Very Special Home For Sale

Because my home is so special, i am announcing that-- after having said many many times that i would be carried out of here in a box-- my home is for sale.



on the left photo the upper level is the master bedroom, and
below is the family room. the right upper windows are the living room looking out over the pond. the doors at the center of the building are there for an eventual deck. the room below the living room is a second bedroom.

designed and built by myself and some very special friends, my home sits overlooking a beautiful very large and very private pond and both sit in the middle of 100 acres of rolling southern Ontario countryside. a bonus is that there is also about 600 - 700 feet of waterfront on 13 Island Lake. however, this waterfront, altho lovely at the tip of the little peninsula, is not easily accessible because of swampy land between the main land and the peninsula. this happened many years ago when the powers that be raised the level of 13 Island Lake, thus losing a lot of very good shoreline.

however, the bonus is that the wildlife is prolific -- i sit and watch the otter play all year long, sliding along on the frozen pond or diving and wrestling in the summer's soft water. there are deer and racoons and porkys too, and lots of birds and even hawks and falcons, woodywoodpeckers and smaller ones too. there is even the occassional bald eagle and i even watched a great horned owl swoop down and catch his/her evening meal...

the land is both open and wooded, probably about 30 - 40% open, the rest in various stages of woodlot. mostly hardwoods, maple predominate altho there are many elm, ash and oak trees too.




the land is somewhat near the Canadian Shield; granite, which is also called white limestone, underlies the earth. there is a small cabin which i also lived in before the house was built, and there are two lovely wells on the property. the well over by the cabin is a 30 gpm replacement, and the water is clean and pure. it is tested twice a year by the local health unit in Kingston.

the house is undergoing some renovation and some finishing. i fell off the roof while installing it, and consequently it has taken a few more years than planned for to finish everything. however, work is now being done and i am very proud of the house that georgia built, i call it MOTH 2, The Building of a Dream. (which is an acronym for Mansion On The Hill. the cabin is moth 1. and of course there is a story behind that!)

i want to add that this is a wonderful small community of folks who are helpful and caring, and who appreciate the blessings of having the best neighbors. and there are community activities for those who wish to participate. it is a great place to live!!!

another added bonus is that i have high speed internet which is transferable to the new owner.

The property is listed by Tanya Lemke of Century 21 in Westport, Ontario.


here are some photos of the interior.

on the left is the southeastern corner
of the living room.

on the right are the stairs i built going
up to the main floor, as the entry is
on the ground level and the main
living area is on the upper level.


this photo shows more of
the living room which has two large picture windows--you can just see a part of one-- on the right looking out over the pond.

this house is built with 2 x 6 walls and very well insulated. heating costs run about $1,200. 00
per year. the ceiling has R40 insulation and the roof is sheet steel. zone heating is used throughout the house, with gas fireplaces, a wood stove and some electric heaters all on their own thermostats. wood is obviously readily available and free!!! the well provides clean and
delicious drinking water and about 7 gpm replacement. the water heater is propane as is the clothes dryer and the cook top.

please feel free to email my agent if you have any questions. tanya.lemcke@century21.ca

my idea for fixing the economy....

as i sit and listen to all the hype and spin going on in usa politics, i cannot believe that what they are saying will change anything. watching pbs, now and bill moyer's journal, just convinces me that they are throwing good money after bad, --including mr. obama's stimulus package-- and those who are responsible for the economic mess won't even get their fingers smacked... instead they will get more and more billions of dollars to stash away in their swiss bank accounts.

here is an idea...

put those billions of dollars into creating an environmentally sound and sustainable public transportation system. it would create enough jobs for all those who have lost theirs and seems to me use their skills admirably. auto workers would easily be able to create new vehicles and probably do very well with all the other parts of such a system.

for this to work really well, those workers should also be in on the design and use of such transportation, so should all who would use it...
in the end we would have a system that would help our environment, use less petroleum, create less pollution, give people an inexpensive way to travel.

and best of all, get rid of automobile gridlock on our roads. less traffic on the roads would also mean less maintenance. i mean, why not think about this.....

i am no expert, but it seems to make a lot of sense. i remember watching a news story on cbs, i think, about the growth of traffic around washington, dc. it showed lines and lines of cars, and made me look very closely to see one person in nearly every car... with the statement that it now takes three times as long to get to work... not one mention of car pooling. not one mention of what a difference a good public transportation system would make.....but lots of complaints about how long it takes to get to work.....

what mr. obama needs to do, in my humble opinion, is get a whole lot of mr. smiths in washington, and stop all this pandering to the corporations that have made such a mess of our world.

end of today's words, but more to come...

Thoughts on a cloudy morning...

this morning while walking orlando it occurred to me that my dream for a peaceful and benevolent world is hindered by our seemingly insatiable need for material things. as i walk along the road and over the culvert between my pond and the many little beaver ponds strung out along the waterway down to the lake, the connectedness of the natural world once again is seen as so very real.

and i wonder why we humans find it so difficult to connect with each other in truly meaningful ways. i think about the natural disasters that have befallen myanmar and china and the central united states and see the huge outpouring of aid to support these victims. it seems that we do feel the need to aid and support our fellow humans in these events, but why then do we--those of us in the developed world anyway--seem to go right back to our little private enclaves and not even truly know our neighbors. there is some sort of broken link here to my way of thinking, and this behavior shows both our need to connect and our fear of connecting.

and i can also begin to understand the reasons why the gap between the rich and the poor grows wider every day. isn't it really a connecting thing? if we were truly connected with each other, could we allow poverty? could we allow some of the earth's people to live without fresh water or proper sewage management? could we turn our heads from our neighbors? and on and on... now don't get me wrong, i am all in favor of having one's own space, a room of one's own as virginia woolf so appropriately put it. but that space isn't for hoarding away what treasures we can beg borrow buy or steal from the world, but rather to consider our own place in the grand scheme of things, to think and to dream and to recoup our energy to go out and try, at least, to connect with the world; and to reap the amazing benefits that come from such connecting.

it seems to me that a true connectedness among humans would bring a wonderful feeling of wellbeing to each and every one of us. it would also bring a harmony to this world of ours that is fraught with wars of all kinds.

can we do this folks? can we start to truly connect with each other in meaningful ways?

i hope so.

