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!