Our 2nd farmhouse had been in the same family since the land was first bought from the crown. The farmhouse was well over 100 years old and had been the replacement house for the original house and that first house would have been old before it was torn down. The previous owner, F. M., had bought the whole place from his uncles when he was young. He had to walk 44 miles (70 kilometers) to register it so that squatters could not take over. I don't quite understand why his uncles didn't have to do this but it must have something to do with the Homestead Act and possibly the resale of the farm, not sure. That must have been quite the walk with not much along the way except for bush, a few farms and maybe 1 very small town.
When he was in his 60's, he wanted to retire but none of his 4 kids wanted the farm - typical story, unfortunately. They had all 'fled' to the city as soon as they could. One was a lawyer, one a doctor and one was allergic to everything so there was no way any were coming back. The youngest daughter, C., had left for Vancouver years before and had wanted nothing to do with farms. F.M. and his wife went to visit C. and mentioned that they were going to sell the farm. Suddenly C. says, "Mom and Dad, I'm coming home to run the farm." They were thrilled, she did just that for 20 years and was successful but my first thought would have been more like "After all the years of hating the farm, staying as far away from it as you can get - literally the other side of the country - are you sure you're really committed to it?"
During her 20 years there, she married a local 'big' farmer, had 3 kids, ran a successful laying hen farm for 5,000 birds, divorced same said farmer, sold the farm to the first non-family member to ever own the place and used her share of the money to open a sewing store in town, again successfully and it's still going strong.
The new owner whom I'll call T.G. moved in with his wife and his brother moved in upstairs. They were welcomed by the neighbours who thought that this couple had every intention of living there forever but instead they just wanted the timber. They earned over $100,000.00 worth of wood in 1 year. I don't quite understand this either, but according to the law, if you officially own the property and live in the house for 365 days, you pay way less taxes as it's your own wood that you're selling. The neighbours knew nothing about this and when they finally figured it out, they were furious. As one local put it, "T.G. raped the bush", which essentially, I guess he did. 7 years later, when we had someone in to assess the bush, he found 1 tree ready and 1 tree almost ready. The rest of the entire bush was at least 5 years or more away. He definitely was within his rights to sell his own wood and all of it too but people were bothered by the sneakiness and underhandessness of it all. T.G. also did not bother to cut up the tops for firewood (not enough money, too much work?) and instead, just left it all to rot. He didn't really clearcut but didn't mind running over any and all smaller trees to get to the tree he wanted. He left paths through the bush 2 bulldozer-widths wide and didn't care about tearing up good farm fields with his 'dozer. He also left dozens of piles of brush at least 20' high all over the fields. As part of the deal, he was supposed to have those gone, completely gone, not piled all over the place. At the urging of his lawyer, he did finally push all the piles off the fields and to the edge of the bush/fields, thereby tearing up more of the fields with his bulldozer.
We purchased the farm from T.G. as of April 15 but agreed that he could stay there rent-free until June 1 if need be. We had no idea that he had kept his other house the whole time and did not need the extra time to buy himself another place to live as he had led us to believe. We knocked on the door one day to ask them something but got no answer so we decided to peek in the windows (I know! You're not supposed to do that but we figured that since we did officially own it...) to try to get a better picture of the layout and where to put the furniture. With all of the additions, we just could not remember. Hubby heard a hum through the open window and instantly became furious as he was pretty sure that it was the furnace running. It was May, over 90 degrees F. and it became obvious when we entered the house that no one was living there - there was definitely no reason for any more heat. The problem with this was that they had agreed in the deal to leave the oil tank full. This is now mandatory but at that time, it had to be in the agreement. It was obvious at this point that they had moved out and were trying to empty the oil tank. Thank goodness we found out when the oil tank was still half full and thank goodness the wife was actually nothing like him. She gave us a cheque for the right amount and it actually did not bounce.
The worst he did though, was to his wife. He went out, got himself a girlfriend and invited her to move in with him - with his wife still in the house and at first not knowing anything about it. The worst of all was that the wife also had cancer. It was only a short time later that I heard that she had died. I guess her jerk of a hubby was just making sure that he had another woman waiting in the wings. About a year later, he was dead, too. I guess what goes around comes around!
Because of this guy, the neighbours became sour on new neighbours and this was the atmosphere that we moved into. We were nothing like him though, and we were there for 11 years.
One good thing that came from clearing out the bush was - blackberries. I didn't know anything about blackberries but one day shortly after we moved in, there was a knock on the door from an older local farmer asking if he and his friend could go back in the bush and pick the blackberries. He explained that after a lot of trees have been cut down, blackberries will show up for a few years. He made enough Blackberry wine each year for the next 3 years to last his family for the year and always brought us a bottle. I knew that blueberries could grow in an area that had been affected by forest fire but I didn't know about blackberries. The things you learn!
http://www.alchemybaking.blogspot.com/