A Rare Treat. ..

yesterday as i was walking little o, i heard a strange sound in the woods. i thought maybe it was someone chopping down a tree... well, that was close, as it turned out it was a pileated woodpecker having a real go at it on a very dead basswood tree. we continued walking up the lane, and to my surprise, on the way back he was still there, putting a rather large hole in that tree. so i rushed home and got my camera and came back. sure enough, altho at first i couldn't see him because he was down in the hole he made, i was able to get this photo. it is a bit blurry because the trees were blowing in the wind, and his work was still in progress.

it always amazes me what i have learned living in the midst of nature. i haven't tried, it just sort of seeps in thru ones pores -- and i have learned that we must learn to live in tune and with respect for the world that surrounds us. it worries me that so many of us seem to think we can continue to use resources with no thought to the effect on our planet. altho, i did read recently that it really isn't the planet we are destroying, it is ourselves. the author of that paper contends that the planet will survive perhaps in a very different form, but that human life as we know it will not, because we are not wise enough to stop biting the hand that feeds us.

you know, it is hard to believe that the planet is in trouble... just walk with me thru the forest now that spring is here. the early wild flowers like bleeding heart -- kind of appropriate, if unintended! -- are in full bloom, the trees are filling out with their new leaves which come out in many subtle colors of greens and dusky reds, my violets are in purple profusion all around me, and my magenta tulips, all four of them that survived the squirrels, are beautiful. how can the planet be in trouble?

but look a little closer and see how many of the trees are dead or dying -- elm disease, acid rain and other pollutants are killing the trees from the inside out. do we know that without the trees we cannot survive? all living plants breathe in carbon dioxide, and without them to do that -- well, we all know about global warming and that we have overburdened our trees and plants which can no longer do their job well.

so, it behooves us to rethink our need for so much material wealth. i think we have lost something very important in our world today when we, even without intending to, put material goods as a higher priority than good people skills and relationships. there also seems to be a great decline in the joy of living. out here in the country i am blessed to feel the exuberance that comes with waking to a glorious sunrise and living the day watching the otter play in the pond, or the beaver building their dam, or the woodducks landing in my trees. there is no better feeling than to be alive on this earth and feel the glory of its beauty. i am sad that so many people rush about and don't stop to smell the flowers. i wish to every living being the joy that life brings.

spring has sprung . . .

once again i am going to try to maintain putting my thoughts here, as it is always a positive way to sort out ideas and opportunities that come my way.

i have posted a link to my polymer clay site so that i can use this blog for topics that catch my interest or about which i can give my thoughts and opinions.

one of my favorite sayings by daniel patrick moynihan is . . .

"everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts."

so as i post i will certainly try to give my opinion on what i believe are known facts, and not try to push my opinions as if they were facts. occasionally i hope to also have some photos and tell some of my stories.

but for today this is enough to get me going. see you tomorrow!

it has been a long time. . .

i had very good intentions about posting to this blog, but as you can see, they fell a little short.

as i sit and look out my window early this morning and see how much snow fell last night and that it is still snowing, i think about all those folks who feel they must risk life and limb to get somewhere this morning. i wonder how we got to this frenzied world we live in today. but i also know that we do what we need to do to fulfill our commitments to what we believe to be important to our life.

for example, today i feel no need to get out and clear the driveway, i don't need to be anywhere today, and for the while i am, in fact, snowed in. however, last saturday i was out there at 6:30am clearing the driveway praying that the plow would come and clear the lane i live on so that i could get out to hear what turned out to be a most rewarding concert. i went to hear a rehearsal -- valery lloyd-watts playing rachmaninoff's variations on a theme of paganini with the kingston symphony orchestra. it was absolutely wonderful in so very many ways.....

so i guess the answer lies in our priorities. and obviously we all have different ones. however, that still begs the question -- how did our world get to be the way it is... with environmental destruction a daily thing, with people rushing madly about to work at jobs they really don't like so that they can pay their bills, with the rich getting richer and the poor be damned, with the food industry feeding us chemical food lacking in all the basic nutrients we need so that we rush to the pharmaceutical industry to purchase drugs that will -- they say-- make us healthier and happier and more fulfilled.....and on and on this merry go round we call living.

i don't think so. back to the snow falling, it seems to me we have totally lost our connection with nature, and certainly with our own nature. we are a part of nature, not above it nor in control of it, as the several major recent natural disasters have shown.

the important thing is that we are all a part of this world we all have created. and so to fix it, we all must be part of the solution.

i hope to be better at putting my thoughts to paper here if for no other reason that to feel that i have done something positive and am doing my best to be part of that solution so that our wondrous and beautiful planet can survive, and that means us too.

an amazing thing happened. . .

i am posting two photos today, to show my absolute amazement at finding a nearly exact replica of my little dog koki...

here she is above, nearly 16 years old, having put up with diabetes and cushing's disease for nearly 4 years, so you must take that into account... my wonderful girl went to the rainbow bridge to wait for me about three years ago...

the this photo, above, is of sophie, a lovely little dog i met last weekend... well, you can imagine my complete astonishment when i saw this little beauty... sophie is a year and a half, about a third koki's size, but otherwise, i could have bet she was koki reincarnate!!!

wow. . . thanks to sophie's mom who was very kind also...