Monday, August 14, 2017

We didn't come this far just to come this far

The last year, life has thrown us in a lake and held our heads under water, letting us up occasionally for a quick gasp of air before shoving us down again. With the last breath we decided to metaphorically swim for another shore. It's time to set some goals and some boundaries. Enough with the ifs, buts, maybes, what ifs and most of all, the complaining.

With regard to last years fire, we are finally making in-roads. We fought tooth and nail almost daily to get our hempcrete house design approved and last week, we received our permits and broke ground. Not only is it exciting in itself to start building a house but we're amazed at the interest in the build and hempcrete as a material. Somehow we find people joining us and supporting us as we push forward with the house. However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. We thought we had made some victories with our insurance company, but they are causing some issues again. There's a point where you have to throw caution to the wind and just start building. We have missed an entire farming season this year, we CANNOT afford to miss next year because we are still waiting to build. So it's on, we are starting a build that we now don't know will be fully covered by the insurance money. We're nothing if not dramatic! And it's just us. You know when you hear people say "oh, I'm building a house" when what they mean is "I'm sitting in my kitchen giving instructions to a contractor"? Yeah, well, that's not our reality. It's me and Ian sweating at the bottom of the foundations we dug in the blazing sun.  And of course, Ian's type-A syndrome has kicked in with him declaring that "there is not another person on the planet who is accurate enough to frame his house". Sweeping generalizations and insults to the global carpentry industry aside, with or without a decent insurance payout, there won't be enough money to pay other people to build it.


The farm without farming has been has been like a party without wine this summer! We've kept the animals going and another farmer has used our land for a few crops. But most of the growing soils that we worked so hard to build and nourish, lie empty or covered in weeds. We had a couple of events just to keep breathing life back into the place but Laurica Farm has been a quiet shell of it's former self. No crowds, no new growth and no farmer burn out, tantrums or break downs! It's almost become cliché to say it's been a time of reflection. Reflection suggests something quite and peaceful but we have a gun to our heads as we choose our pathway. And so it goes on...new plans, new relationships and renewed vigour. 2018 will be our 'do or die' year.

Next February will see us merge with our friends at True Grit Farm. Ashlee founded True Grit this year and mainly grows microgreens for restaurant supply as well as  CSA shares for the local community. Check out this story though, it's almost as daft as ours. Ashlee met Devin at the end of 2016. Devin has been so blown away by farming and inspired by the farming community that he is going to give up his well-paying job to become a farmer. Ha! Where have you heard that before?! Every time I look at him, it is with either pity or amusement, I can't quite figure out which emotion is stronger. But in all seriousness, you can teach anyone to farm, but you can't teach values. Devin is hard working and has innate farming values, he just doesn't know it yet.

So, Ian will be at the farm full-time for the first time since we moved here. He will farm mainly with Ashlee, who will teach us about microgreens and share her areas of expertize. Devin is chatty and confident so he will look after the customers. I will head up the events, which will see you strengthen an existing partnership with The Watershed Arts Café, and the rental of the tree house. And there it is! Not a complex master plan, but a plan nonetheless. A plan to keep going, a plan to address the burn out, a plan to pool our resources and aid the mutual growth of two awesome farms. A plan to make a living and reclaim a lifestyle during 2018 and if not, call it a day. It seems the last year has certainly made us fragile, but not fragile like a flower. Fragile like a bomb.


Saturday, May 13, 2017

Turning Tides?

I have started this post so many times and had to abandon it mid-page, and that is a reflection on the rapid changes in our situation and the way we feel from one day to the next. I left the last post amidst a crisis that was starting to look like the end for Laurica Farm. That 'end' has come and gone several more times. We've found ourselves at the absolute edge of what we can control, we have even called the Realtor to list the property more than once, and then something, some little glimmer of hope has emerged on the horizon and we would step back from the precipice, sometimes just for an hour before the next wave came. But we've gingerly been inching back from the edge for about two weeks now so maybe it's time to write some of this down.

There is no need to tell you every detail and change, there have been some hairy times as you can imagine....like when we had $25 in our bank account on Saturday and our mortgage payment was due on Monday. There's been significant changes in attitude, not so much for me, I can have fifteen different life goals in a day, but Ian who is a careful and methodical thinker commented when he was finishing siding on the barn that he was "getting the place ready to sell" -  believe me, that's a big deal for him to say something like that. But in brief it's been a long interaction with banks and insurance companies, building departments and engineers. And now, largely thanks to Ian's tenacity and patience, we are in a much stronger, and more positive position.

The practical side looks like this; we have negotiated a much better settlement with our insurers. As well as Ian's efforts, Bethany and her team, the insurance representatives at local level have been in our corner the entire time. We are extremely grateful to them, without them I suspect we would have not been heard by the decision-makers. We can now afford to build a new house which was not the case before. And thanks to Ian McClean, our brilliant architect, we have an exciting design. We've had the opportunity to practice with some of the materials we want to use in the house as we've refurbished the barn in to a funky new event venue and built the living space in the tree house.

