Thursday December 1, 2011

Here we are in December. No snow here – but back in the Ottawa area, well snow is on the radar.

It is cold and damp here, no doubt. But we can get by wearing a warm hoody. I like that. I like that a lot, in fact.

So back to the background. How did buying a farm to grow seed wind us up here. Well, we didn't really buy that farm on a whim, you know. We had a plan. A five year plan. So that was 2001 and this is 2011 and we are nearly at our 5 year plan. Hmmmmmm.

The plan was to build up the seed business, sell our house and move to the farm a live there. Idyllic life style. Growing things. At the end of the five year plan the farm would include a great growing space for seed, a house and the beginnings of a garden centre and trial gardens/destination spot. Again, hmmm.

So starting the seed business went well. Building it went poorly and took quite some time. The lesson we would submit from this is – everything takes longer and building a business while working – well forget it. We both still had full time jobs in computing and you simply cannot devote the time you need to start a business part time. Not and expect any kind of 'five year plan' to get you there. But get there we finally did. Or at least we got the business to a point where we realized part time wouldn't do it. It was time to sell the house and really change our lives.

So we sold the house. Time and effort of course. Your house never looks as good or gets all the updates you can do until you decide to sell. Its a fact. It gets closest to the house you planned on when you decide to leave it.

When it sold we looked at the farm. What id we need to do to get the farm to a livable state. First we needed to build a house. Yep, it had one. But at 700 square feet of sloping floor, mixed siding and wiring done by Gumby, it wasnt our dream home. It was sort of like camping. It had running water (read as garden hose from the pump in the closet) and electricity (and yes, you COULD have the toaster and one light on in the kitchen at the same time!!). It also had something furry living in the very short dirt basement. YUCK!

So, looking at a couple of years to build a house and start a garden centre, we decided to web surf the MLS and found a garden centre for sale in Powell River. We had enough points to all fly out to see it and did.

British Columbia's coast is beautiful, awesome, incredible. Powell River is the hidden secret up that coast. Zone 8 weather, no heavy population due to the need to take two ferries to get there. Great school. We just loved it

The garden centre we went to look at was run down, large, and on a beautiful spot on a little lake. More on the trip next time.