar hot water heater……1600 watt Solar P/V grid-tied under the RESOP with battery back-up…….Bullfrog Powered…….Hybrid Honda Civic auto……Carrier Air source Heat pump……passive solar……..composting & waste reduction

#5. 847 County Road 13, Black River ( at corner of Cty Rd 16 ) Don & Deb Hudson (Valleypine Farms ) ( 613 ) 4767294
*****Please Note Time…..ONLY AVAIALABLE FOR VIEWING FROM 10-2 ******
- passive solar orientation & positioning of mature trees…home has been upgraded to R-2000 standard with “ Energuide for Houses Assessment “…..Enerworks 2 panel solar hot water system…..Geothermal Ground source heat pump installed 19 years ago…..wood heating & ideas for clean efficient

#6. 705 County Road 24, Athol Ward Gavin North & Bay Woodyard (Honeypie Farm) (613 ) 4763216
Available from 10-5
-Straw bale construction, passive solar design with radiant ( hydronic ) in-floor heating, organic farming,

#7. 120 Partridge Hollow Road, Consecon Ken & Carrolle Wright 1 ( 613 ) 9655728
-25 Yr old 2700 sq. ft home with existing wood/electric furnace replaced with new Olsen oil furnace & oil fired water heater, 2001 wood pellet stove which heats basement to 60 degrees & serves as back-up heating, Dec/07 replaced oil furnace with Next energy 5 ton Tranquility force air Geothermal horizontal loop heat pump for heating & cooling, Energy Audit qualified installation for $7000 Energy Retrofit grant, extensive caulking around all windows & doors,
****** Please Note Time…..ONLY AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING FROM 1-4 *********

#8. 753 Chuckery Hill Road David Reddick & Susan Chapman (613 ) 4767231 Available from 10-5
-We’ve been off-grid since 1999. System includes a Southwest Windpower 900 watt turbine, 8 panel P/V array with manual homemeade sunfollower, gas generator, Trace ( Zantrex ) SW4048 48 VDV inverter,house built to maximize passive solar gain in winter & summer cooling

[Rob Beckers]

Thanks for the info Don!
I've convinced my wife to come, so we'll be doing the tour.

See you on Earth Day!

-RoB-

[Don Ross]

Hi Rob, Will be nice to meet you & your wife.....since I didn't get that chance last year when you did the tour in PEC. I'm not sure how they ( whoever they is ?) decide when Earth Day will fall each year...this year being on a Tuesday the 22nd ....but it would be better if it was always on a weekend so more people could participate in events scheduled for that exact day. I picked the 20th as the closest weekend to Earth Day as I knew not many could do a tour like this on a weekday. Better still, let's make it Earth Week & have events running from one weekend to the next each year so then there'd be even more opportunity for people to get the message loud & clear. See you next month.

[Mario De Castris]

Hello Rob,

I'm happy that you are making the trip down my way again, I hope you will be able to make time to visit, maybe even ending the day like last year. Looking forward to see you again.

Mario

[Rob Beckers]

Thanks Mario! It will be nice to meet again, and we'll certainly stop by your place. Maybe other GPT members are planning to take the tour? We may be able to arrange a little get-together. If so, I'll be happy to bring some food along.

-RoB-

[Ralph Day]

Will the ice be out of the bay by April 20 Mario? your back yard would be quite cool compared to last August.:rolleyes:

Ralph

[Mario De Castris]

Good morning Ralph,

It is been a long time, (maybe because we're so far away). I've just start posting again since I was away last year. The Bay in from of the House is been completely open for the last few days and so far very nicely without any ice jams, the backyard however is another story, I can almost describe to be more like a barn yard and not very well accessible until all the snow runoff is gone, who knows what will be like for April 20th, only time will tell. I have been plagued with electrical problems all winter long that kept me quite busy dealing with underground control wires for my system.


Rob

No need to worry about any food, I spend the last week and a half making cheese from sheep milk, so we will have lots of cheese and some vino to wash it down.

TTYL Mario

[Les MacDonald]

Hi Rob, Don, Mario, Ralph and other GPT members.

Gwen and I just finished welcoming 46 participants from the Sustainability Symposium last Saturday, so this Earth Day tour should be a breeze for us, so to speak. The Symposium organizers told us that their tour was over-booked so they will be posting the April 20th tour on their site as an alternative. Maybe we should ask the County to install a traffic light at our driveway entrance! :)

Only problem with the day-long format of the Earth Day tour is that we won't have the opportunity to see on another on this occasion. We certainly enjoyed the August tour and you are all welcome back any time. We're pleased you are willing to make the long drive from Ottawa, Rob! We look forward to seeing you and your wife. We took the liberty of including your excellent report of the August tour in the information sheet we gave out so there may be some new members and visitors to GPT. We're in Ottawa right now visiting friends and also looking for a relay switch for an improvement to the PV-solar HWT system but I'll put that in a separate post.

