The Journey Begins

What would possess two forty-something sisters to quit their jobs, sell their house in the big city and move to a hobby farm in the middle of the Kootenays? Had we lost our minds or simply rediscovered what truly made us happy.

Our journey began back in the summer of 2003. My sister, Cari, and I were both newly divorced and living in a new subdivision in Calgary. It had been an emotionally challenging year; full of heartache and loss.

One evening after work, Cari and I were sitting in our postage-sized backyard trying to soak up the summer sun and relax but it was proving impossible. The dog next-door was barking incessantly, the young man two doors down was playing his Rap music at ear splitting decibels and the mother down the street was screaming at the top of her lungs at her children.

Amidst this suburban din, Cari suggested we take a holiday in the peace and quiet of the country. It had been five years since either of us had taken a vacation. We decided to book four days at a dude ranch just ninety minutes from our home. Little did we know, those four days would change the course of our lives, forever.

Ten minutes into the drive to the ranch, both Cari and I burst into tears and then laughed hysterically. We were excited to be getting out of the city but emotional because this marked the beginning of our new lives as single women. There was no denying the fact that our lives had changed. We could no longer cling to the past or imagine what might have been.

When we arrived at the ranch, we fell in love with it immediately. The ranch house, the cabins and the huge barn were all rustic log structures. The air smelled of pine, hay and the heady earthiness of horses. The only sounds were the wind soughing through the trees, the whinny of horses and the beating of our own hearts.

The vacation went by too quickly and before we knew it, it was time to go. As Cari and I drove back into the streams of city traffic, and were assaulted with the smell of exhaust and the incessant noise, we wanted to turn around and head back to the ranch. We decided, in that moment, that city life had nothing more to offer us. If this was the beginning of a new life for both of us, why not change where we were living? We decided to move to the country.

Days later, I had a dream. I was standing on a wooden bridge above a fast running river. From the bridge, I walked up to a road that was surrounded by gently sloping mountains. I walked into a forest of huge cedar trees and into a clearing. When I awoke, I just knew this was the farm that was out there waiting for us. Now, we just had to find it.

Our quest to find the hobby farm took two years. Every weekend we would look at prospective properties on the outskirts of Calgary but none of them felt right.

In September of 2005, our girlfriend told us about a small town in BC, called Nakusp. She strongly suggested we head there to check it out. Cari and I never did anything spur of the moment but, two days later, we bought a map of BC and headed out to find Nakusp.

When we drove off the ferry at Galena Bay, I felt a bubble of anticipation. Everywhere I looked there were trees and mountains. As we came up to the village of Nakusp, the main bridge was under construction so we had to drive over a wooden one. I looked down out of the passenger side window at the fast flowing Kuskanax River and felt a strong sense of déjà vu. This was the bridge and the river of my vision. I knew we were getting closer.

With a current real estate listing in hand, provided by the local realtor, we went in search of properties. As we drove up to the second property on the list, all we could see from the roadside was a garden full of corn and huge pine and cedar trees nestled at the foot of verdant mountains.

Cari and I looked at each other and pronounced that this was it. We snapped three pictures from the window of the truck and headed back into town. Unfortunately, the realtor couldn’t get us in to see the property and we couldn’t stay any longer, as we had to work the next day. Instead, we drove back home to put an offer on the farm, sight unseen.

Back in Calgary, our realtor informed us that the owners of the farm had already accepted an offer from another buyer. We should have been disappointed, we had lost the property of our dreams, but strangely enough, Cari and I still felt it was ours.

We put a picture of the farm on our fridge and wrote across it, “Sold to Cari and Lora”. We had no reason to believe that the current offer wouldn’t go through, except we felt that the land was ours. In the meantime, Cari made a wish list of what she would like in a hobby farm. The day that the first offer was to close, our realtor called to say it had fallen through and if we still wanted the farm, it was ours.

In May of 2006, Cari and I stepped onto our hobby farm for the first time. It was more beautiful than we could have imagined. I felt like a kid in a candy store. We scrambled around the property and, much to our amazement, we saw everything that had been on Cari’s wish list, right down to the outhouse behind the barn.

I believe the universe waits patiently for us to do our part in creating the life we desire. All we have to do is have the courage to follow the opportunities when they present themselves and the faith to follow the quiet whispers of our hearts.

And, if you can do these two things, even though it may scare you, you may find that the new life you had dreamed of was just waiting for you to step into it all along.