The Land O’Lakes Garden Club (LOLGC) is a very active group in our community. Our members come from not only Cloyne, Northbrook and Flinton, but Plevna, Verona, Belleville, Whitby and beyond. Many of our members live in the area but others are cottagers who also love it here.

Not too many of us are “master” gardeners but what we have in common is our interest in making flowers or vegetables grow, whether in pots, hangers, rock gardens or right in the soil. The joy of picking the flowers or harvesting the vegetables is unmistakable.

In 2017, our group painted the 13 Provincial and Territorial Flowers as part of the 150th Celebration of Canada’s Confederation. These plaques can be seen every year from June to October on the exterior walls of the Cloyne Pioneer Museum. We also donated a bench and planted many of the trees in the Benny’s Lake Park, which is adjacent to the museum. We honoured the First Nations by arranging for the design and installation of a large Turtle Island Plaque which explains the significance of this area. It can be enjoyed year-round in this same park.

In 2018, we had another busy year in that we replaced the 25 Planter Boxes, which can be seen in front of many of our local businesses. We in fact made 30, so if any business is interested, please contact us by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We host many interesting speakers at our meetings, which are held in the Pineview Free Methodist Church (Hwy 41 in Cloyne), on the second Thursday of each month, from April to October at 7:00pm. Our first meeting will be April 11th with a presentation by Tim Hobbs and Donna Pass who will talk about “Rediscovering Daylilies” - just the topic after this long cold winter.

Other guest speakers:

May 9th Joe and Hazel Cook from Blossom Hill Nursery in Peterborough. “Peonies -Discover the Passion”

June 13th Cheryl Harrison, Master Gardener from Campbellford “The Many Wonders of Mulch”

July 11th Laura Moses from Seeleys Bay “Pots that Wow”

August 8th Jennifer Nash from Prosperity Acres in Corbyville “The Best Dirt, why Compost is so Important”

September 12th Doug McCrae from Brighton Backyard Birds “Bird feeding, habitats and Native Plants for Birds”

October 10th Deanna Groves from Quinte Botanical Gardens “How the Gardens were created and why we did them”

Besides our regular meetings, we help to maintain the gardens in the Pioneer Cemetery in Cloyne and the Township Halls in Cloyne, Harlowe and Flinton. One of our most rewarding projects is at the Seniors’ home, Pine Meadow, in Northbrook, where we rake, cleanup and plant the gardens and boxes for the residents to enjoy. Two of our members make up and deliver flower arrangements at Easter and Christmas for the homebound clients of the Meals on Wheels program. We have started to partner with the Lennox and Addington Resources for Children (LARC) in developing and running a one-day speciality program that involves the children in a plant/garden related activity. Last Spring we made fairy gardens with the children and in December had live pine trees for them to decorate for Christmas, with the idea that they will replant them when the soil thaws. We hope that these activities will start an interest in gardening and the love of what nature provides. Every year, we make 400-500 corsages which we hand out at our local Santa Claus Parade. We donate to the Lions Club and Community Services so that Christmas gifts can be bought for young children and teenagers. We give a Scholarship award at our local High School every year to a student planning a career in Horticultural, Landscape Design, Forestry, Agricultural and Environmental studies and who is recommended by the North Addington Education Centre (NAEC).

One of our biggest events is our Plant Sale, which will be held on Saturday, May 25th starting at 9:00am at the Barrie Community Hall in Cloyne. This is a very popular event, so come early to purchase organic vegetable, herb and flower plants which have been grown and then donated by our members so you know that they are acclimatized to our unique environment of rock and soil. The proceeds go back to help us maintain our ongoing projects in our community.

We welcome guests to our monthly meetings, so please come and check us out and hopefully join our active group as you do not need to be a gardener to enjoy our topics and our enthusiastic membership.

North Frontenac Township is recruiting for it fire department.

“We have banners up in the municipality and hopefully we’ll get some response,” said Eric Korhonen, director of emergency services/fire chief.

