The whole story

We wanted this farm so bad.
It was the perfect place. Close to Martin's work, close to mine. Great neighbours. Of course the place needed major renovations but we bought it for 100K so that was easy to rebuild.
There was 4 acres, great place to farm.
When we bought or some days before we signed, we phoned the town hall to gather info:

"Can we have animals?"
"Of course, you are in an agricultural zoning, you do what you want on that matter"

This weekend I've been offered a Jersey.

As a good citizen, we called the town hall asking them about the legal dimension for our potential new barn.

"why do you want a barn?" they asked
"to put our Jersey in" we said
"but you have no right to have animals" they said.

WHAT ?!!!

We've been to the town hall 4 times since. There is nothing we can do.
In Quebec, there are the town hall laws, and then the MRC laws (MRC stands for Regional county municipality) in the town hall books we are legal, but not in the MRC's ones and of course, the MRC is stronger than the town hall. The MRC says that no one can have new animal raising units in the U zone. The U zone ends on the right side of my property.

So now we are in a dead end.

Our house in town isn't sold yet.
We have a house on the countryside that needs major renovation and can't be sell that way.
But we have to move and have a place for the chickens, rabbits, cats and quails we have asap.

But there is no way the bank will authorize a mortgage with those things in our pockets.

Of course, the girl at the town hall always said she never said that.

I also bought that house though an attorney, never did she mentionned that.

"she must haven't known that law" said the girl at the town hall.






Why us?

We have been refused all ...

Even chickens.
Our dream just gone to dust.

I don't know how I will survive that news.

Track and Field

I feel like we are running on a field of track and field.
Running for our life, trying to make ourselves a life here but with tons of obstacles on the way.

This is what I was trying to explain to my cousin Gabriel this weekend.

Having a project like ours is very very hard where we live.

Turns out that this weekend we have been offered a Jersey calf by my uncle.
I was delighted. Cautious, Martin phoned the village administration to make sure everything was in order and to talk about another project.

We are in a place where it's zoned "business and farm" Farm on one side, business on the other. To our surprise even if our place is zoned farm, we can't have a cow or a pig, as it is "too close" to the other houses ... or we can but the girl from the town hall talked about calculation and stuff ...

---- Sigh ----

I mean geez why keeping it that way if it's impossible to do? We need that zoning if we want to go on with our project.

So many rules, so many burdens, so many restrictions.

I am not dead!

I am not dead, things are going "better" ...




... and tomorrow I get a year older!



Sweet, "sweet" 34!

Stay tuned!

Sicker than sick

I am going down ...

This is sooooo not fun.

My system is to the deepest low at the moment.

I just hope I'll come back to a "normal"

Chuck vs The Chicken

Meet Chuck. No kitten got a name before the age of 1 month normally here. It's the tradition. I wait 'til I know them, 'til I see them in action and 'til they have an history. (exception from Dijon who got a name from the fact he is yellow and was born shortly after Moutarde's passing).

Since our lil buddy is now a month, he has been named : Chuck. Why Chuck? 'Cause he is the sole surviving member of his litter and he also survived his two uncles; Baptiste and Paul ... hence, the cat is Chuck Norris!

This morning, Chuck made an improbable meeting with a fleeing Silver Ameraucana hen ... that was funny :)

A very big bird he must have thought. Though, no harm to any of them.

In loving memory

We buried Paul (and small baby Dijon - his nephew) in the backyard yesterday.
Mat and Bruno, my two best friends, came to help us as the soil was still a bit frozen.
It was super hard to go through.
I found him a nice spot though, near the biggest tree we have near the barn. Close to the place where one day before we died we went together to play.

Last night, as Martin was going to the barn, he saw Mirchat and Mirshook playing in the tree ... never did they went there.

They were playing with Paul, I am sure.