Best to all,
Les

[Stewart Corman]

Having seen Mel's slide show. I am particularly interested in how this was implemented:

120 Partridge Hollow Road, Consecon Ken & Carrolle Wright

Dec/07 replaced oil furnace with Next energy 5 ton Tranquility force air Geothermal horizontal loop heat pump for heating & cooling,

So, if anyone attending could focus on that system and post some pics, I would be appreciative and think many will be curious too

Stew Corman from sunny Endciott

[Don Ross]

Hi All, I've been fielding many requests by e-mail & phone for information about the tour from all over the southern area of the province so it appears we'll have a good turnout, especially if the weather co-operates. Lots of sunshine & wind that day of course will be welcomed. Here's a recent article from one of our local papers which has helped spread the word ( although he unfortunately left out the key part of #7 ( the Wrights ) which is their brand new ground source heat pump....installed by Clapp & Jackson of Picton. The photo of Les on his deck didn't attach here for some reason....you can google the County Weekly News to get into the article directly from their homepage if you want. Hope to meet some of our Greenpowertalk group this Sunday. Enjoy the day everyone.

Les Macdonald stands on the deck of his Northport Road home powered by both solar and wind energy. The home, owned by MacDonald and his wife Gwen Hoover is completely off grid and has drawn much attention for its various energy conserving systems, including from well-known environmentalist David Suzuki. It is part of the Prince Edward County Green Homes Tour scheduled for April 20.

Bruce Bell photo
Home Green Home - Tour County's most efficient
Posted By Bruce Bell
Updated 2 days ago
Some of Prince Edward County’s more energy efficient homes will be open for public viewing later this month.

The County Sustainability Group will celebrate Earth Day a couple of days early by hosting the Green Home Tour, a one-day event to highlight eight of the municipality’s most efficient homes.

Homeowners will share green experiences and information with visitors on a variety of applications from solar hot water heaters, solar photovoltaic power systems (off-grid and grid-tied), passive solar, wind power turbines, heat pumps, straw bale construction, hybrid vehicle, living (green) roofs, energy efficient designs, Bullfrog Powered homes, and more.

Don Ross of the Sustainability Group said the home tour will help educate people who are interested in living “greener” lifesetyles.

“This is something we thought we would do to recognize Earth Day (April 22) and show people what is going on here in the County,” he said. “It will be very informal but will let people come and see how others have made changes to their homes.”

Ross said homeowners on the tour will be more than willing to share their expertise in alternative energy. “It can be quite intimidating to say the least when you start looking at some of this stuff, but all the homeowners on the tour have already done the research and they will be more than happy to share it with visitors,” he said.

“There is a lot of knowledge out there so people should take advantage of that.”

Maps marking the locations of the participants will be available from April 18th to 20th at Century 21 Lanthorn Real Estate offices on Main St. in Picton and Wellington during regular office hours.

Although the tour runs April 20 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., some of the homes will have abbreviated hours and Ross strongly suggests checking the schedule before attending any of the homes. He said the group also encourages the use of carpooling and cycling. For further information e-mail donrossc21@hotmail.com or call Ross at (866)294-2100 or (613) 476-8016.


Homes on The Green Tour


1) 2377 County Rd. 15 (Northport Road) Les Macdonald and Gwen Hoover, (613) 482-1141, available from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Home features off-grid, passive and PV solar, wind turbine, solar hot water, masonry heater, straw bale walls, green roof and peat moss septic.


2) 1478 County Rd. 15 (Northport Road) Mario and Brenda DeCastris, (613) 476-4991. Viewing only from 11a.m. - 5 p.m. Two wind turbines at 1,900 watts, two solarP/V arrays at 1,800 watts and grid tied with battery backup.

3) 1398 Old Milford Rod. Frank and Shirley Roloson, (613) 476-6268, available from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Off-grid home, solar with tracking system and wind powered with diesel denerator back up.


4) 18 Chapmans Cres., Milford, Don and Heather Ross, (613) 476-8016, available from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Enerworks single panelsolar hot water heater, 1,600 watt solar P/V grid-tied under the RESOP with battery backup, Bullfrog powered, hybrid Honda Civic auto, Carrier Air source heat pump, passive solar.


