Simon Legree

Oh Novo dear chap, haven't you heard about the fabled North Shore ? Allegedly all sorts of paid employment there.

bats

Oh, couponing in Canada is not the same as in the US, you can make savings but not to the extent you see on that show.

confused_uk

Hi yemelade, did you figure out what Visa route you will be taking yet?

yemelade

Although I value your input, I didn't particularly like your tone in this response.

We will both be working whether we will be in a paid position or not. We have a small work from home business which is where the total minimum figure is coming from. We would also both be farming, gardening, harvesting our own wood as I've said, so please don't mock. Not that I need to explain myself to anybody, particularly on a public forum And for your information, a quick online search of neighbouring areas produced hundreds of part time and seasonal vacancies that any average Joe could do. I don't think finding work would be an issue in the areas we're looking at, in fact there are more job vacancies there compared to where I currently live in the UK! By at least 36 job opportunities!

dbd33

I'm not in Nova Scotia but we do live semi-rurally, keep chickens, eat things from the vegetable patch, heat with wood and have looked closely at keeping a summer pig. I have some experience with children. I don't think keeping children is a good fit with living rurally nor is it readily compatible with self-sufficiency.

What children primarily need is lots of money. Almost everything they do costs a bundle (swimming/lifeguarding was the exception). Suppose they play iced hockey; that entails all manner of equipment and rink fees, figure skating is the same + air fares to the competitions, sailing, horseback riding, getting educated, it all costs cash money and there's no possibility of substituting a pallet of kale (or similar). If you're in a city the children can take public transit to their event, freeing the parents to work and building a sense of independence but, if you're in the country, they need to get everywhere by car and that means multiple cars and associated costs.

It seems to me that supporting children means taking on lots of paid work and that means not having the time to knit one's own yoghurt. Living rurally and having children means commuting for three or more hours a day, phoning from work to get them up then fretting that they went to school and not to the meth man. To me, "a better life for the children" means life close to the subway.

woodworm

How old are your children?

humanist

Woah, how many parade-rainers does the OP need?!

OP, it seems like you've thought it through pretty well and it sounds like a real adventure, good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Tirytory

Is giving realistic advice raining on someone's parade? I think a "real adventure" isn't something you undertake lightly with children. If no kids great, go for it, if you have kids, then you need to think dam hard, over and over, about every little detail.

This is no way directed at you op! Just that realism seen as a negative is putting on those rose tinted glasses and hoping that everything will be ok.

Shirtback

I just wrote a huge tl:dr post which the internet gremlins swallowed. Probably just as well.

While I debate whether to rewrite it, the following might be useful :

Support from ThinkFARM | novascotia.ca

S

dbd33

Thank you for that. On a board where a few themes are endlessly recycled it's a refreshing change to have one's eyes opened to a subject one has never considered. Mulling mink shit will dominate my afternoon.

Shirtback

"Manure Management" has always been a subject close to my heart !

S

Howefamily

we heat our 2500sq foot home almost solely on wood and manage to do so on 4 cords, even last winter which was really cold and for a long time. There is no way you will need 10-15 cords per winter.

DandNHill

Oh yucky mink farms. There were several around us. Please OP, don't go working there. It is the most awful job I can imagine from I have been told...

CFAmovingsoon

You should definitely have a look masonry heaters, there's a place on the south shore, NS where we stayed in April and they have a Kachelofen in one of their cottages. (they are on the Second Paradise peninsula). We made a fire early in the morning with a max of 8 pieces of split wood ( I have no clue as to how to explain size on this better, but if you've made a fire outdoors with wood bought from the store, it's not even the beginning of an outdoor fire...), it burned for about an hour and it kept the house toasty all day. The firebox is still hot the next morning, so it's very easy for a novice fire maker to make a fire in the morning and of you go again. Loved it and miss it in our European Central Heated home. It's really something I want, and you could slow cook a meal in it too and if you go all out, heat water with it.
There's all kinds of diy manuals about on the web. Cost as far as I've found from $3k-12k.
There's a forum on masonry heaters I just found:
Masonry Heaters | Hearth.com Forums Home where you can find a lot of info.

Thanks for starting this thread, it's something we would like to achieve too. And I'm really baffled as to why you shouldn't try this with kids, kids love getting back to basics, they learn a lot of useful skills and they could still go to school if you plan well.

christmasoompa

I don't think Novo was mocking at all, simply pointing out the reality that if you've got kids (I think most assumed you were just a couple), then it may be more tricky and need more thinking about, and that perhaps your budget isn't enough for a family of 4 (?) after all.

There may be more jobs, but given the amount of forum members that have left NS recently because they can't find any work due to having no Canadian experience, again that's something to consider. Would you be ok if you cannot find paid work?

What visa route are you planning on going down? That will impact things as well, whether you'll both be allowed to work/run your own business etc.

I admire your idea, we live a fairly similar life (although in the UK), although I'm not sure I could be quite so far from a city with kids personally, I think they'd probably hate me when they get to teenage years! But it works well for us now as they love the space and the animals, and luckily we're not as far from amenities for when I'm a taxi driver as they get older.

Best of luck.