Suncatcher Ink

Breadboard with original woodburnt design

If you love the look of natural wood and natural earthy colours, woodburning is something you might want to try.  The only tool you’ll need is a simple soldering iron and your imagination.

I discovered this idea over 30 years ago and have completed a huge collection of woodburnings on simple objects such as breadboards, designs on furniture pieces and major paintings.  It’s a medium that lends itself to so many different objects and styles of work that it’s always fun to do and makes great gifts as well. Continue reading →

An easy recipe, even if you’ve never done preserving before!

Saskatoon berries are delicious in all kinds of recipes including toppings, jams, pies, ice cream and chocolate.  If you are using wild Saskatoon berries it is a “feast or famine” situation.  The wild berries are very susceptible to all the vagaries of the weather, especially a late spring frost.  So if it’s a great growing year and there are lots of berries then it’s time to preserve that feast for the lean years. Continue reading →

Raum 1.5 kW Turbine

My husband and I live in an experimental off-grid solar and wind powered home just south of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  I am a renewable energy engineer and I design renewable power systems and passive solar homes.  Our own home is a “living lab” to try out ideas and to experience the solar lifestyle first hand. Continue reading →

Spanokopita Casserole

I first tried Spanokopita when we had a pot luck lunch at work and one of my co-workers brought this  delicious dish, all beautifully baked with a philo pastry topping. Continue reading →

Salsa - a great way to extra tomatoes

When our garden produced more tomatoes than we could eat or give away, my friend Pattie gave me her favourite salsa recipe.  In exchange, I gave her lots of tomatoes to make her own salsa! Continue reading →

Preserving the Harvest

We love gardening and sharing our harvest with family and friends.  But usually there is too much to use right away so it’s time to start preserving our harvest.

The problem with preserving is that it is a lot of work and can be a very messy process as well.  Over the years I’ve learned a few tips to make the job quicker, neater and more enjoyable. Continue reading →

You’re interested in a solar or wind power system and you start looking around for information.  Perhaps you dream of being self sufficient and going off the grid.  But what does that really mean?  What’s the difference between “off-grid” and “grid-tied” and what kind of lifestyle does each one entail? Continue reading →

Our Off-Grid Kitchen

What’s the easiest and cheapest way to live green and save money?  We all know what it is, but it doesn’t sound very exciting – use less energy.  One way to do this is to buy energy efficient appliances, but that will cost money to start with.  The simplest way to save money is to shut things off when you aren’t using them. Continue reading →

Our Lookout

We had just bought a 10 acre parcel of rolling prairie near Saskatoon and were having fun exploring it.  I was standing in a clearing and tried to look over the tree tops in the adjacent, heavily treed, hollow.  “If I was about 10 feet taller, I’d have a great view” I told my husband.

Always helpful, he got out a stepladder and I checked out what I could see from the top – I wasn’t quite up 10 feet, but the view was already pretty interesting as I looked out across the Saskatchewan River valley. Continue reading →

Our Off-Grid Experiment Takes Shape

I am a physics lab instructor.  I know that things do not always turn out the way you thought they would from theory.  So it was only natural that when my husband and I decided we were ready to build the solar home we’d always wanted, that we would build an experimental house first.  And so the adventure begins . . . Continue reading →

Our "Power Center" with inverter, battery bank and charge controller

A solar powered home presents a unique set of challenges for the designer. The home relies for its power on weather conditions, which are highly variable from site to site and even from year to year. The technology is still fairly costly so designing a system with high reliability often comes at a cost that makes it no longer price competitive with grid tied options. Continue reading →

A battery bank of 2V cells

An off-grid renewable power system needs a way to store power for overnight and for calm and cloudy days.  This is done with a large battery bank, designed to store power for several days.  Continue reading →