Tuesday 3 March 2015

...so you want to become a homesteader

A very fine good day to you all.

I have decided to do a few blog posts on the process of becoming a homesteader and what that entails. As we have gone through this process, we can tell you what happened to us. So here goes ...

Our dream to live a self-sufficient lifestyle in the country began well over 10 years ago. We had gone to an "Eco-Fair" in the town where we lived and there we saw a demonstration of how to build a straw-bale building. I happened to be a dog house but it was still built of straw bales. This, for us, was the "light bulb" moment. We knew this was what we wanted.

Now, do to Frank's job commitment we knew this was going to be a long term plan but we were OK with that. It gave us lots of time to plan, do research and most of all ... dream!

One of the most difficult decision that you may have to make when choosing to move to the country is do you want to buy land and build, as we did, or buy a farm with a house already standing. Both have advantages and disadvantages. 

We chose to buy land and build as we specifically wanted a straw-bale house. We will deal with that type of decision in this post.

We both feel that the most important factor in finding the piece of land that you want is working with the right real estate agent. I have to say that we were incredibly fortunate as we found ourselves a real gem right off the bat. We saw an add in a small local paper and here was this photo of a woman who said that she liked to help folks buy land. We made an appointment and off we went to meet her.

Her name is Pat Forrest. At the time she worked for a large Realtor in Arnprior, Ontario. We told her what we were looking for and what we wanted to do. We walked so much land with this woman and saw so many properties that I lost count. It took us almost 2 years to find the land that we bought. Pat was terrific through the entire process. She just kept saying that we would find the place that we were meant to have, we just had to be patient.

And she was right. We now own a small farm, 8.6 acres actually, that our neighbour had severed from her property. The day we first saw this land we wrote up the offer on the hood of Pat's car. She presented the offer immediately and by the time we had driven back home again, Pat had called to say that our offer had been accepted.

The important thing here is that Pat stuck with us through all of this. She kept us from getting depressed about the whole situation because it can take a while to find that perfect piece of land, or what you deem to be perfect. Our small farm may not be perfect to a large scale farmer but it is absolutely ideal for what we wanted. There was a mix of open areas (that had once been a hay field) and lots of tree cover also. We would have preferred more hardwoods but no matter how long you look, you will never find absolutely everything you want.

This is where you make yourself a little list. What are your priorities. 

Here is what our list looked like.

- Out in the country, a good distance from towns and cities
- Zoned rural as we knew we would want to keep livestock eventually
- Able to build a straw-bale home on it 
- A mix of open areas and treed areas, I called them outdoor rooms
- A minimum of 5 acres, more would be better
- A good open area for the house, preferably on high ground
- A good large flattish area for the kitchen garden
- Close to a ski hill as Frank is a very avid skier - this was VERY important
- Not too much tree cover near where the house would stand as we would be off the grid and would need to build a solar array

We got pretty much everything on our list. We did need to remove 3 trees that were inside the kitchen garden area and I believe we needed to take out 4 trees that were where the house would be built. After we built the solar array we also removed one large pine that was casting just a bit too much shade and also some much smaller younger pines that would eventually grow up to be a problem. More hardwood trees would have been nice to cut for firewood but that is just about the only thing we did not get.

Next post will deal with the idea of buying a house in the country instead of land and then we will go from there about our process of building and starting our homestead.

And by the way, in case anyone in this area of eastern Ontario is looking for a fantastic realtor to work with, we would both highly recommend Pat. She took the giant leap a while ago and has started her own firm. It is called Prime Valley Realty. She is an absolute treasure. You can find her at www.primevalleyrealty.com

Thanks for visiting. See you next time. Cheers.


1 comment:

  1. I aspire to be like both of you!!! It was a pleasure working with you over the period it took to find you that 'perfect piece of heaven' to start your farm! I have relayed your story to many other potential homesteaders, but you are the only ones that have actually done it! I really wanted to do it, but unfortunately it just didn't happen. But we did build a new home the year after you did (2013) and we have excellent southern exposure. Our propane boiler furnace doesn't turn on very often and as soon as the heat of the sun goes away we put the woodstove on. Our electric bills were about $95/mth but since 2015 has been a very cold winter we're up to about $135/mth (we also got the dishwasher installed, so that may be part of the additional electricity charges, but man is it nice to not wash dishes for 2 hours anymore!!).

    Mel and Frank I look forward to getting back to see your now-completed off-grid home. If I ever come across anyone else looking to homestead I'm definitely going to send them the link to this blog. I read it everyday - thank you for the posts and keep up the good work!

    Take care both of you and hope to see you in Burnstown this Spring!

    Pat Forrest
    Broker of Record at Prime Valley Realty AND
    owner of
    Rustic Remnants Artisan and Consignment Shop (see our ads in the Humm!) :)

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