The past few months have been quite challenging for me here at LUNA. With new staff, new programs, new office...basically a new company was taking hold of my dreams and growing faster than I'd expected. With so many people last year coming through my little tent in the woods, I've been feeling like I've almost given up all my personal privacy. I really must heed my own advise, being much more careful what I wish for.

When I started LUNA three years ago, I was hoping people would come to listen, come to learn, come to understand and come to heal. Come they have, by the hundreds they've arrived and it seems that when they leave, a small part of the property, or a small part of myself goes with them. It's almost like a transference of energy per say. Shed all the negative and take home the positive.

As of lately, I've tried to find old ways of connecting myself to the environment again, unwinding after 37 children have run through these forests is extremely important for me. I've turned once again to barefoot hiking. Just before sunset, I slip off my shoes and almost instantly the cool clay beneath my toes has balanced me again. My pace has slowed. Walking through the hawthorn grove, I stopped at the site where I used to camp when I was thirteen. Pausing beside the moss covered stones of my fire circle I thought back to the nights I sat afraid in my tent. There, beneath the old maple I looked up into her canopy and remembered what it was like to feel safe in her branches. I sat barefoot in that old tree for almost an hour that night, watching as two deer in the valley tried to figure what I was doing in a tree. I thought to myself, "if anyone could see me now, 36 and barefoot in a tree, they may just think I've flipped my lid".

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As I sit here there is a part of me that worries that this is happening earlier each and every year. Normally all four window covers are on until mid April, it's now mid March and they're all off. I may regret this in a week or two and I hope I do because it's just too early for the snow to be gone and green grass to be appearing on the trails.

Over the past 5 years of living and uncovering LUNA, I've noticed countless changes of which I wish kept better journals on. Changes like; on June 9th of 2007 the fireflies were at their peak, in 2008 their arrival was almost 3 weeks later. Subtle changes like this happen each and every year. I have now realized the importance of documenting this to follow these changes. Five years may have passed, however it's never too late to change.

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As I returned home from packing for another winter camping trip, I walked away from the truck watching my shadow walk slowly through the evening snow. The moon is bright and the snow is deep. Every tree branch hangs tight to this white gift from above. As I stood at the top of the hill, I looked down with anticipation of the warmth inside the yurt. A beam of light illuminating high from the dome and splashing from the kitchen window onto the trees and fresh fallen snow. A single column of smoke puffs gracefully from the chimney and the flickering glow of the woodstove warms the heart and mind of this yurt dweller and places a new patch in my ever grown quilt of memories.

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Now that the dust has settled and the mud has frozen, I can safely say that our barn renovation at Pine Brae Acres is complete.

In November we decided to undertake a project that would have a crew of Mennonite contractors help with the restoration of a 140 year old timber frame barn. As a child, this barn was always a place to escape, play and explore for myself and my siblings. The years as of late have not been kind on this old barn. As a family, we never had cattle in the basement, and as this was a "bank" barn, that added heat from the cattle kept the frost out of the walls. As the water slowly worked its way into the foundation, the harsh frost of the winter would push heavy on her 2' think basement walls. As the years passed on, the barn developed quite a lean and was slowly moving south. I saw an opportunity to restore the foundation and help give this barn a second life so that maybe one day we could have animals in the basement to complement our outdoor education programs.

With a flurry of activity, the contractors started punching holes in the basement and prepped the old girl for a new concrete and cinder block foundation. Sometimes, fate deals us a set of cards we never expected. With the north and south walls of the foundation removed I watched in amazement when the tow-truck arrived and moved this massive building back to her original glory, a new set of braces were placed underneath to hold her fast. As the excavator ripped hard into the west wall, leaving only the east wall remaining, she decided a partial restoration was not in the mix.

I sat and watched in shock as the old timber frame walls dropped almost 4 feet and the entire project started to crumble to pieces. Watching a barn of this size creek and grone as gravity pushed hard, I looked at all the gear, canoes, tractors, and cars inside and thought to myself "what the hell have I done". The old contractor came up to me and said "Well David, it looks like she's got to come down. It's too far gone to save now. I know you wanted the barn saved, so it looks like we'll have to rebuild her. I want you to have a nice barn David". The next day the troops arrived and tore the old girl to the ground in an amazing 7 hours. All the barn board, roofing, and flooring was saved and given to the contractor as partial payment.

