Blog categorized as Archive

My Dad was born, raised, had children, and will probably die in the same house. So you can image that with all that living a traditional farmhouse needs some upgrading. I struggle with the idea of tearing it down, but I know there is a lot of effort that will need to go into a major renovation. I'm ...

When would a farmer ever think to turn his barn inside out?  Sometimes it takes an outsider to rethink, reinvent, and make something beautiful.  That is exactly what SPF architects have done. This horse barn has been turned inside out.  The architect used the hay bales themselves to ...

If you been in farming for a long time or exposed to the farm life you are aware of the economic struggle that the farmer encounters daily. In fact, the economics of the food dollar don&#39t look good for farming. From 1910 to 1990 the percentage of the food dollar has been consistently de...

The world is becoming very multi-cultural and globally connected. The scale of communities is drastically changing. How can rural maintain a distinct culture and connected community.  If we look back at the farming community it has traditionally be centered around a few key pieces of infrastr...

In November, I attended a discussion on Sustainable Food Systems the Arts and Cookery Bank(a great venue and enterprise) in West Lorne. Hosted by Roxana Roshon and Tom Schell and the London Training Centre working on an amazing research project on Food Systems. They are taking an cross-system (...

I met a wonderful lady this week in a pursuit to win an equestrian design project. She is from Albany, New York and she had a great saying about suburban development. as we drove though many suburbs along Highway 410 she stated "look as all the house seeds growing." and I might add... 't...

This beautiful project looks expensive and complicated, but it's so not. This wood storage barn takes the need to store pallets and uses them at the exterior wall of the shed. A steel frame provides insert pockets for each pallet to create a wall of storage. Designed by Gray Organschi Arc...

I'm sure you've heard of straw bale houses, but did you ever think that you could use your straw and hay storage as insulation for your farm buildings? Straw and Hay makes a great insulator because it is full of air pockets, air being a great thermal break that does not allow heat to be transferred ...

Inevitably when you go home to the farm for any length of time you get recruited to help with chores. Not that I mind, and in many cases it is a way to spend time with my Dad. So during Christmas break I helped with cleaning out the chicken barn. This involves a retrofitted lawn mower with a scraper...

The diagram above illustrates the scale of milk production in Southwestern Ontario. Only 67 processing plants process all the milk in Ontario for delivery to grocery stores and your table. Imagine your neighbour is a farmer, even if this neighbour is just outside of town. Your milk travels at least...