May Road Trip - Part 2 - Fieldtrips

Our second day with Colt was also his birthday. I figured we would spend the day doing some fieldtrips. Tyler joined us about noon and then we headed out.

I knew I wanted to check out the Candle Factory that was in the town, but I had no clue where it was. Thankfully, as we drove through town heading towards the Glass House, we fell across it. There was a sign stating that they gave free tours. I went in and asked and sure enough! So in we trooped.

The girl was wonderful, and we had about a 30 minute tour where she explained in a very understandable, but detailed way, the process with which candles are made.

First they take the beeswax from the hive. It has lots of things in it like dead bees and plants and dirt. This is a sample of some of the muck that was cleaned from a batch of beeswax.

They keep the melted beeswax warm in these tea kettles on heating plates. What was fascinating was how simple the entire process was. Most of the 'tools' that they use are simply things we could find around our home: metal clothes pegs, tin cans, tea kettles, frying pans!

We were then showed how simply they create the molds. For instance, she showed how they took a rubber frog and made a candle. It was such a simple idea that anyone could do it! We will probably buy some beeswax on our next trip down and make some ourselves at home. It was that simple!

This is how they make multiple candles at a time. There is one long wick that is wrapped around the hanger. This hanger idea was invented over fifty years ago by family that began this factory. They no longer own it, but their ideas and machines still live on.

This then is dropped into the huge vat of bees wax. The droppings that come off after it is removed are all picked up, cleaned, and then reused. There is really not much waste at all!

After we had completed the tour the children were each given a paraffin candle ball and they were invited to dip it into the bees wax vats. They each chose the colour they wanted to do.

It was fun taking Colt and Tyler on my day of field trips, because it has been so long since I have had Colt on homeschooling trips, and it gave Tyler an idea of what it was like to be part of a large family, plus of course, the homeschooling side of things.

After this, the lady took the children to the frying pan and gently flattened the bottoms of their candles so they would not roll around. Voila!

Next stop: The Glass House

In my quick internet search to see what was available in the towns we were visiting, I had seen comments about the Glass House. I had no clue what this was but figured it was worth checking out, so off we went.

When we arrived the lady was so enthralled with the fact that I had eight children (lol), plus a ninth with me, that she told me she would not charge me for entrance. (smile) So I only had to pay for the children from 6 and up. Nice lady! I love it when being a large family attracts kindness! And honesty, on a side note, I have never encountered anything but admiring comments and just plain kindly interest.

The Glass House is a fascinating story.


The gentleman's daughter-in-law explaining to us the history of the home.

There was a gentleman (this lady's father-in-law) who worked for an embalming company. He knew how many bottles from the embalming fluid were being thrown away, so he had an idea of something that could be done with them. He set out across Canada and collected 600,000 of these empty glass bottles. And then he began construction of his home.

He put the bottles into the wall and used mortar around them.


He then capped them and that created a pocket of air inside them. This created a form of insulation. This was to be the outside of the house. The inside of the rooms were covered with wood paneling. This gentleman decided that the best use of the walls was to create round rooms. This way the furniture could be placed whereever he wanted.

This kitchen has the original appliances from the 1950's.


This bathroom shows you the colour of choice for the 1950's. The original pink bathroom. Thinking of you, Denise!

The man worked for 16 years on the home. When he died the family picked up the project and continued adding features, such as, the bridge and the gardens.



These steps lead all over the cliffs in front of the house, leading down to the beautiful beachfront of the property.

When the house was originally built, it was built for this man. They found that people heard about them and began to stop by to check it out. The notoriety grew and more and more people came. They tried to discourage people from coming by charging an entrance fee. That didn't work. They soon had people coming from all over the world! They are now open for visitors from May through September, and the family uses the five room house (bedroom, kitchen, livingroom, entryway, plus upstairs) during the winter months.

They did end up buying the properties on either side of the Glass House to ensure a little privacy, but now they say that Albertans are moving into the bare land across the street, so bit by bit, they are losing more of their small amount of privacy. It really was an amazing house!
.

.