While Korhonen has no idea how much response he will get, he would like to add about 10 new firefighters per station (Snow Road, Ompah and Plevna; the department also has a joint operation with Addington Highlands in Cloyne) or 30 overall. But, he recognizes that goal is more long-term.

“Realistically, we’ll probably add a handful at a time,” he said.

Prospective applicants are asked to send an email to the chief (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) expressing interest. From there, there will be an application interview, basic medical requirement and a driver’s abstract.

“Then you start training,” he said.

New firefighters receive a rural firefighters course, first aid, CPR and defibrillator training. Once every four months, there is a mandatory training session as well.

There is weekend involvement but Korhonen said “as a department, we try to be flexible, such as training on weekends so students can attend their classes during the week.”

Korhonen said there’s no cause for alarm at the moment but they do need some more people.

“Our roster is just not where it should be,” he said. “We have sufficient people to respond but people have other lives outside the department and we have to be able to cover for this.”

For Korhonen, the biggest reward of the job is “to protect your community and the people you’ve grown up with.

“When people need us, it’s at a time when they’re really down and really need us.”

There are other rewards as well, he said.

“We’re also teaching you a skill as a young person that you can easily transfer to the big city,” he said. “Plus firefighting is a brotherhood and the camaraderie is a big part of it.

“It’s a family and as you make a commitment to them and they’ll make a commitment to you.”

There’s also a lot of gratification when you help somebody that really needs it, he said.

“And let’s face it, lights and sirens are a rush.”

It wasn’t that long ago that the Plevna Freshmart looked like it might be on its last legs. The attached North of 7 Family Restaurant had closed and the grocery store had become more of a convenience store/gas bar operation.

But on Sept. 1 of last year, Bill James bought it.

A Plevna native, James had run a successful diesel fuel business but had decided the time had come to sell. He had some commitments to diesel business up until the end of January but now he’s fully committed to his new venture.

“I saw it (the restaurant/grocery store) needed some help,” he said. “And I needed something to do.”

Well, he has plenty to do now.

He started by increasing inventory in the grocery and opened the restaurant in mid-December. He estimates he’s at about 25 per cent of where he wants to be with the operation.

“We still have work in the restaurant but we have the bakery up and running,” he said. “We’ll be adding a butcher shop and this will be a fully operational grocery.”

It’s not like James always wanted to have a restaurant or a grocery store, he just saw an opportunity.

“I’ve got six month’s experience,” he joked. “Every day I’m learning.

“But, I’ve worked in customer service my whole life and regardless of what you’re selling or promoting, at the end of the day, your customers are what matters.”

He said he’s just getting through his first year and the new year will begin May 1. He knows it will take time to build the business up to it’s potential.

“This started out as a hamburger stand you know,” he said. “It’ll take a couple of years to get it to where we want it.”

He has no shortage of ideas and plans however.

Like any successful northern rural businessman, he knows he has to make most of his money when the tourists are around.

“Right now, we bake bread twice a week,” he said. “In the summer it will be every day.

“In the summer, people will come in for meat and buy the rest of their groceries too.”

As for the restaurant, they have a varied menu within the family restaurant genre but once they get going he plans dinner specials on weekends and such.

“It’ll be seven days a week in the summer,” he said. “This is not a corner store any more.”

For example, he plans specials during the hockey playoffs this year and then “let ’er happen.”

Right now, the store is open from 8-6 daily and 9-5 on Sunday. The restaurant is open from 9-3 Thursday to Sunday but expect those hours to expand soon, perhaps as early as sometime in March.

But James certainly seems to be enjoying himself with his new venture.

Is there some part he likes the best?

“All of it,” he said.

For 18 years, David Craig built conventional homes.

Then, he saw the film Garbage Warrior, a 2007 documentary about Mike Reynolds, who came up with the Earthship style of building. Intrigued, he went to take a course from Reynolds in New Mexico.

When he got back to Canada, he quit his job (“it was a good job,” he said) and began building Earthships. He has two of these completed and sold under his belt.

Craig’s company, Talking Trees Communities, is one of the ‘stakeholders’ in C & T North Frontenac’s One Small Town project.

