A version of this column was originally published in 2016. As jack frost approaches each fall, the content remains relevant to readers who may be interested in yearly winter rain barrel maintenance. Readers may also be interested in why rain barrels are beneficial to your multi-season garden.

This year, the GreenUP Store distributed 155 rain barrels. The rain barrels we make available to our community are locally refurbished from used food-grade barrels.

Many of the barrels that we offer are subsidized by either the Peterborough Utilities Group or the Township of Selwyn — making them an appealing option for improving your garden, saving money and energy, and protecting local water sources.

Rain barrels, for those of you who don’t already know, are part of a system that stores rainwater from your roof that would otherwise be lost to runoff and diverted to storm drains and streams.

They can come in a variety of shapes and sizes — you may have seen GreenUP’s recycled barrels around Peterborough/Nogojiwanong in a rustic red autumn-tone — and used in municipal, residential, and community gardens.

Storing rainwater is one way that residents can reduce their use of tap water, and as a result save energy and freshwater.

While many people are choosing to install rain barrels as an effective way to gather rain for use when conditions are dry, rain barrels also help to slow the runoff of storm water over city streets, which can then be diverted to gardens and can help to reduce flooding in urban areas.

Despite the frosty mornings, rain can often still be in the short-term fall forecast. You can continue to empty your rain barrel over the next few weeks to prevent it from overflowing.

If you’re done gardening for the season you may not need the water, but emptying water onto any permeable surface around your home will allow it to slowly infiltrate the ground instead of running off onto driveways or into storm sewers — which can be negative as water that takes this path often picks up pollutants like oil, trash and even pesticides and fertilizers used over the season.

Unless you’re growing kale, chard, or hearty herbs, your gardening season is likely over and soon the rain will be changing to snow. While you’re making plans to put your garden beds to rest, don’t forget to winterize your rain barrel too.

Taking a few minutes to care for your rain barrel this fall will ensure that it lasts for many years. Follow these four recommended steps to properly store your rain barrel over the winter:

Step 1: Drain all of the water out of the rain barrel and leave the spigot open

Any water that is left in the rain barrel can freeze over the winter and cause the plastic to crack.

Drain all of the water out of your barrel before freeze-up and leave the spigot in the open position. This will ensure that no moisture will remain in the spigot that could otherwise cause cracking or break the water seal.

If you like, give the barrel a rinse; some algae or debris may have made its way inside over the season.

Step 2: Remove the lid and anything else that’s attached to the barrel

Detach all the components from your barrel including the lid, overflow valve, and hoses.

All these should be drained of water and stored separately from the barrel.

Step 3: Detach the barrel from the gutter or downspout

Detach your barrel completely from the eavestrough, downspout, or any flexible tubing that connects it to your home.

Don’t forget to re-attach the length of downspout that extends your eavestrough to the ground — you would have removed this when you installed your rain barrel.

You will want it back in place during the January thaw, and in the early spring before you re-install the rain barrel for the growing season.

4. Store your barrel upside-down in a shed or garage, or in a sheltered area outside

Storing your rain barrel inside a shed or garage will help extend its life.

If you must store it outside, choose a location that is away from direct sunlight and where it won’t be carried away by the wind.

Be sure to store it upside-down to prevent water or snow from collecting inside.

It is also recommended to clean and maintain your eavestroughs and downspouts by removing leaves and debris that can clog up gutters and rain barrels. This will leave an open pathway for rain to flow through during winter thaws and will make for quick and efficient rain barrel set-up come springtime.

If you use a rain barrel, you likely understand how far storing water goes when it comes to keeping down your overall metered water usage. Each barrel holds between 190 and 220 litres.

If all the rain barrels sold at the GreenUP Store in 2022 were filled and drained only once this season, then together we diverted between 30,000 and 35,000 litres, or approximately 7,000 gallons, of rainwater — that is the equivalent of over 330 bathtubs full!

If that’s not enough to have you consider a rain barrel for 2023, we invite you to look around at the local community gardens that thrive with the use of a rain barrel to supplement their municipal water use and benefit their plants.

If you feel that the volume of one rain barrel is not enough, or that you’d like to save more water, consider adding a second, or third barrel in 2023. Successive rain barrels can be hooked up to one another via the overflow valve and hose to save even more water each time it rains.

The GreenUP Store will be carrying the same re-purposed, food-grade barrels with brass fittings, overflow valve and hose, and top netting again next year.

For more information and for updates on the Peterborough Utilities Group and Selwyn County rain barrel subsidies, check out shop.greenup.on.ca/collections/outdoor or inquire in-store with our knowledgeable staff at 378 Aylmer Street North in downtown Peterborough.

Kawartha Conservation is launching a nine-hole disc golf course at Ken Reid Conservation Area near Lindsay.

Formalized in the 1970s, disc golf has become an increasingly popular sport. Played much like traditional golf, but with a flying disc instead of a ball and clubs, participants try to complete each “hole” (usually an elevated metal basket) using the fewest number of throws.

The Ken Reid Disc Golf course will be a four-season attraction that can be used in local tournaments or for individual play.

Designed by Huntsville-based Fluent Disc Sport, the course is being constructed and integrated into parts of the escarpment loop and grasslands area at Ken Reid Conservation Area.

“Conservation areas and provincial parks can be ideal homes for disc golf courses,” explains Fluent Disc Sport designer Kevin Farley. “Because we’re playing with flying discs and aren’t concerned with the need for a smooth ground surface, disc golf doesn’t require manicured fairways, it doesn’t need perfectly maintained greens, it doesn’t need cart paths, it doesn’t need any of the things that play the biggest role in golf’s environmental footprint.”

