dbd33

We got to this place by buying an older house, 1860ish, in the nearby town of 200,000 people (Guelph) renovating it by adding a floor and selling it. We had intended to build in the country and had purchased 25 acres with that in mind when we came upon this place being foreclosed. This place seemed like a deal so we bought it from the bank. The house was built in 2000, after the previous house was removed by a tornado. It's built to modern standards which is to say that it's worn out and needs the same amount of work as the 1860 house.

Renovating in the country is a challenge, just hauling the insulation for the basement from Buffalo was eight hours of driving. And, as mentioned above, there's always lots of work to be done on a rural property; I doubt there's a daylight hour when we don't have some sort of engine running; tractor, strimmer, chain saw, lawn mower, yadda, yadda.

Piff Poff

We live 'out in the country' as the locals say, this means we have a well, septic and satellite tv and internet. 2acres, surrounded by trees, creek to one side, open fields to the other, 8kms or so from town. Perfect situation to start getting used to rural living. We have 1km of gravel road, ploughed/graded regularly year round. We also have neighbours in wslking distance, I like that, but they are really lovely, might not like it if they were 'orrible

ann m

Looks lovely. I just couldn't be doing with all that mowing.

Serious question - do you have issues with mozzies and the standing water nearby?

Piff Poff

Thats why we like our little acreage, it takes me longer to mow than it does mr piff as I'm a big wuss, but he puts it in top speed and whizzies around like a lunatic, takes about an hour

Ugo51

oh my goodness!!
212 acres is huge! far beyond my wildest dream!
I didn't really bother looking how much land costs here in the UK, but in Italy where I come from you would need to be billionarie to afford a 212 ace plot (or, as we would call, a 85 hectares plot )

well, this is the top range of my dreams, but I can settle, and probably will, for far less than that.

The good point is that you are telling me that villages and small communities DO exist. And that makes me happy.
As I said we are most likely to move in the area near Toronto or Vancouver (Ottawa and Calgary, maybe), hopefully the second one because I love mountains and Ontario looks quite flat...

Mad Jockette

Hi Ann
the mowing takes a couple of days, especially when it is warm. We could do it in one day, but we like to do it in stages. I have some landscaping plans that will reduce the mowing by a tiny bit

We do have a fair amount of mossies, but nothing that would stop me from stopping here. There are an abundance of dragon flies, barn swallows and little spiders that thrive on the mossies. I have only been bitten three times this year, last year was horrid, I was their delicacy I think.
We heard hat bats love a snackette of mossies, so thought we would invest in a bat box and hope they take us up on the offer of a free hotel and abundance of food

I wouldn't want to go back to living in a city, this is my ideal

Mad Jockette

We tried the whizzing around on the mower, but we had so many areas that just got missed

Former Lancastrian

The good point is that you are telling me that villages and small communities DO exist. And that makes me happy.
As I said we are most likely to move in the area near Toronto or Vancouver (Ottawa and Calgary, maybe), hopefully the second one because I love mountains and Ontario looks quite flat...

Well I guess that puts Saskatchewan and Manitoba out of the running then
If this was 20 years ago for 200 grand you could have probably bought a quarter of the province of Saskatchewan.

Ugo51

yeah, I'm not really considering those two provinces any more than any of the territories

dbd33

If you were to move near to Toronto you might want to consider that Woodbridge and Schomberg have large Italian populations, sufficient that you could probably shop in Italian. Of course, I don't know if this would make you less or more likely to move near there.

As far as land area goes, be aware that you won't be able to keep a horse on anything less than five acres and in many locations zoning rules require that you have ten. (Absurdly, once a horse is legal, any number of horses is legal).

Ugo51

oh, thanks! good to know.
I don't really feel the need to be close to an Italian community, but I do like Italian food, so it might come handy to have some shops nearby.

I didn't check Schomberg yet, but Woodbridge looks like a very good location. Google map tells me there are 24miles between Woodbridge and downtown Toronto, equal to about 30-35min. Do you reckon that's a reasonably accurate estimate or it depends heavily on traffic?

dbd33

That's a good estimate if it's Saturday morning. On weekdays it'll be more, predictably more in the mornings, unpredictably more in the afternoons. Commuting from way north of Orangeville, I found my trip time all depended on the stretch from downtown along the Gardiner to the 427, in the morning that's ten minutes, in the afternoon I'd hope to do it in 40 minutes but sometimes it took 90. That was four years ago so it'd be worse now.

Toronto is a shitty place to drive.

Ugo51

...and I would imagine that using public transport is out of question, isn't it?

dbd33

I imagine it is from Woodbridge. The subway and streetcars work well enough but they're only in Toronto itself and the near suburbs. The GO train is a workable option but only along the lakeshore.

It would be possible to live rurally and drive to the Hamilton GO station (another place with lots of Italians, btw) if you were willing to devote a lot of time to commuting. At one time I looked at a horse place on the escarpment and considered that, I thought it would be ok, if expensive, but I only planned to go into the office three days a week.

Siouxie

There is a GO bus from Woodbridge to Toronto or you could get a train from Etobicoke. System map here: http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/...es/sysmap.aspx

http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/...x?station=WOOD