Craig’s part, and indeed his vision, is to create a community of Earthships.

“Eighty-nine would work, 111 would be nice,” he said.

Currently, Craig is working out of the house beside the liquor store in Plevna that’s serving as the overall project’s headquarters.

“I don’t have any say in this building, I’m just in it,” he said. “It’s all of our offices.”

He’d really rather be out there building Earthships.

“To make the projects viable, we’d need 300 to 500 acres,” he said.

For those unfamiliar with the Earthship design concept, they are based on six principles or human needs:

• thermal/solar heating and cooling
• solar and wind electricity
• self-contained sewage treatment
• building with natural and recycled materials
• water harvesting and long-term storage
• some internal food production capabilities.

Craig’s design is based on Reynolds’ but he’s modified it somewhat. He retains the six principles and recycles tires to create the thermal mass which is a crucial component to the heating/cooling system but he’s scrapped the horseshoe concept which he deemed unnecessary to the functions of the house and added some insulation to the thermal mass.

But it’s essentially still the off-grid, self-sustaining plan Reynolds came up with in the early ’70s.

“The conventional house is a freezing, useless box,” he said. “An Earthship will stay at 15 degrees year ’round.

“Now that’s too cold for most people in the winter so you’ll need an additional heating source but nowhere near as much as you do in a conventional home, regardless of how it’s insulated.”

He said the owner of the home plays a big part in the design in terms of how many solar panels are used, size of the greenhouse and accoutrements as well as actual construction if desired but $150 per square foot is “middle ground” building cost for these homes.

The actual plan for One Small Town is very much still in the planning stages but for Craig location and/or construction of the other components (medical centre, electrical generating plant, aquaculture facility, apiary and wood products) is a non-issue. He’s ready to start building houses as soon as the land is secured and subdivided.

“We (the Earthship component) don’t need the power,” he said.

The Ducharme family is pretty busy these days. Not only are they installing thousands of lights at just the correct location in the four acre patch of property that they decorate for Christmas each year, there is also the matter of preparing the Singing Trees.

“We store about 80% of the lights each year and put them up in new locations to keep the display new,”said Greg Ducharme early this week, “and tee Singing Trees are new for us this year. The lights are hooked in to a computer so they respond to the music that is played through the system. It really looks like the trees are singing when you see it in action.”

Ducharme is waiting for the final piece of equipment to come in from Kansas City to hook up four trees, and the singing trees will be the centrepiece of the display at Riverhill farms this Christmas season. The display will be complete and ready for the opening evening, which coincides with the Ompah-Plevna Santa Clause Parade.

Riverhill farms is located on Struthadam Road, which is off River Road. Riverr Road runs between Ardoch Road (near Ardoch) and 509 (at Ompah) in North Frontenac Township.

For the past four years, Ducharme’s past time of putting up Christmas lights, which started in 2008 with the birth of his grand-daughter, has been a public event that is a highlight of the Christmas season in the region.

“We kept adding to it and adding to it as each year progressed, more and more people were coming in the driveway. We tried opening it to the public for the first time four years ago and it has been very successful,” he said.

The lights are turned on each evening between November 25 and New Years, and the Ducharmes keep then lights on until 9pm on weeknights and 10pm on weekends.

For three Saturday evenings during that time (December 2, 9, and 16) between 5pm and 8pm there will be wagon rides, hot chocolate, coffee, donuts, and pancakes and sausage or bacon and home-made maple syrup available as well.

Bus trips for 30 passengers or more can be arranged by calling Greg at 613-282-3276. Please provide one week’s notice.

The entire enterprise is about sharing the Ducharme families’ passion for Christmas lights that bring joy to the cold, dark fall evenings.

“I’ve lived a pretty blessed life,” said Ducharme, “and this is my way to give back some joy and Christmas spirit.”

The Riverhill Christmas Lights Show is free to view. The only charge is for refreshments on the three special Saturday Nights. There is a jar available for donations to help cover costs.