But with something new comes new challenges, and of course we are not choosing the easy route with the house. We've spent the last four years talking to anyone who visits the farm about sustainability. We've talked the talk and now we have to step up to the plate and walk the walk. Even putting aside our own thoughts and feelings on what we want our house to be, how can we look you, the thousands of people who have toured our farm, in the eye and build a house that is anything other than THE MOST sustainable house? We can't. And we won't. So, after copious research we are trying to build a hempcrete house (please take two minutes to watch this short clip on hempcrete). Again, I'll try and surmise the challenges. Although hempcrete is widely used in Europe and Australia for both residential and commercial developments, it's not an approved material in Canada. There is a mass of data on the material but we need an envelope consultant to sign off on it. So far, two envelope consultants have sat on it for four weeks and then advised us that it's not an approved material in Canada.....very frustrating as that is the basis of us employing them! Anyway, we think we have found someone progressive who is willing, and dare I say excited, to work with us on this project. The hempcrete debacle has been really annoying. It's not like we are trying to build some wacky design with wattle and daub. This is a regular, modern looking home with a tried and tested material that happens to be a really good thing for the environment. It should be exciting for a professional and municipality to be showcasing, especially when the build happens on a very public farm, but I guess that requires stepping out of a box and maybe some independent thought - oh the horror!!!! Anyway, our battle is not over yet but we are starting to dust off our victory flag.

Some rather significant practical victories that have allowed us to take a minute and exhale. Now it's time to think about the emotional side. It's time to recognize that despite my conviction when I recite "I'm fine, we're all fine, everything is fine", it hasn't been fine at all. We are not fine. I don't know whether the fire is the root of my trauma or whether it was the episode that allowed me to stop and fall to my knees for a little while. I suspect it was the straw that broke the donkeys back and on reflection maybe I started last years farming season with burn out.

But it's ok not to be ok after what we've been through over the last 4 years. As we heal our farm and home, we have to take the time to heal ourselves too, and maybe the new build will be cathartic for us. Maybe it'll give us the strength and motivation to breath life back into the farm business next year. Maybe it won't and then we'll know it's time to go and do something else. But whatever happens, we thought we had lost control of that decision, but we've reclaimed our power and whatever happens from here on in is our own fate, the outcome of our own input as opposed to outside influences redirecting our life path. That we can deal with.
Ian and I have felt every EXPOSED!

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Ok, Universe, I'm Listening.

The Curse of Cathy strikes back. Apparently it was going too well. There was positivity, four days of a job I was enjoying, a nice home and a general air of optimism, well for me anyway.

Yesterday, I misjudged some stairs and have torn the ligament in my OTHER foot. That's right, you're casting your mind back to last summer when I tore the plantar fascia in my, right foot, aren't you? This time, just 8 months later, I've completely detached the plantar fascia from my heel in my left foot. I'm just so damn annoyed. We really have experienced a disproportionate amount of bad luck. I hate saying that because there are people with way worse problems and challenges, but the relentless assault of accident, injury and mishap is wearing. I'm sick of the sound of my own voice complaining.

As usual there's no time for moping because my inability to work again at the moment means no income for the time being. And I am sure you are sick of me publicizing my money troubles, but this time it's different, this time there's an air of finality hanging over us. There's no more credit or loans available to us, we have a week to make a plan, if not, we will have to list the property. There is no other option this time.

I'm usually a black and white kind of gal. Things are clear and concise in my world, I don't buy into the suggestion of outside influences and believe we make our own fate. But are we meant to be here? Is this constant assault a sign? Well, Universe, I may be listening now but you should know I'm angry. We've talked about leaving this place on more than one occasion, but it was always going to be our choice, and in the end, we always stayed and fought. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. Give me a minute to catch my breath and a pair of crutches and I'm coming back at ya, fate. A week. That's all, that's what I have to create some kind of solution or opportunity.

In the meantime, if anyone reading this has a rich friend who can come and airlift us all out of here and drop us on a warm, secluded island somewhere, now is the time to call them. If not, then wish us luck, I'm coming out swinging or I'm going down!

Monday, February 6, 2017

Subsidizing my farming habits

Every cloud has a silver lining, but sometimes you have to adjust your focus to see it.

This blog was always suppose to be about our transition into rural bliss. It has been hijacked by farming and financial drama and so far, bliss has eluded us. In my last post I talked about a substantial withdrawal from a majority of our farming activities while we rebuild, regroup and re-evaluate. A number of things have happened since then that have helped us focus on our ultimate rural-bliss goals.