5) 847 County Road 13, Black River (at corner of Cty Rd. 16) Don and Deb Hudson, (613) 476-7294. Viewing only available from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Passive solar orientation and positioning of mature trees, home upgraded to R-2000 standard. Enerworks two panel solar hot water system, geothermal ground source heat pump, wood heating.


6) 705 County Rd. 24, Athol Ward, Gavin North and Bay Woodyard (Honeypie Farm) (613) 476-3216, available from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Straw-bale construction, passive solar design with radiant (hydronic) in-floor heating and organic farming.


7) 120 Partridge Hollow Rd., Consecon, Ken and Carolle Wright, (613) 965-5728 available only from 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. Olsen oil furnace and oil fired water, 2001 wood pellet stove which heats basement to 60 degrees and serves as back-up heating.


8) 753 Chuckery Hill Rd., David Reddick and Susan Chapman, (613) 476-7231 available from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Off grid since 1999 Southwest Windpower 900 watt turbine, eight panel P/V array with manual homemade sunfollower, gas generator, Trace (Zantrex) SW4048 VDV inverter, house maximizes passive solar gain in winter and summer cooling.

[Rob Beckers]

With the Green Home Tour quickly approaching I'm bumping up this thread. The forecast for Sunday is for a beautiful spring day, with lots of sun and 23C! If you are anywhere close to Prince Edward County Ontario (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=prince+edward+county,+on&jsv=107&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=53.741627,59.150391&ie=UTF8&z=9) consider making this a day out with the family. Besides all the renewable energy showcases it is also a very beautiful place to visit.

-RoB-

[Rob Beckers]

Yesterday's Green Home Tour was a big success, with lots of people and beautiful weather! We visited a number of on- and off-grid houses, and it was busy everywhere we went. Don, you did a great job at organizing this! Judging from the reactions of people there will be quite a few new converts to renewable energy. Also a thank you to Mario for promoting the Green Power Talk forum by handing out the URL to visitors.

For me personally, it was good to (finally) meet Don, see Les and Gwen again, and taste Mario's cheese. Mario, if you ever wanted to go into the cheese business you'd do very well. Great cheese! Thank you again for your hospitality!

-RoB-

[Paul Bailey]

What a beautiful day it was to display alternatives in building and Renewables. Thanks Don for organizing the event. I had detoured my father to drive along with me to Les and Gwens' then to Marios quickly near the end, and he was simply amazed (Having grown up on a farm without electricity). As I was just about ready to leave Marios, he informed me that Rob Beckers was around back. It was good to finally meet you and your family. :)

[Les MacDonald]

Hi everyone.
I've never seen anything like it. At one point I thought of Woodstock, but there were no bands playing, no smoke in the air and everyone had their clothes on. I had printed 20 copies of a fact sheet that included the Green Power Talk URL and had to reprint another 40 at 10:15, and again after that! By the end of the day about 100 copies were taken, along with the rest of our supply of Bullfrog Power pamphlets that Don had left with us - quite a bit of interest on that. We were kept busy answering questions and delivering mini-lectures from 10:05 until nearly 6 pm. No time out for lunch or even a chance to sit down. By 6, we were exhausted and literally speechless. This dwarfed the bus tour we hosted on March 29, when we had a full bus-load of 46 attendees from the Sustainability Symposium from Belleville visit us. Last night, we counted 175 names entered in our guest book so the actual total must have been at least 200. Don certainly deserves congratulations for his organizing effort. Hats off to Rob as well for promoting it on Green Power Talk. I expect this site will get more visits in the next few days.
It was good to see you again, Rob, this time with your family. Sorry we didn't have more time to be properly hospitable. Do visit us again over the summer.
I also met Paul and his Dad and wished I could have spent more time with them. Paul, thanks for bringing me the relays for the diversion load project - I'll say more in the appropriate thread.
The topics ranged over the full spectrum of what we have here. It felt like a rapid-fire oral comprehensive exam with an examining board of 200 experts. They found lots of gaps in our knowledge. Hope we passed!
I regret we didn't get to visit the other hosts on the tour, especially on hearing how excited people were about the places they had already seen.
We enjoyed meeting so many interesting people, though it will take us some time to sort out our recollections of faces, stories and names in our guest book. Great way to mark Earth Day, or thereabouts.
Les

[Don Ross]

