Hello

Well this is the start of a journey for myself and my family. We are working to create a business out of our small farm in rural Ontario.  My long term goals are vast and far reaching. I am extremely interested in permaculture and the implications for a safe future for our children. It is something I am investigating going forward for the next few years.  I am retiring from teaching in 10 years and want to have all of my systems and operations in place by then.

Big ideas are as follows:

• Create several home-based businesses to support my family and generate more income.
• Develop a small sized apiary - called Bee Stoic Apiary
• Terra form the property to create swales that will capture water on the landscape and make it more productive long term. References: Geoff Lawton, Sepp Holtzer
• Integrate animals into the landscape to fertilize the land, cultivate, and harvest and help hold back invasive plants that are not productive for ruminants or humans. Reference: Joel Salatin, Sepp Holtzer, Masanobu Fukuoka, Ben Falk, 
• Grow my own vegetables and possibly sell the extras: Masanobu Fukuoka, Elliot Cloeman,  Jean-Martin Fortier, Cam Mather
• Become as energy efficient as possible. I am investigating the capture of heat energy from the sun and will be integrating that into my household hot water this summer in phase 1 of my expansion. References: Jean Pain Hot Compost Pile, Solar Ideas, Driving Smaller Cars and utilizing trailers more
• Be aware of collapsing economic circumstances as Western Civilization may have peaked as net energy extracted has peaked. References: Richard Heinberg, Peak Prosperity, James Howard Kunstler,