Ron Higgins sees himself as a kind of hub in the wheel that is rolling towards a major change in the economic and social reality in North Frontenac Township over the next ten years. He is neither and investor nor a proponent for any of the series of projects that are in various stages of development, but he has been at the centre of the effort to put groups and individuals interested in starting new ventures with the governmental and non-governmental agencies that can help make the ventures come to fruition.

Higgins brought the projects together in one package at a special meeting of Council almost two weeks ago. He was seeking Council’s support in principle in order to advance one of the projects, a power generation proposal, which is still in the conceptual stages, but the meeting provided an opportunity to bring forward two other initiative that are at a more advanced stage, even though they do not require council action.

In an interview with the News last Friday (November 19) Higgins took the opportunity to clarify where all of the threads of the complicated set of initiatives are located, both physically and in terms of time frame.

The proposal for a wellness centre, wood shop and apiary is the first that will get underway. It has a location that has already been purchased. Planning is underway now for a renovation to the former Tooley house and 36 acre property which has road frontage in Plevna on Road 506. The property has commercial-residential zoning and starting up the new ventures will not require any planning applications. However renovations to the 2,275 square foot house on the property to create an interim home for the wellness centre will require a building permit, which has not been acquired as of yet. The proposal that was presented to council said that there is potential for the centre to offer the following services: massage, including Reiki, Shiatsu, accupressure and other types, chiropractic services, physiotherapy, First Nations healing or crystal/herbal healing, and primary care services offered by three medical doctors, and the services of a locally based Nurse Practitioner and midwife.

There is a large garage/worskhop on the property, and the plan is to build a canoe this winter to “show the community the quality of canoes that can be made here in North Frontenac. Publicity would be enhanced by raffling off the canoe,” according to the report on the “One Small Town Implementation Plan that Higgins submitted to Council on November 3.

The other project slated to get underway in the near term on the Tooley property is an apiary. All of the projects will be taken on by a co-operative called C&T North Frontenac (C&T stand for Contribute and Thrive). Part of the operating mandate of the co-op is that members who contribute 3 hours per week to one of the projects will receive a share of the benefits. In the case of the canoe factory, if one develops, that would amount to a free canoe.

David Craig, one of the main proponents of the Talking Trees project, which will be discussed below. According to Ron Higgins Craig will be involved in the renovation project in Plevna and will be living and working in North Frontenac this winter. He has been residing near Perth until now.

The second initiative covered in the plan is the Talking Trees Earth Ship project, which has been the subject of articles in the Frontenac News as early as last spring. In its current incarnation, the project envisions constructing 89 Earth Ships, homes built from used tires and concrete, built into the land to make them self sufficient in terms of electrical power and heat/cooling. The land for this project has not been purchased but there are un-comfirmed reports that a property that is suitable for the project has been located to the east of Ompah towards Snow Road, close to Road 509.

Higgins said that this project will require planning approvals from Frontenac County, likely a Plan of Condominium will need to be prepared and approved before lots can be created and construction of the pod based community can get underway.

“I don’t think the process will create the same amount of controversy among neighbours as a proposal to create 20 or more waterfront lots would,” Higgins said, comparing the Talking Trees initiative with the Ardoch Lake Plan of subdivision, a project in North Frontenac that is being opposed by neighbouring property owners. In the plan that was presented to Council, construction on the Talking Trees project is slated to begin in late 2018, although Higgins said he does understand that may be an overly optimistic given the land has not been purchased and planning processes in Frontenac County tend to be slow.

The longest term plan is the proposal for electrical generation and aquaculture projects, which will require some land that includes waterfront because the generating process requires water to be drawn from a water source, processed and then returned to the water source. A second factor about site selection for this project is proximity to the electrical grid to feed power into the hydro system. The aquaculture project will be energy intensive and will require the electrical generation to help it remain competitive in the market place. The municipality will need to be the owners of the power project, but Higgins said that Langenburg, the company that has expressed interest in building the project, is prepared to cover all the costs in exchange for the profits that will be generated, making North Frontenac a power producer in name only.

There is no time frame set out for this part of the One Small Town initiative.

