Feb 28, 2012

End of June of 2010 – spring is in full force of course and we had been running the seed company as usual. We had put an offer in on the property in Powell River, but it was conditional on inspections – by us, by a building inspector and by a septic inspector. The other two inspections happened first and turned out fine.

Then it was time for our inspection and we decided that I would be the one to go. In retrospect I am not sure why really. It was a jam packed couple of days – very surreal in some respects. Many what-the-hell-are-we-doing moments.

I flew out one day – to Comox, took the OMG too early ferry to Powell River in the morning, took the ferry back that evening and flew back to Ottawa the next day. Whirlwind. While in Powell River, our extremely helpful real estate agent Richard Clark picked me up, drove me to see the property, dropped me at the bank and then took me back to the ferry to go back to Comox.

The property was lovely, the house needed just as much work as we feared it did. But, of course as it was a rental at the time, it was not going to look great. Here are some pictures. 

The Water System - yep

The kitchen - more than rustic

Master bedroom with what passed for a closet on the left.

Second bedroom - the best part anyhow, the window seat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Third bedroom - interesting colours, no.  

Wait until you see how our daughter fixed this one.

Yard art. ??

The Living Room.

The Vegetable Garden - somewhere in there I guess

The yard

The little building that has become our store

What its all about - the view from our balcony - looking over the hill and down to the ocean.

February 11, 2012

So that was May of 2010 - a great trip to BC and then we came back to sort stuff.

The garden centre we had looked at in May sold - but not to us.  We just loved Powell River though and we were told that the buyer of the garden centre would not be running it as a garden centre.  So we looked around for another property and found a great site.  One with two houses, one a good size and the other tiny.  Perfect for a store.  WIth 2 and a half acres there was lots of room.  The pictures were charming (of the outside, the inside was a little wierd) so we went ahead put in an offer and I inspected at the end of June.


Here it the ourside of the house

And part of the inside

But the little house we now use for the store is adorable

The 'To Be" Store

In all of this of course there was still the ongoing things of life.  Our two girls were finishing their school year - grades 8 and 9 and they did just fine.  More power to them; they really are great people.

At the time I was working full time for a government department.  High stress and getting pretty hard to take.  You can only be a beurocrat for so long before it either wears you down emotionally or you develop "I don't care" sheilds.  I find it really hard to take the "I don't care" approach and I had been at it for years.  My husband was managing our seed business and the farm on his own.

So we worked up to what we agree was the worst day of our lives.  Moving day.