Do you find the simple, community-based ways of the Amish interesting? I always have. In this article, I talk about my new Amish neighbors on Manitoulin Island and some of the valuable lessons they’re teaching me.

The first part of the 1980s left me feeling desperate. That’s what happened when, after four years of methodical searching, I was giving up hope of ever finding the kind of rural place I wanted to live in. I’d grown up…

As some of you know, my wife, Mary, was suddenly diagnosed with an advanced case of chordoma in May 2024. That’s a very rare, slow-growing cancer that affects the spine and lower skull. Only one in one million people are…

Got a water line that needs to be protected from frost? Watch an actual installation video that I made a while back showing a smart heating cable on a cottage country water line. This system is so efficient you don’t…

Back in the 1990s, I learned a valuable lesson that I haven’t forgotten. It happened over a ten year period while I interviewed dozens of construction company owners and executives for ongoing articles I wrote for a magazine called Carpenter. The…