Tag Archives: donation

Timber harvesting and the health of our lakes: The Calcium Story

©www.cottageinmuskoka.ca
©www.cottageinmuskoka.ca

Mentioned in a number of Muskoka Watershed Council lectures over the past few years, calcium decline in Muskoka Lakes and in particular, the consequences of timber harvesting on lake calcium levels have been hinted at as a potential direct cause of declining health of our lakes in Muskoka. Here’s a past primer news story from the Huntsville Forester (Cottage Country News).
This week, we have an opportunity to discover more.

Dr. Shaun Watmough, an Associate Professor in the Environmental Resource Science Program at Trent University in Peterborough will present.
Here is a synopsis of the lecture:
Decades of acid deposition have depleted soil calcium reserves and, when combined with timber harvesting, predicted losses of calcium from soil are considerable and may ultimately threaten long-term forest health and productivity and lead to negative impacts on lakes.
In this talk, Dr. Watmough will provide an overview of our current understanding of calcium biogeochemistry and describe the reasons for the widespread decline in calcium levels in lakes and the implications of calcium losses on soil fertility and forest health in addition to impacts on lake ecosystems.
With an emphasis on south central Ontario, Dr. Watmough will document a nutrient budget for a selection harvesting regime in central Ontario hardwood forests. This work is then extrapolated to regional harvesting activities and management issues are discussed.

The lecture is this Thursday, October 10, 2013 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm at Nipissing University – Muskoka Campus, 125 Wellington Street, Bracebridge, P1L 1E2. As always, admission is by donation

The link for this lecture and registration is here.

cottageinmuskoka.ca gives to Muskoka charity

Catharine presented a cheque for $800.00 that she is donating to the Interval House in Bracebridge. In addition to this local Muskoka support, Catharine has donated another $800.00 to the Royal LePage National Shelter Foundation.

The Muskoka Women’s Advocacy Group (MWAG) operates two 24-hour crisis shelters for abused women and their children – Muskoka Interval House, in Bracebridge and Chrysalis in Huntsville, which also offers supportive transitional housing units for vulnerable women.  Muskoka Interval House and Chrysalis are 24-hour women’s crisis shelters, serving Muskoka.

Catharine Inniss, Joy McCormack & Bentley
Catharine Inniss, Joy McCormack, Executive Director, Muskoka Women’s Advocacy Group & Bentley

Catharine has chosen to to support this important charity every year: “I appreciate the opportunity to give to such a worthy cause, right in our community. Bentley appreciates the opportunity to enjoy some sunshine in Muskoka. After jumping for joy, he jumped on Joy”.

cottageinmuskoka.ca donates 27 bicycles to a community charity

Last week while showing a cottage with Catharine on Lake Muskoka, I got a call that some 27 bikes abandoned at a number of Toronto condominiums, were going to to be crushed for scrap the following day unless someone intervened. So we attached our old trailer and headed from Muskoka to Toronto to load up the bikes. We then delivered them to a back alley behind a church; given the recent activities of Toronto’s Igor, the unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves (here’s a NY Times article), our trailer load drew some real attention from good samaritans.

Trailer load of bikes, some with locks still on them.

We were able to support a Toronto charity: Community Bicycle Network (CBN). CBN is a non-profit that repairs bikes, refurbishes and sells donated bicycles, sells new and used parts, rents trailers and bikes at affordable rates, and offer space to practice and learn bike mechanics and cycling skills. CBN has been dedicated to promoting community-based sustainable transportation initiatives since 1993.

Steve with John at Community Bike Network

With just a little bit of time and effort, the donated bicycles will be sold at a very low cost to people that couldn’t otherwise afford them; instead of heading for a landfill.