Hi All, I hope Les, Gwen, Mario and all our other tour participants will still speak to me when we meet on the street..........that's after we all get our voices back after talking ourselves hoarse from morning to night on Sunday! Overwhelming ( in a very positive way ) to see such an amazing turnout of interested & curious people, who were almost to a person respectful & courteous of our willingness to open our doors & experiences for them. I knew it was going to be a good day if the weather helped out, but this far exceeded my goals. I ran out of handouts too Les & had no time to even grab an original to make copies for anyone. I'll paste in some comments as they come in to me from our other homeowners who have not yet signed on the Greenpowertalk to give you all some of their feedback. This will be an annual Earth Day event for sure & I'd be pleased to organize it again next spring, perhaps with a different 8 or so to give this years group a reprieve. Comments as follows:
AMAZING ! I would estimate well over a hundred very considerate
> visitors.
> Must confess that we were overwhelmed and not totally prepared to
> cater to so many people arriving constantly in groups over a seven
> hour period.
> Susan and I were delighted to meet so many County residents & others
> who travelled afar, many of whom are actively considering the
> installation of some form of alternative power production. Even total
> off-grid or inter-tie systems.
> This huge interest surprised me. One couple from Kincardine, many from
> Belleville and environs. We wished that we had thought to have
> visitors sign-in!
> Should have taken photos but did not have a spare minute all day.
> Whereas this was a delightful social occasion I feel that I didn't
> answer all questions as thoroughly as I would have wished due to the
> constant arrival of new people. This necessitated starting at the
> beginning again and again.
> I would suggest that participating owners consider hosting an
> information session in the immediate future, on a date and at a time
> convenient to all.
> This could be mentioned in the news-paper report covering the huge
> success of this event. This report should also congratulate Don who co-
> ordinated the entire affair.
> I would be happy to host the session (should adequate interest be
> shown) providing that my "front lawn" is dried out in time (parking) I
> suspect that a larger venue may be required.
> This report should also report the possibility of the formation of a
> "co-operative" to look into and secure better prices for equipment
> such as PV cells, wind-turbines, wire etc.,etc.
> I would ask owners if I may visit their homes at a pre-arranged time
> to learn about their efforts, achievements and systems.
>
> Dave Reddick
> (The "Squire" of Chuckery Hill!)
>
Hello David & Susan, I like the sound of that.."the Squire of Chuckery Hill ".....would make a good movie title . That idea of gathering all of us who took part into one setting to chat & visit , maybe even bring along some munchies to share, had also crossed my mind last night after the dust had settled. Would be nice to reflect together on this experience that we've all just been through. Your offer to meet at your place is very kind, so we'll see what others have to say about the idea. Another way this could happen, which would also serve as a way for us all to see ones anothers systems, is to pick a day when we can all spend some time to travel together in as few vehicles as required stopping at each of the 8 homes, maybe grabbing a snack or beverage along the way, & ending up at our starting point. This is a similar format to what Les, Mario & others of us in the Greenpowertalk.org group did last June & it seemed to go off fairly well. More thoughts on this everyone? I too wish we had kept a guest book for the several hundred who came & went here in Milford....I have lots & lots of e-mail contacts still from all the corresponding I did prior to that day so this is a starting point. Getting organized as a co-operative will be a lot of work but the right people may be able to pull that off. I know from my few years working as secretary in the Prince Edward County Wind Co-Op ( now defunct ) that it was a formidable task & we didn't have the people or means to carry it beyond where it got before folding. That's not to say it's not worth trying again as there seems to be much more momentum now than there was a few years ago. Hope to hear from the others when they get a chance to wade in....cheers.

Hi Don,
> I have to tell you Frank said he's never talked so much in his life...and
> if you know Frank...you will know this to be true. The first people
> arrived at 10:00 a.m. and the last people left at 5:40...we were never
> without at least two people...and at one point I brought frank a coffee
> and he had about 30 - 40 people listening to him talk by the solar
> panels...It was an amazing turnout...omg!!!! It went very very well...I
> took some pictures and will send you what I have..
> Noreens product was very well received. People could purchase items or
> order and there was a very good response and she received a lot of
> exposure...it was really good!!!
> You must have done an amazing job at advertising...It was a lot of fun,
> and we met a lot of interesting people. It was very cool!

Hi Everyone, Many thanks & praise to all of you for your willingness to be on the tour today, & if you're feeling like I do tonight your voices are pretty well shot & you'll sleep soundly. As Shirley & Frank have noted here in their e-mail, the response was almost overwhelming....& maybe at times it was. This demonstrates the incredible levels of interest in all things renewable & earth friendly in this county & far beyond. We even had a visit from the Chief Energy Conservation Officer for Ontario , Peter Love, ( who came driving his hybrid vehicle with a solar panel attached to the roof!) I've nearly lost my voice by 5:30 & had no chance all day to go 2 mins. without talking to a group. It will be nice for all of us to share our feedback & commments with each other over the next few days, so please reply or copy to all the addresses so we can here what everyone has to say. Once again, sincere thanks to you & I'm proud to be associated with people like yourselves. Good night.

