Troy and I met a bit later in life; I was just shy of 40. Our favourite way to spend quality time together was camping. We'd head off into the bush with our dogs and cats and just relax. 

One fall we were out camping on lease land along Stud Creek in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Beautiful weather, we could finally carve some down-time from running our own businesses. Sitting around the campfire we talked about how great it would be if we could live our life like we were on vacation. Hmm...

My business doing historical research could be run from anywhere as it's mostly over the internet or the phone. Troy's vegetation management company was a bit trickier. Once we committed to the idea, we were on our way. We set out a 5-year plan to find a property and make the move. It took 6 and we have never, not once, regretted our choice.

About 11 years ago now, my husband I were camping and wishing we could have a rural lifestyle so we could always feel as wonderful as we did. It occurred to us that we were both self-employed and really could do that. We set a 5-year plan to make it happen. 6 years later we had our property. The first year we focused on getting our property habitable. A neat trick when we were actually living on the land! 

 

I should mention that we are both city born and raised. While we loved camping out in the bush and thought living out here would be similar, it has been a huge learning curve figuring out the necessities of life out here. We started with chickens and then rabbits and felt ready to experience larger animals. We got goats. We have a large garden... it's a work in progress.

 

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. None. When we first came out to the property we lived in an rv trailer and used a generator for electricity cuz there was no power. We gathered rain into barrels off the tarp or went and filled up carboys from taps because there was no water. Our first winter, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, mind you, we had no proper heat source.

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Our life has been a modern day pioneering adventure and we've loved every minute!

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