About 50 people showed up to the Sky Pad near Plevna Saturday night where the planet Saturn was the main attraction.

“This is a good night because you don’t always get to see Titan (Saturn’s largest moon and the second largest moon in the solar system after Jupiter’s Ganymede),” said Alex Dolnycky, who was visiting from the North York Astronomical Association.
It was also timely as the Cassini spacecraft ended its mission by burning up in Saturn’s atmosphere Sept. 15, the night before the star party.

Dolnycky said Saturn is especially interesting for him because another Saturnian moon, Enceladus, is covered in ice that is thought to cover a subsurface ocean and as such could be a good candidate for harboring primitive life. Dolnycky lectures on the possibility of life in the solar system with Enceladus and Mars being his top two candidates.

Telescopes were also trained on a number of Messier objects this night, with M13, the Great Globular Cluster in the constellation Hercules being particular spectacular. M27, the Dumbbell Nebula in the Summer Triangle was also worth a look.
The final star party this year is scheduled for Oct. 14 when our closest neighbour galaxy, Andromeda, will be well placed.

North Frontenac’s astronomer-in-residence, Gary Colwell, was also on hand and was more than willing to share his eclipse adventure this summer.

On Aug. 21, Colwell was in Grand Island, Nebraska to see to total solar eclipse. While eclipses themselves aren’t rare, being in the path of a total solar eclipse isn’t something most people get to do very often, so the 5,000 kilometre trip was something Colwell won’t forget.

“There must have been 3,000 people from Canada in the KOA campgrounds,” Colwell said. “And when the eclipse happened, we were all cheering like little kids.”
Colwell had his gear with him and got some spectacular video and photos, but they’re a bonus to the actual experience, he said.

“For two minutes and 34 seconds, it was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had,” he said. “It was almost spiritual, seeing 360 degree twilight.
“It was a bit freaky seeing stars while the sun was out and the temperature dropped maybe five or ten degrees.

“The next one (totality) is in Mexico (2024) and I’m planning to go.”

After a Public Meeting last Saturday (August 19), Frontenac County Planner Joe Gallivan said that a proposal to create 24 waterfront and 6 land-bound lots on a 45-acre parcel of land on Ardoch Lake will need even more work before it is brought forward for approval by Frontenac County Council.
The meeting, which was conducted by the Frontenac County Planning Advisory Committee, was held at the Clar-Mill Hall in Plevna in front of 34 people, including the applicant as well as Ardoch and Malcolm Lake residents and Lake Association activists from throughout the township.

A public meeting was held in 2014 on a 35 lot proposal and when the applicants first came to North Frontenac Council in 2012 the applicants were proposing to create almost 50 waterfront lots on the lake.
Among the issues that are still to be resolved before the planning committee can complete its evaluation of the proposal and make a recommendation to Frontenac County Council, are the locations of the wells on some of the proposed lots. Malroz Engineering, which provides peer review services to Frontenac County, expressed concerns recently over a change in placement of some wells in the newest version of the plan.
“In our peer reviews we identified that wells should be hydraulically upgradient from the septic systems. The lot servicing plan provided at the time (attached) appeared to address this. The revised plan you provided appears to contradict this. We continue to recommend that septic systems be upgradient of the water supply wells. No rationale to seek an alternative has been put forward at this time,” said Jonathan Pyke from Malroz.
This information was shared with the applicant for response.

Perhaps more serious issues at play are the status of a Heron Rookery on the property where the vacant land condominium is proposed, which will need to be protected. As well, the shoreline where the properties are located is very shallow, and includes some fish spawning beds that have been upgraded in recent years by members of the Maldcolm and Ardoch Lake Association (MALA).
After the meeting, Joe Gallivan said that he will be seeking further information from the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) on how to balance the proposed development with those environmental features.
Other issues that were brought up at the meeting by MALA was about how the potential impact on the lake from 30 new septic systems is calculated. They argue that each new property could be or become a permanent residence and the potential for year round use should be considered in all calculations, and not the “extended seasonal use” that is the basis for the evaluations that have been done thus far.
According to Brenda Martin, a member of the MALA executive who was at the meeting, the residents are not opposed to new lot development, but they envision “eight or nine lots” which is in keeping with the lot density on the rest of the lake, “not 30 lots”.