[Don Ross]

The reports from our 8 participating homeowners are still coming in so I'll share them with you in the spirit of continuing the momentum from this Earth Day to the next. Greenpowertalk is a great example of how many of us are attempting to make Earth Day a 365 day / year event, & it's good to be part of this.

Hi to all the other Hosts,
We had a great day with at least 150 people visiting. It was very busy and a little overwhelming at times. Looking back it would have been a good idea to have a hand out re: our systems and ways we conserve energy. There was lots of interest in geothermal. Many visitors thanked us for opening up our home.
Our thanks to Don Ross for organizing and promoting the tour. It was a huge success. We would love to visit the other homes on the tour via car pool .
Don & Deb Hudson

To All

As Carrolle mentioned we had 20 people sign the guest book. Many didn’t and it was hard to be at the display and coffee pot and give demonstrations or show people the actual system. We felt that anyone who took the time to come all the way to our place, as it was not near the other locations, was serious about geo-thermal or heating with wood pellet stove. In fact we have had a number of people phone and make appointments to view what we have.



Also we would have liked to have toured some of the other homes. By the way there is a straw house being built within a kilometer of our house. The owners plan to go off the grid by using solar power.



As chair of the County Environment Advisory Committee I am certainly glad to see all of the interest in “green energy” alternatives. As a committee we have been advocating that the municipality include some of this technology in some of their buildings. In a conversation with Dr Nora Connell she indicated that their new hotel will feature geo-thermal heating and cooling. Solar panels

will heat the hot water for the complex.



Ken

Hi Ken & Carrolle, That's terrific......considering the 3 hour timeframe & distance from the other venues, that illustrates the level of interest that I know there is in geo-thermal. The straw bale house you refer to ( an excellent candidate for our Green Homes Tour next year !) is being built by this company:Deirdre McGahern - Straworks
41 Edgewater Blvd.,
Peterborough, ON., K9H 1A1
cell.705-868-STRAW(7872)
www.straworks.ca
I made contact with her at the Sustainability Symposium at Loyalist last month & am organizing an evening in June at St. Phillips in Milford with our CSG to have her speak about strawbale building & Rick Rooney of Quantum Renewable Energy will speak about solar systems. Will send out more details once this is finalized. It's good to know you're chairing that committee as I know it will serve the county well to encourage more active participation in renewable energy & conservation. The design team that I'm helping with for the county youth park is hoping to be able to impliment some renewable features into the overall plan, so this will be a highly visible location for all to see. Thanks again for your efforts on Sunday, & we'll make sure we arrange it next time to be less time consuming & give our homeowners a chance to take a breather during the day.Kind regards.... Don Ross

[Mario De Castris]

Hello Everyone,

Hope all are recovering well from Sunday's huge success.
We were overwhelmed by the number of visitors to our place. They started arriving before 11 and some were still here after 5. We had put out a guest book and had 69 signees but I know there were many more visitors than that. I would say close to 200. There were times that large groups would arrive and when I couldn't get to everyone they would look around for a bit and push on. I was pleasantly surprised at the knowledge these people came equipped with. They asked very intelligent and to the point questions. They were not just out for a Sunday drive- they were interested and informed. Many have it in their minds to work on some sort of system for themselves at some point in the future. We had people from Uxbridge, Toronto, Ottawa,North Hastings, and areas north of Napanee and Kingston as well as many County people.
I have two regrets. One, that I couldn't manage to speak to everyone and two, that I couldn't see the other setups on the tour.

Regards, Mario & Brenda

[Don Ross]

I've just posted on the Greenpowertalk calendar our next event that is taking place in Milford on June 9..hope some of you can make it here that night.

AN EVENING FOR STRAWBALE & SOLAR IN MILFORD
The County Sustainability Group ( CSG ) invites you to join us on MONDAY JUNE 9 from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at St. Philip’s Anglican Church Hall on St. Philip’s St in Milford for a presentation & question /answer period on the topics of Strawbale Building & Solar Energy by two local experts in their fields :

Dierdre McGahern of Straworks in Peterborough, Ont ( www.straworks.ca )

Rick Rooney of Quantum Renewable Energy in Kingston, Ont ( www.quantumenergy.ca )

Seating will be limited to the number of people that the hall holds, and admission is just a voluntary contribution at the door of a loonie or a toonie to help CSG ( www.countysustainability.ca ) develop similar public information sessions . Any questions, contact Don Ross at 613 4768016 or donrossc21@hotmail.com