If you were looking for a few acres to build a cottage on, and found a beautiful 101 acre property, what would you do with the extra land? That was the issue we faced in 2005.

We bought the property and decided to rent out about 60 acres to a local farmer, who uses best practices to farm the land in a sustainable manner with minimal use of pesticides. Thirty acres were left as a woodlot and wild area for the enjoyment of some deer, wild turkey, foxes and a family of osprey.

After building a house and planting a garden, about five acres were left to recreate a natural environment and habitat. The south shore of Rice Lake was covered in a tallgrass prairie when European pioneers such as Catherine Parr Traill arrived.  In 2008 we planted a prairie to recreate this type of habitat, which is now very rare in Ontario.

Tallgrass prairie consists of grasses such as big bluestem and Indian grass, which can grow over six feet tall, and flowers such as black-eyed Susan and bergamot. It supports a wide range of birds, bees and butterflies which need this specific type of habitat for food and shelter.

In 2007 we started to collect native woody plants, which developed into an arboretum of over 120 native Ontario trees, shrubs and vines, around the edges of the prairie.

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