The Planning Advisory Committee of Frontenac County Council was only formed one year ago to conduct public meetings on all planning matters where the County has approval authority. These include Official Plans for the townships, and plans of subdivision and vacant land condominium – which can be extremely complicated when they are located on waterfront – which is common in Frontenac County.
The Committee is made up of the Mayors from the four Frontenac Townships as well as three public appointees. Among the committee’s roles is to make recommendations to Frontenac County Council concerning land use planning proposals that come to council for approval.

The committee will meet on September 12, and the Ardoch Plan will not be on the agenda although the applicant, Global Land Consortium, may be appearing as a delegation. The meeting after that is set for November. Gallivan said that the committee may hold another Public Meeting on the Ardoch Plan sometime in 2018.

The St. Lawrence Employment Centre Bantam Girls team from Central Frontenac (which includes Sharbot Lake, Plevna, Mountain Grove and Parham) overcame a first-inning, 6-run deficit to defeat Kingston Kia 12-6 in the B Final the Greater Kingston Softball Association Intercommunity Year-End Tournament in Sydenham Saturday. 

Back row: Nicole, JessieMae, Julia, Tangie, Meg, Autumn, Marcie; middle row: Vanessa, Sidney, Tori, Amber; front row: Michaela, Claudia. Photo/submitted

Perhaps North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins said it best himself: “It doesn’t look like this will be going through.”

It wasn’t exactly an admission of defeat, more an acceptance of reality, but being that Higgins was the driving force behind changing the wards and subsequent representation on Council, it would certainly seem that the status quo will be what the Township carries into the 2018 elections.

Higgins was speaking at a special meeting of Council last Saturday at Clar-Mill Hall in Plevna, to consider revamping the make-up of Council as well as waste disposal/recycling options.

At the Nov. 4, 2016 Council meeting, Higgins presented proposed changes which would feature elimination of the ward system as well as the reduction of bodies on Council to five from the current seven. The new Council would feature a Mayor, Deputy Mayor and three Councilors, all elected at large.

That didn’t fly but Council did agree to look at combining Wards 2 and 3, as well as reducing the number of councilors.

This time, they invited the public to comment.

And comment they did:
• “Who’s complaining? I don’t know of any problems the proposal is solving.”
• “I like the wisdom of seven people as opposed to five.”
• “I like the diversity of opinion.”

But perhaps it was Leonard Emery’s observation that changing the wards could easily create an east-west split in votes, leaving the Mayor to cast the deciding vote and thus increase the power of the Mayor’s office that had the most impact.
“I hadn’t thought of that before,” said Higgins.

But it wasn’t only the public who opposed the proposed plan. Coun. Wayne Good was absent from the meeting but the rest of Council was pretty unanimous in being against the changes.

“What I see, when there are fewer people doing the work, that’s an increased workload and sooner or later they’re going to vote themselves a raise,” said Coun. Denis Bedard.

“Proportional representation could split the Township in half,” said Coun. Vern Hermer.

“I voted (to bring the proposal to the table) not because I agree with it, but because I believe it should be discussed,” said Coun. John Inglis.

Coun. Gerry Martin said the Council meetings are only a part of the workload. There are a lot of committee meetings and lake association meetings to be prepared for and attended.

Dep. Mayor Fred Perry concurred.

“Summer is ugly,” Perry said. “You get up and you read emails.

“You have to like abuse.”

There is a draft bylaw in the works but whether or not it actually comes to Council is probably a moot point.

“This proposal is my doing,” said Higgins. “I knew coming in today, through social media, etc., it wasn’t going to fly.”

Martin said that it may only be a matter of time until change is forced on the municipality anyways.

“I really think that the days of small municipalities are numbered,” Martin said. “We’ll probably see another round of amalgamation coming.