Beaver Creek Housing Cooperative

Disposing of “e-waste” (computers and other electronic equipment) can be a big pain. The Region of Waterloo offers some alternatives. The first suggestion costs money, there are a handful of brand specific options, and the last option is to “arrange with other e-waste recyclers/refurbishers”.

One such e-waste recycler is The Computer Recycling Depot, a certified member of the Ontario Electronic Stewardship, is located just across the street from the Waterloo landfill site on the property of the History Hergott Ciderr Mill. They allow you to drop off an unlimited amount of phase 1 e-waste for free such as:

• Desktop computers
• Portable computers
• Computer peripherals
• Monitors
• Televisions
• Printing devices

Learn more about The Computer Recycling Depot at their website including hours of operation and information about their pick up program!

There are a handful of people at Beaver Creek that are really excited about LOFT: local organic fair trade. It is a local co-op that consists of farmers right in our own backyard. We are hoping to get enough interest in the local area to allow us to have a LOFT drop here at Beaver Creek. Just think, your order of fresh, organic, fair trade fruits and veggies delivered to Beaver Creek every week ready for you to pick up and enjoy. You can learn more at LOFTmarket.ca

Order options include:

• The Family Box ($37): Similar to last season’s box, this box will contain a variety of vegetables and fruits for a small family or two hungry adults.
• The Loft Bag ($25): This easy to handle bag will offer slightly smaller portions than the Family Box while still offering you an assortment of weekly fresh greens.
• The Heavy Box ($50): This box is heavy!! A new addition this season for those who love to cook with vegetables. If veggies are your staple then this box is for you.

If we have at least ten orders, LOFT will make Beaver Creek a drop depot. Please email me at Jonathan.Dietrichbeavercreek.coop if you are interested in placing an order for pickup at Beaver Creek.

Walking up to the garden plots early in the morning, before many others are up in the community, and finding other gardeners quietly enjoying the fresh morning in their gardens gives me much pleasure.

Some gardeners have had their plots offering up bounties of vegetables, fruits and/or flowers and herbs for many, many years while some of our newest members have been out in the spring, creating their own special place in our community garden.

We each have our own way of preparing the soil, planting, protecting the young plants, watering and nurturing our gardens.

I like how this shows our different personalities and the way we were shown. New gardeners are learning some old tricks from practiced folks and we all work to keep our plants healthy without using harmful pesticides. This is just another way that Beaver Creekers can stay near to nature and grow some tasty food.

I just got this email blast from the Cooperative Housing Federation of Canada.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion made an announcement of funding to help co-op members and other Canadians renovate their homes to conserve energy. The event took place at Pine Ridge Housing Co-operative in Burnaby, which is exploring the option of converting to thermal heating. In a discussion with housing co-op members, the Liberal leader also promised to reveal his plans for social and co-op housing later in the campaign.

This promise addresses one of the key issues CHF Canada and housing co-ops are raising in this election.

CHF Canada welcomes this major announcement and looks forward to hearing more from all parties during this campaign.

The Grand House Student Co-operative, in Cambridge, ON, is nearing completion. It is one of the first university student housing co-ops to be developed in many years. Its large house will accommodate 12 students. The building itself is on the cutting-edge of environmental design including using straw bale construction. The co-op has launched a Buy-a-Bale campaign to raise funds to help it complete the project. For more on the co-op, its unique construction, or its campaign, go to www.grandhouse.wacsa.org.

Though people commonly refer to all insects as bugs, entomologically the term is reserved for a specific group of insects called “true bugs”. These insects have characteristic needle-like mouthparts that stab and suck the liquefied contents from other organisms like a straw. They form a large order of insects called Hemiptera, which includes a particularly pungent bunch of bugs:

Stink Bugs

Coming in a range of colours and patterns, the shield-shaped stink bugs can be quite an attractive lot of insects. Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for them), they stink!

I use the term “bugs” in the title to encompass all insects, arachnids, and other non-insect arthropods. Bugs pollinate our plants, mix and aerate our soil, dispose of carrion and dung, feed on pests and provide food for other life forms. In return, many of us fear them, swat or squish them, spray them with poisons, or at best ignore them. It must be said that we depend upon bugs far more than they depend on us. Indeed, if they were to suddenly disappear it is doubtful whether the human species would be able to survive as we do, if at all.

There is a group of insects that has colonized almost every terrestrial habitat on the planet, and consequently there are a lot of them here at Beaver Creek. They were the first insect I sighted this spring and are fascinating animals if you take a closer look:

Beaver Creek has three varieties of oak. The oaks along the road are red oaks. The oak between Block Five and Block Six is a white oak. And the oak in the field beside Block Nine is a bur oak. There is also a bur oak near the fire pit and in among the sumac behind Block Two.

In his book, Oak: The Frame of Civilization, William Logan emphasizes the critical relationship humanity has had with oak since the ending of the last ice ages about 15,000 years ago. This is an excellent book and is available from the library, call number 634.9721. Most of the information in this article is extracted from this book.

The tenth Sunoco Earth Day will be held on April 19, 2008 at the GRCA conservation area on Westmount Road just off Northfield Drive in Waterloo. The event, sponsored by Sunoco and the Suncor Energy Foundation, runs from 10am to 1pm and is free. Beaver Creek's Green Committee is organizing members who are interested in attending and participating as a group.

Trees and shovels will be provided to those who want to help plant 1,000 native trees such as white pine, sugar maple and red oak. They will replace some of the two hectares worth of red pines which had to be removed last fall because of an infestation of pine shoot beetles.

On Saturday a group of members, their families and guests celebrated Earth Hour together. We gathered in our Community Centre where we were able to roll our own beeswax candles which we lit and took for a walk through the darkened streets. Arriving back at our Community Centre, a member told entranced young and old with some stories. Members were invited to stay for a cup of tea and discuss how we could make Beaver Creek even more "green."

Special thanks to Candlepower for donating the candle supplies, to Ryan Chen-Wing from The Record for covering the event, and to all of the members who helped out or attended this event. Be sure to check out our 2008 Earth Hour gallery for more photos from the event.