Furthering Kawartha Conservation’s vision for engaged communities that appreciate the natural environment, each hole on the course will provide information on a local bird species and connect disc golfers to the more than 170 species of birds that visit or live in Ken Reid.

“It was important to all of us that the disc golf course is more than just a recreational opportunity,” explains Kristie Virgoe, Kawartha Conservation’s director of stewardship and conservation lands. “We also wanted to make sure it was an opportunity to connect, engage, and educate new and existing Ken Reid visitors.”

The Ken Reid Disc Golf course is expected to open before the end of 2022.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of disc throughout.

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

You won’t find this quote framed and displayed in Adam McInroy’s Bobcaygeon office, but those wise words are at the heart of what he strives to facilitate for clients looking to secure their financial future.

“It’s not a simple one-time transaction,” says Adam, Executive Financial Consultant with Bobcaygeon-based McInroy and Associates Private Wealth Management.

“I’m looking for a long-term relationship with a family or, ideally, with multiple generations because that’s where the best financial planning happens.”

A long-term relationship with a financial advisor can be very beneficial, according to Adam, who is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional and Certified Life Underwriter (CLU).

“Most people think investing is a mathematical equation, but there’s a behavioural component to finances and investing which is commonly overlooked and discounted,” Adam explains, citing a research paper published by Cirano in 2020.

That research found that, between 2010 and 2014, households that retained their financial advisor saw the value of their assets increase by 16.4 per cent, versus only 1.7 per cent for the assets of households that abandoned their advisor during that period.

“That more than exceeds the cost of any advice,” Adam points out.

For Adam and his team, helping clients build their financial future isn’t about giving one-time advice on the latest hot investment.

“What we do is talk to our clients and part of our discussion is about helping client manage their own behaviour,” Adam explains. “It’s quantitative versus qualitative. Working with a financial planner, you may not see the quantitative impact of that decision until years down the road. But the qualitative impact — how you feel about your situation when you go to bed at night thinking ‘I don’t have to worry about what the markets are doing today’, or ‘How am I going to handle the cost of living increases?’ and the sleepless nights that have been caused — what is that worth to you?”

In some cases, helping people avoid those sleepless nights means Adam advises potential clients that investing may not be the most appropriate next step in their financial plan.

“We recently met with a prospect who had come into an inheritance,” he recalls. “When we asked what they wanted to do with it, they said a family member told them to invest it into a sector which at the time the advice was given was doing well, but had since dropped significantly. This was someone who had never invested before, and knew their home needed some work done to it.”

“We said, ‘OK, what do you want to do with the money, what is your priority for that money?’ After some back and forth, they had the clarity to articulate they needed to fix up the home, which was tired and required some upgrades to make it more energy efficient and comfortable to continue to live in. We said, ‘So why don’t you do that instead of investing it?'”

“The weight that came off that person’s shoulders when we gave them that direction … I can’t put a dollar figure to that, but it was pretty monumental to see the transformation in this person from being anxious and in tears to ‘Now I have direction, I have clarity, and this complex decision has been made simple — I know what I need to do.'”

Gaining and keeping a client’s trust is key, Adam says, so he and his team can establish a relationship where they can provide the best possible guidance to clients.

“Money is an innate object — isn’t emotional — but we see, time and time again, people make emotional decisions,” he explains. “We’ve created a team environment where we know you by name. You’re not just a number and a portfolio. We know what’s going on with your family. We then help you make unemotional, rational, and strategic decisions.”

That includes making decisions when faced with the vagaries of the stock market. Adam refers to early 2020 when the S&P 500 Index dropped by 33 per cent — “a great time to buy.”

“However, without advisors’ guidance, many investors sold and $335 billion was pulled out of the market,” he points out. “That doesn’t happen to the same extent when working with a financial planner. It changes the dialogue when we stop listening to mass hysteria and we start making more rational decisions.”

Your investment portfolio isn’t a financial plan, Adam stresses.

“A financial plan is the road map and vehicle to get you to your destination,” he says. “The portfolio is only the fuel in the tank.”

“Financial planning is not only how you’re using that fuel but also the methodology of getting where you want to go. That’s what we do. We don’t just talk about the fuel in the gas tank. We talk about what roads we’re going to take to get to your destination and what vehicle we’re going to use, and then we look for other opportunities to get where we want to go.”

While some people choose to go it alone and may feel they are doing a great job, Adam points out they may be leaving things on the table that a professional would not.

“Our clients have better things to do with their time than monitor what the world markets are doing and keep on top of what the new tax brackets are. They want to enjoy their retirement.”

Adam adds there’s another benefit to working with a CFP professional: they are duty bound to work in the client’s best financial interest — which may even include turning them away.

“My CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER designation holds me to a higher standard,” Adam explains. “There’s a duty of ethics and care. It’s like a doctor’s Hippocratic oath. As a CFP professional, I will do what’s in the best interest of the client. If someone sits down with me and they’re not the right fit, it’s my obligation to tell them that and give some direction in terms of someone who can help them.”

McInroy & Associates Private Wealth Management is located at 21 King Street West in Bobcaygeon. You can email Adam at adam.mcinroy@igpwm.ca or call 705-748-1950. For more information about McInroy & Associates Private Wealth Management, visit www.mcinroypwm.com.

Investors Group Financial Services Inc.

This is a general source of information only. It is not intended to provide personalized tax, legal or investment advice, and is not intended as a solicitation to purchase securities. Adam McInroy is solely responsible for its content. For more information on this topic or any other financial matter, please contact McInroy & Associates Private Wealth Management.

This is one of a series of branded editorials created in partnership with McInroy & Associates Private Wealth Management. If your business or organization is interested in a branded editorial, contact us.