In a couple of weeks after seeing these hand hewn timbers laying in the mud, she was back up and almost better than ever. A stronger floor, insulated basement and new face lift has the old timbers inside singing with thanks. We kept the old hay forks, pulleys, and even took it as far as having each rafter custom made to fit the joints in the original timbers. It hard to see the old gone, but in time this barn will darken and weather and last well into the next century where more children and adults can build their fond memories of this old barn.

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Every once in awhile it's nice to disconnect again. Sometimes it's not a planned disconnection for me but I welcome it now with open arms. A couple of nights ago, while listening to the CBC on a very cold winters evening, my power unexpectedly shut down. The winter tends to be the leanest time of year for power generation here, as we have limited sun which is my largest percentage of generation. The cold also plays havoc on my crude little power system. Batteries don't like the cold too much, and while mine are sitting at the top of a hill in a Rubbermaid box that is stuffed with insulation, this is not a recommended way to live a life off the grid. The issue is that when I started this project, I started with very little money and little knowledge on what I was doing. As time rolled on, so did my knowledge of what worked and what I was doing wrong. Normally, a hybrid power system consists of photovoltaic panels, wind generator and a back up gas generator. This is what my little systems consists of now. I found in winters past that when my batteries became too low from overuse, I would fire up the gas generator and run it for 12 or so hours to fully recharge the batteries. This keeps them fresh and prolongs their live as you're not over discharging them. Well, with a financially lean winter this year, I was faced to decide if I wanted to put gas in my generator so I could watch television and play on Facebook, or buy some extra groceries to see me through till my next gig. Inevitably, I spent too much time on the computer and wasted too much time watching television causing my precious power reserves to become depleted and not leaving me with enough to even run the fan for my composting toilet. Rather than getting bent out of shape at this, I decided to embrace it and take the opportunity for self reflection, reading, and I even started the odd craft. I found myself freed from the connection I have to the little bit of power I use. I was reading by candlelight and spent a great deal of the evening just listening. This is what the original yurt experience was for me, this is what I somehow wanted again. Every now and then I encourage you to try the same, go into your basement and flick the breaker and choose to "disconnect" with your family. It may just be the best evening you've spent with them in a while.

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The weather station this morning reads a cold -22 degrees with no wind, a beautifully sunny Saturday morning. It proved to be a great morning for a brisk walk on the trails with Luna. As the morning sun warmed the air, my pace slowed and reflections of projects from 2009 came to mind. I walked out of the harvested corn field and onto the road to continue my loop back home. As I walked past the row of neighbouring homes, I noticed water flowing from a pipe from two of the homes. My guess is this is a sump-pump used to remove excess water from the basement. I watched the water flow down the roadside ditch, through a culvert under the road and into the small valley of our corn field. My eyes followed the natural flow of the water down through the valley to the massive expanse of the wetland that was created this past spring. I thought to myself that this one act of building a 200' long burm(dam like structure) at the end of the valley, has given mother nature her last chance to filter and clean the water before it spills into the fragile Beaver Creek. Before the construction of this wetland, this overflow from basements, pools, field runoff and the natural leaching of septic tanks flowed unimpeded into the creek. Now we have a lush aquatic wetland to filter, clean, and purify this precious commodity we all thirst for. In time, we'll build a second wetland to help the cleansing process. In time. Right now we've helped give mother nature a leg up and we'll monitor closely the growth and health of this "last stand".

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After my 5th winter here in the yurt, I seem to have built up a strange tolerance to the cold. I first remember when the yurt was built in May 2005, I would wake in the morning, put on my fleece, wool socks and hat, then would venture out for a walk with Luna in the cool spring air. For some reason, it was always colder in the yurt than it was outside. Now, 5 years later, even though it's the dead of winter with a wind chill of -20 degrees, the inside of my little abode sits comfortably at 15 degrees. I'm sure this is quite cold for most, and in my first year it was mind numbing for me. But I now truly enjoy waking in the morning and placing my bed warmed toes on the cold hardwood floor, to walk the three steps to the woodstove to throw on another log. I guess I've just grown accustomed to the cold and now actually feel like I'm truly living and feeling my actual climate. Not the synthetic one I use to know all too well, "I'm chilly, well turn up the thermostat", "I'm hot, well crank up the AC". I now truly feel alive and thankful for this experience, how blessed am I to have the time to look inside and grow as a person. When many in this world never have that chance, they are in survival mode each and every day. I am truly blessed and extremely grateful for having this chance to grow. Thank you.

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