Monthly Archives: December, 2010
A Look Back at The Most Viewed Posts of the Past Year
By Michelle Mather Many bloggers take a look back at this time of year and review some of the topics that they covered. I thought it would be interesting to look at our blog stats and see which posts were viewed the most over the past year…. Of all of the posts on this blog …
Heating My Home is My Hobby
By Cam Mather I can remember when we were getting prepared to leave our suburban, natural gas-heated home to live in our new home on 150 acres in the bush. A friend warned me about how hard it is to heat with wood. In fact my friend knew of someone who had given up and …
LED Lights Save Christmas!
By Cam Mather I love Christmas. What a great time of the year. November and December tend to be gray, dark and dreary months around here but at least we have Christmas to look forward to! When we first moved to this off- grid house twelve years ago there were no LED Christmas lights, and …
Our “AgriCultural” Small Town
By Cam Mather Places have energy. I’ve noticed this whenever I travel – each community has a certain vibe. The village that is closest to my home, Tamworth, has a lot of energy right now. There are probably many different reasons for this energy, but a lot of it comes down to the people. One …
Cleaning My Own “Furnace”
By Cam Mather Let’s pretend that it’s a January night, it’s 20 below outside, the wind is howling and the power goes out. How long will your house stay warm? The natural gas will keep flowing to your furnace, but your furnace blower fan needs electricity. Lets say that the power stays on, but you …
My Close Personal Friend Bill Gates
By Cam Mather In a recent blog post I mentioned that I once spoke at a conference where Bill Gates was also a speaker. Believe it or not, some members of my own family questioned that claim! I can understand my daughter Katie not remembering the event since she wasn’t even born yet and Michelle …
How I Spent My Recent Birthday
By Cam Mather I recently celebrated a birthday. Thanks for all the nice greetings on Facebook! I can say “Well I’m 51 now so I don’t expect anything special” but I love being “The Birthday Boy.” Mostly I like an excuse to eat debaucherously (is that a word?). I’ve now renamed my celebration “Birthday Week” …
The Survival Podcast
Cam was a guest on “The Survival Podcast” again recently. He and the host Jack discuss a wide range of topics including living off the grid, using renewable energy and growing your own food. Here’s the link; http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/mather-on-off-grid-living
The REAL Unemployment Rate
By Cam Mather I did a radio interview with WMKT in Michigan last week and the host and I talked about the unemployment rate. We were discussing North American natural gas reserves and he was mentioning a large discovery of shale gas in Northern Michigan. When I commented on the high-energy return on investment and …
Follow Me On Twitter? Not!
By Cam Mather You know what term I’m sick of? “Social Media.” My cousin Dave has often picked up on these terms that are the zeitgeist of the day, like “lifestyle” (you know you need lifestyle luncheon meats) or “combo” (cause who wants to buy a burger that isn’t part of a combo?) “Social Media” …
Reader Comments