Wow! Mr. Pretties and I have been mercilessly searching for 'the one' for the last couple months - partly because we're desperate for a farm, and big partly because the current homeowners of the house we live in want to move back into it. Which is a little bit on the inconvenient side for us. So we've been searching. And driving through rural communities I had no idea existed. And looking at livestock ads on Kijiji. Let me tell you - looking for a rental farm is like trying to find a unicorn. I don't think it's because we're picky, because really, we're not. Okay, maybe I am a little bit in that I want an OLD farmhouse. Not a farmhouse someone built a few years ago when they bought some acreage. And I'm picky in that I have to like the home owners. I know, why?! Because I'm a freak like that. I don't know what my problem is but I've found that anytime we've rented from people I felt 'off' about it hasn't worked out. The last three people we've rented from we really liked and became friends with. We will always have a relationship with those people and I'm so grateful that they came into our lives and that we were fortunate enough to get into a business deal - such as rental property is - with people like them. I guess maybe I've been spoiled? Or unrealistic? Or both probably. But the fact of the matter is, I want to like the people we rent from. We found a couple we thought were fantastic, totally got what we wanted to do with the house/land and even came up with ideas we could collaborate on together which were fabulous. When we went to look at the farm however, it was beyond awful. And I'm very open minded. It wasn't a place we could have children living in, even temporarily and it crushed us. Then we've found all the 'farmhouses' without land, and the farm land without a house, etc... and we found a beyond wonderful farmhouse not farm from here that was everything we wanted and more, but the homeowners were so completely unprofessional in the way they verbally attacked their current tenants infront of potential ones that it was uncomfortable. They had no respect for the house or land they owned and couldn't understand their 'hick' neighbours and the animals they kept. It breaks my heart everytime I realize that so many of the people who are owners of 100's of acres at a time are basically just sitting on it until a company offers them the big $$$ to sell it to them for development site. Then we wonder why the future or farming, and thus food in general, is doomed. Their needs to be some responsibility about who's allowed to buy up big lots and what they're allowed to do with it. Then again, I think all current agriculturally zoned land should be green belted. It's the necessary thing to do.
So it's been a little bit impossible and a lot disappointing. Hopefully it all works out the way it's supposed to, but perhaps because we're going through a lot of changes in the Pretties household I'm just not sure what way that is right now. Renting is a hard world when no one wants to rent to families with children, or pets of any kind. Not to mention the average price of monthly rent has gone up approximately $500 since we moved into this house less than a year ago. Ouch. Obviously this isn't great blog material, but sometimes things just need to be aired out in the open. I so much want to be on a farm doing things that give me daily blog fodder, I love blogging and I miss blogging, but the only thing I want to blog about is our chickens, what great farm activity we did, what's growing, what's not, etc... instead of 'Went to look a farm today - no dice' every day of the week. No one wants to read that, and I don't want to type it. I feel like there's a place we're supposed to be in in this point of our lives and we aren't there and I'm not sure why, or how to get there. I feel like I'm constantly using the life GPS and receiving the 'Cannot find exact location...' error and can't find anywhere that sells a paper map to my destination. Waahhhh...
On the other hand, meet the ladies:
I think they were 5 weeks old in the picture. They're now almost 12 weeks old and big huge fluff balls of fabulousness. They live a happy life in our backyard and our neighbours love them. Part of the reason we're uber sad to leave, this will likely end our chicken keeping for a little while. But they have been SO much fun. And completely do NOT smell. At all. Seriously, my guinea pig smelled worse by far. The little pretties are completely in love with them, and unfortunately they are completely in love with the fluffy orange tabby, Wilma. They think she's the big chicken. Clearly we would have some survival issues on a real farm ;) So that's been a nice spot light for us this summer. We have a friend with a farm who will happily taken them temporarily until we can have them back again, so they'll always been taken care of. Any one considering chickens should totally go for it though, they are as enjoyable a pet as a cat or a dog (we have both) and are less noisy!
Hopefully they'll be a blog post soon about the new farm we're moving too. Crossing our fingers and our toes, and buying our lottery tickets ;) Hope everyone's enjoying some gorgeous weather today like we are!
You should come to Texas....with our drought, I'll bet you could find some farm land a an old farm house real cheap right now. Someday, we'll get rain again. We hope.
ReplyDeleteOur daughter's neighbors have chickens in their back yard. They really aren't suppose to, because we are in the city limits and are not zoned agriculture, but the chickens don't smell, don't make noise, and no one minds, so no one complains about them and they just keep replenishing them as they eat them.