Why Here? Choosing Coyote Crossing Acres

Six years ago we were living on a sailboat in the Florida Keys dreaming of a place to grow our own food and become more self-sufficient. Okay you can stop scratching your head and re-reading that first sentence. For a decade we really were living on a sailboat. And yes, we are aware that for many people that is the dream. Sailing away, going where the wind and currents take you. It was a great life and a wonderful experience that we would never trade but we are people who are always looking for the next adventure.

With retirement approaching, grandchildren arriving into the world, ageing parents and things becoming more unstable in the world it was, for us, the time to jump ship as it were and become land dwellers again.

Previous life experiences had provided us with knowledge regarding raising livestock and growing gardens and orchards. We were also comfortable taking on “a project” property because of skills we had developed over a lifetime. All of this enabled us to make a list of what was essential and what we would simply like in a piece of property. A list like this is something every person looking for property should make. For us it included a firmly set budget. We wanted to be mortgage and debt free. Looming retirement made this especially important. Past experience had taught us that to truly be self-sufficient meant very little time for an off farm job. Working eighteen to twenty hours a day at a job and on a homestead might have been feasible when we were younger but it wasn’t happening at this point in our lives. We needed to find a place that allowed us not only to purchase the property but also get a livable house and have enough room to raise and grow food.

Second on our list was location. After living for over two decades in the USA we wanted to retire in Canada where we came from and most of our family still lived. Ontario was our first choice but we also searched the Maritimes and the Prairie provinces. We were finished with days long road trips and expensive plane fares in order to visit family.

After budget and location our list of requirements became much more flexible. If a property met those two criteria other items became a question of workability. Could that house be fixed up or did it have to be torn down? Did that township allow for a tiny home to be built on a vacant property or was there a minimum size for building new? Could the property be made accessible by car? Would that growing zone allow us to raise enough food to be as self-sufficient as we wanted? Could the outbuildings be used to house livestock? Was livestock allowed on the property? Could we log part of a forested property to open it up for gardens while making a bit of cash on the side? We scrutinized each new listing we found on the internet. We looked at vacant land, move in ready homes, places as small as an acre, property located in growing zone 3, and even property that had no road access.

While the internet made searching for property easy there remained the challenge of getting from The Keys to a potential property quickly enough to check it out before it was sold. Fortunately we had managed to personally view several properties in both southern and northern Ontario while on trips to visit family. After a year of searching none quite met our requirements. Some could not be reached by car in the winter, others were better described as ponds, some looked more like rock farms and many would blow the budget by the time it was ready to use as a homestead. We did discover on these trips was that southern Ontario, our preferred location, was clearly not budget friendly.

The required quick action to check out a new property was further complicated by the fact that George traveled quite often for work. He was on one of those trips in late January when, while sitting at my desk checking out potential properties like a good employee, I stumbled on two potential properties. I say stumbled because by that time we had pretty much stopped looking in Southern Ontario, but ever hopeful, I had decided to check Ontario listings one more time just to reaffirm our decision to spend time looking at properties in other provinces. Best decision ever since not one, but two new listings with potential popped up.

The properties were located about 40 minutes apart so we could view them on the same day. A quick text to George, some last minute scrambling, a drive to Miami and we met at the airport so we could fly to Toronto that same day. There was a lot of flying for George that day.

We arrived bright and early at the first property on a Tuesday morning, freezing because we had just left the Keys to arrive in Ontario in January with less than appropriate clothing. Thankfully my mother, who lived nearby, provided us with coats, hats, gloves and for me a pair of too small winter boots.

Our initial impression of the first property was that the location was good, the house was close to ruin and the land was not able to be assessed because it was frozen under too much snow. After walking up the unplowed lane to tour the house our initial assessment proved to be correct. The house was not livable and would either have to be completely torn down or totally rebuilt. On the plus side it had power, a well and a functioning septic system along with a driveway.

The first impression of the second property was that the location wasn’t as good, far too close to a busy road for our liking, but the house was livable. Like the first property the land was covered by snow, but the driveway was plowed. While we could not assess the soil this property was pretty almost totally wooded with coniferous trees which meant clearing would be required for growing food. While the house did prove to be livable, as we suspected, it was also so out of date and chopped up that it too would require a rebuild an updating, although unlike the first property this could be done in small chunks.

The real estate agent left us to make our decision but informed us that the properties had just come on the market and the first property didn’t even have a sign up yet. He believed, as we did, that once the sign went up that property wouldn’t last long. We took one more drive by each property and had a quick conversation in a convenient store parking lot Two hours later the offer on what would become Coyote Crossing Acres was made.

So which one did we choose? Property number one was the winner. For us the choice was surprisingly easy. While we couldn’t see the actually ground at either place to assess the soil the land at property one was open. Unlike

property two, the only trees were the dozen mature, mostly maple, trees surrounding the house and a small copse of ash along the north fence line. The land adjacent to property one was clearly pasture land which told us that the soil was at least good enough to grow grass. With regenerative farming practices we felt we could improve the soil if we had to and raised gardens would allow us to grow some food right away if in-ground growing wasn’t an option.

The first house, in our opinion, was also a better choice because it was already pretty much gutted which would save us a lot of work. It’s important to note that even though the house would require major reconstruction it was work we were comfortable taking on ourselves and contracting the few jobs we couldn’t or didn’t want to do ourselves. Additionally, gutting the house would allow us to design the interior with only the outside walls being a determinant factor. This would not be our first fixer upper but without our construction and design abilities it would have been far cheaper to tear the house down and have a contractor build new. While the second house may have been immediately livable the chopped up rooms, half steps at each “new” addition and lack of adequate insulation meant that eventually every room in the house would have to be up dated. Living for years in a construction zone to create a home that would be limited to the floor plan that was already there was not appealing. A total gut job on house two would have been a much bigger and far more expensive undertaking than it would be for house one.

As for location that was a draw, if you disregard the closeness of the highway to house two. Both properties were closer to family than we had dared to hope. Both were close to a town that has a grocery store, a hospital, a farm store, restaurants, a school and a farmers’ market. Interestingly, for me at least, was the proximity of both properties to what was my family’s homestead. Surprisingly, after searching for over a year we settled on a property that was less than twenty minutes from the place my great, great grandfather settled when he emigrated from Scotland in the second half of the 1800’s.

With the offer in and accepted we signed the papers on Wednesday and flew back to Miami on Thursday. With the closing set for late March the planning and scheming started on the plane ride home. I resigned from my job in late February, went to Toronto to help our oldest daughter who was pregnant with twins, then went to Indiana to help our second daughter with our first grandchild and finally I arrived to attend the closing and collect the keys. George was busy at that time earning renovation money on a job site in Chili, or maybe South Korea. (Not really sure)

After closing I made my way to the property to discover that the previous owners had “cleaned” the house of the trash that had accumulated, something required in the offer to purchase, by opening the door and throwing it in the yard. Live and learn. We only asked that the house be cleaned of trash not the property.

Now we could really start moving forward and finally become more self-sufficient. Our first steps included lighting a fire for any burnable trash, a dumpster for the non-burnable trash and a trailer for a place to sleep while the work on the house progressed.