How to welcome spring when you live on an acreage

John Paulsen has lived on his five-and-a-quarter acres in Springbank for more than two decades.

"It was always my dream to live on an acreage."

And he made that dream come true when he designed and built his home in Springbank, after living in Calgary's Silver Springs community.

Walk21 Conference to explore the city's walkable future

Experts hope an upcoming international conference will boost efforts to make Calgary more walkable.

Hosted by the University of Calgary, the Walk21 International Conference on Walking and Livable Communities will see 600 local, national and international experts gather to discuss what they're doing in their own communities, and how it could be applied to Calgary.

"(Calgary) is not the city that comes to mind when you say walking," said John Brown, a professor and associate dean with the faculty of environmental design at the university and co-chair of the committee bringing Walk21 to Calgary.

Every time you turn around, a new tech gadget hits the market.

Understandably, it's hard to keep up. So, here's a look at four of the coolest gadgets on the market right now, from an elegantly simple power-saving plug, to a funky retro telephone with high-tech innards. Every product featured in this story is available in Canada, either online, or at retail stores.

Record vacancy rates predicted to trend upwards

Commercial real estate felt the pinch of a slumping economy in 2016 and Calgary's suburban office market was no exception.

From headleases – between a landlord and a tenant – to subleases – where a tenant puts some of their excess space on the market – commercial real estate outside the core had its challenges.

"A significant amount of very, very large blocks of vacancies are available on the sublease market and the headlease market, for that matter, and we have not seen a great number of tenants going in to take those spaces,'' said John Savard, principal, office leasing specialist with Bedrock Realty Advisors Inc.

Satellite communities offer more bang for your buck

Landing your dream home can be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But if the financial stars don't align the way you'd hoped, you may have to manage your expectations.

Such was the case for Jarred Jusko Friedman and his wife Shaaz, who decided to buy their first home last fall, after renting in Calgary's northeast community of Skyview Ranch.

"We started looking, but we soon found we weren't even able to get into the market at our target price range," said Friedman, adding that the only viable option in their price range was a townhome.

Hamlet tomatoes don't come cheap, but store well

My daughter was the first to notice I paid $12.95 for Hamlet tomato seeds.

And as she looked over my shoulder at the price, I was embarrassed. I admitted I ordered them without price checking and I wondered: would these seeds really be worth three times the price of every other seed?

Wearable tech has the potential to revolutionize your physical fitness

We humans are great at finding shortcuts, simple solutions and quick fixes. We instinctively avoid doing things the hard way. This drive has spurred amazing innovations in areas from transportation to telecommunications and automation. Everything from the wheel to the silicon chip has sprung from our need to avoid work.

But there's a downside: the easier we make our lives, the less active we are and the more difficult it becomes to stay physically fit. And even though we all know there's no magic bullet that will make us fit, strong and healthy, that doesn't stop us from looking for one.

Canmore's Spring Creek aims to give seniors care options in a resort-like setting

Having to leave your home and the community you love, when it comes time to downsize or when you need extra care, is one of the worst things about aging.

While even the most grandiose new communities try to tick all the boxes that allow aging in place – like live/work units, mixed-use services, and a range of options from affordable to luxury single family and mutli-family homes – not all can claim to package those choices in a walkable, resort setting.

However, a 70-acre development in the mountain village of Canmore, is checking off every one of those uses in what is a "legacy" project for developer Frank Kernick.

Home buyer doesn't settle for less with her forever home

At 52, Leah Barber knows what she wants. The recently divorced mother of a university-aged son was clear on her must-haves when she began shopping for a new home.

Top priorities were a home with great curb appeal and a big deck adjoining the great room – a sunny spot where she could relax after a long day at work. Add to that a double master plan, so that when her son was home from school, he would have his own space. In addition, she had specific layout requests, including a smaller footprint – small enough to be low maintenance.

She found exactly what she was looking for in Hopewell's Xeno model — a 1,300 square foot, laned home with a double master plan and front kitchen in the southeast lake community of Mahogany.

Not your traditional suburban community

The rapidly growing community of Chestermere exudes an intrinsic lightness of being and a twinkling joie de vivre. You can feel it crackling in the air as you stroll down the pathways, watching people run, blade and bike during the summer months or cross-country ski in the winter, whooshing, swishing, all the while laughing.

"It's the people that really make this an amazing place to live," said resident Ryan Armstrong.

He moved his young family from northwest Calgary to Kinniburgh Estates in East Chestermere four years ago and hasn't looked back.