The birth of the farm ~ PART 2 ~ friends for hire, a wake-up call….and more than just a farm was born at this house

There are moments in your life when you run smack dab into a large pile of manure and the only thing you can do is start shovelling. Well this pretty much sums up our experience building a two car garage and one bedroom guest apartment after our move. ...Cutting to the chase, we hired a ‘friend’ who ended up taking all our money leaving us with a shell of a building.

 

GULP. SHOCK. DISBELIEF. 

Besides the obvious WTF moment…we were completely crushed. Um…ya. Nice, right?! You can only imagine my self control, composure and rationality at that moment. Ahem…ya. Let me illustrate…when he came to get his equipment I forced him to wait on the road as I called for a police escort…between you and me…it was for HIS safety not mine. Deeeeep breath (still gets me going)… In the end we managed to shovel our way out with some pretty costly lessons learned ~ talk about a pile of crap! SO ya…it’s not all rainbows and roses ~ loads of lessons have been learned along the way. On a serendipitous note….we now have a space for WWOOFers to stay while they volunteer on the farm ~ SHAZAM! This space has been invaluable to the farm and our ability to host volunteering couples from all over the world participating in the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms program ~ totally amazing! It took a whole lot of strength to get through that mess…but that we did!... and in the end, without knowing, the result has benefited the farm immeasurably…again confirming, Earth’s Harvest Farm was just meant to be.

here it is...finally finished, inside and out, some 3 years later....

Of course…you can’t have a farm without a farmer…so why did Commercial Waterproofer Luke decide to go back into farming you ask? Better money? Better hours? Less labour intensive? ….clearly not….but it wasn’t planned either…..opportunity presented herself in the form of a wake-up call. An extremely 'gifted' friend of ours strongly indicated that perhaps Commercial Waterproofer Luke should hang up his hardhat and consider other options. Huh. We thanked her for the advice and went on our merry little way…with this little tickle in the back of our minds. A couple of months later Commercial Waterproofer Luke came home quite shaken after having an accident at work where a propane tank fell off the vehicle he was driving and almost hit another car. WOW! um....HEEELLLLOOO. That’s some scary stuff in a ‘compressed gas explosion’ kinda way. Everyone was OK and the event went relatively unnoticed in the grand scheme of things, but for us it was a wake-up call. Enough was enough. At that point my work was picking up tremendously and I was traveling a lot. Timing was right for Commercial Waterproofer Luke to put away his steel toes and hang at home, look after Mr. Finn and regroup. Cool. Done…...OH? what’s this?? A Self Employment Benefit Program is being offered by the province?…hmmmmm…. um. Ok….WHAT? aaaaaand it will give us a business plan in the end?.....sweeeeeeeet!…..alas A FARM IS BORN!!!

The birth of Farmer Luke was liberating, exciting, exhilarating, and undeniably perfect for us. The course gave the farm direction and reflection; it allowed us to really think about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. Deciding on a name was AWFUL…nearly as terrible as agreeing to a logo (which I’m still not entirely in love with…sigh.). Despite all that, we quickly realized our strengths and although this bull and ram may butt heads on more than one occasion, our teamwork is outstanding! In fact…just to confirm that…we decided to go for Gold and put ‘rearing a new baby’ on top of it all ~ cue: Ms. Forrest Rea…

Funnily enough we had no intention of expanding our brood until I injured myself playing roller derby. What! WHAT? That’s right…..meet my alter ego on eight wheels...Homicidal Hippie

good times...I miss derby ~ until another day...

Rideau Valley Roller Girls rocked my world for a good three years ~ well they still do…I just don’t have the time I used to have to truly dive into my derby love…Anyhoo, a dislocated fibula put me out of the game for a couple of months and in my boredom I thought it might be a good time to expand the fam….ya…that romantic eh…enter our little Forrest fairy 

… born at home 5 days after x-mas 2010 by the same midwife who assisted in the birth of Fabulous Mr. Finn…K…now we’ve got a full set ~ it’s time to get this party started!

To be continued….

This post has been brought to you by interest free & repayment free loans, destiny knocking, and re-Forrest-ation…

….and a dozen of Earth's Harvest Farm eggs soaking in the vista at Moraine Lake in the beautiful Rocky Mountains....

um ya....just going a step beyond your everyday farmer ~ it's just how we roll!!!  and I'm pretty sure the eggs enjoyed themselves....