First, we moved out of the RV's that housed us over this unusually tough Canadian winter, and into the treehouse that we have toiled over. Thank Goodness for Ian! What a trooper. While I assumed my position of apprentice and clean-up crew again, he transformed the underside of our existing tree house from a storage shed into a beautiful home. We will live here while we rebuild, and we're happy to do so. Moving in here and feeling the transition in my mood took me back to my days in social work. After visits to small, dingy, dark & inadequate homes, we often used to theorize on how environment, specifically housing, could impact a persons ability to make positive changes in their life. Moving into the small but gorgeous tree house lifted me and gave me the energy to look forward. I could even go as far as seeing passed the house rebuild to a time when we could rent this lovely space, an additional income that could cover half our monthly mortgage payments. The majority of the cost of this treehouse refurbishment has been covered by the emergency living fund from the insurance. Continuing to rent RV's would have been dead money but we've managed to turn it into an asset for the farm, and ourselves.

Of course, just because we can see financial incentives in the future, doesn't eradicate money troubles now, and once again, we've had to hustle. Ian hasn't had full-time employment since the fire and now that we have reduced our farming activities, we have cut our earning potential. We're no strangers to picking up casual and sometimes obscure work to make ends meet, and we certainly aren't work shy. Ian has been working nights salting roads and parking lots during this cold spell. In the meantime, I have had to take a serious look at where my time is most valuable. The outcome of that is that I should go back to work outside of the farm, with a view to easing the immediate financial challenges but also to relieve some of the pressure that will allow Ian to stay here and build the house over the summer.

So, I now have a job....and a home....like normal folk! Tomorrow I don pink and black scrubs and walk in as the new girl at a Wellness Clinic. A clean, sterile environment a world away from the daily animal poop encounters of the farm.

What does this mean for the bliss journey? It means we can continue to farm the livestock and look at manageable models for 2018. It means I can eventually subsidize my goat and piglet buying addiction. It means I can see us reaching our goal. Just imagine for a moment duel income, a rental income and a farming business of some description. It could enable us to stay here for good or give us the freedom of choice. Say, for example, we can keep living here for the next 10 years, we could potentially sell and walk away to a mortgage-free/debt free life with money in our pockets from the equity in the land. Ian would be 52, I'd be 48 and the girls will be 26 and 19. That's an appealing retirement plan!

The journey to us finding our bliss continues to snake its way up this rocky mountain road. The plans change with each hairpin bend in the road and the steep incline continues to demand every ounce of energy and commitment we can throw at it. Maybe it's taken disaster to make me realize that the road isn't paved with farming, maybe farming is just on the sidewalks?  But I can see the peak of the mountain now, for the first time, and it looks reachable.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Onwards and......backwards?

Last week, I sent a message to a few friends to prepare them for an announcement that we were pretty much going to wrap up the farm business this year. Not only have we faced continued challenges since the fire, the implications of which impact greatly on our farming season, but my foot injury has not healed as hoped and will not stand up to a full time farming season. We both need to secure a stable income to get through and subsidize the rebuild. And emotionally, neither myself or Ian are equipped to run headlong into a crazy year or markets, events and hard work. More and more I have found myself growing resentful of my role on the farm. I feel like a fraud when I call myself a farmer, I haven't really farmed for over a year as the business management had taken over my time and become on an ongoing source of stress and discontentment.

It was a hard message to send and had been a hard decision to make. A decision that was preceded by many arguments, deliberations and crying. Could it really be happening? Every time we've been pushed down (and there has been multiple times), we got back up with blatant disregard as to whether it made sense or not. But now, we'd called time on our endeavours.

The message I sent ended with a request not to contact me for a couple of days so I could avoid the embarrassment of breaking down in front of my friends. On reflection, those few days breathing space were a tonic. Why? Because it gave me the ability to reframe what was happening.

Can I really say we are giving up? We fully intend to continue with our pigs, our farming partnerships for beef and lamb and farm camps. It's veggies and events and all the other hair brained ideas I usually throw into our summer seasons that are being put on a back burner. So, maybe just a streamlined presence?

Out of loyalty to our supporters, we talked to a couple of local farmers about offering a service to our people. They were totally supportive and cool about doing that. Both Ashlee of True Grit Farm and David of Glorious Organics have CSA shares that can be offered to our customers, and both of those farms will be at White Rock Farmers Market, the market we will be leaving behind.

I keep checking in with Ian about how he feels about the decision. Ian is a man of few, not very expressive words so it's hard to gage his feelings. But me? I feel relief. I believe we are going into our first realistic season. A season where we can manage our farming activities and our life. I've entertained frivolous thoughts of summer weekend trips....a luxury that has been a fantasy the last few years. When people invite me to their events and dinners, I give it real consideration instead of my generic, farm-season, blanket 'No' response. I think I can reclaim my life and our family time a little. I've said it before but when we talk about sustainable farming, we have to include the farm being sustainable for the people running it too. Could this be the year we achieve that?

So much to dwell on, but in the meantime know this.....I feel freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
New life goes on with animals being born
Farming Relationships enhanced