Exactly one year ago, my family and I woke up in our new house. We arrived on the 29th, a little after suppertime, and spent that first evening just trying to get our bearings and all the usual stuff that goes with a new house: What rooms do the kids get, where's the master bedroom, why did it look so much bigger in the pictures we saw, why does the floor slant so much that the rooms look like villain lair sets from the old Adam West Batman TV show...like I said, the usual.
We were on day one of our mandatory 14-day quarantine, where we were treated like lepers forced to stay outside the walls of civilization. Fortunately, with nineteen acres of space, we weren't cramped together or bored. In fact, those two weeks provided us with some great family bonding time. Thankfully, however, once the two weeks were up we went back to ignoring each other like normal families do.
I kid, I kid. But now that we've been here for a full year, and we actually own the property that we bought...let me explain.
See, Prince Edward Island has this rule, more like a law, that states that if you are not a resident of Prince Edward Island, you cannot purchase more than five acres of land per adult on the premises. Well, there were two adults in our family; Ashton was still only seventeen, and a minor, so he didn't count. Therefore, by PEI law, we were limited to a maximum purchase of ten acres. And the property we bought is nineteen acres.
Now, here's where things get interesting. We dealt with two realtors before buying. Neither of them ever mentioned that rule, not even when we were negotiating on the purchase price with the third realtor, who also didn't mention this rule. Neither did the bank while we negotiated our mortgage. Nor did the lawyer who was writing up the contract and settling the affairs. It wasn't until the second lawyer that someone pointed out that what we were doing was actually illegal in PEI.
By the time he told us this startling tidbit of information, we had already sold our own house and closed the deal. We had already packed up everything, and the giant shipping crate was on the truck heading east. We were going to be officially homeless in less than a week, and we were six days from setting our GPSes to Prince Edward Island and leaving Ontario behind for good. And now we weren't legally allowed to own the property we had bought.
Fortunately, we had an understanding seller, who just wanted to be rid of the property anyway. And since the realtors and the bank had already cleared the sale, there wasn't anything to be done but let us come. The property is actually split into two parts; one is the house itself, which only covers about fifteen or so feet away from the actual building. The rest of the property was technically separate, including the garages and barn. So, we worked it out with the former owner that we would buy the house, and 'lease' the rest of the property for a year for the princely sum of one dollar.
And now, that year is up. We (or rather, the bank) officially own this whole property. We've added the chicken coop, we've grown some veggies, we're raising rabbits...we're doing the farm thing. And it's great.
Seriously, anyone who's never been to PEI before...what are you waiting for? There's more to this place than Anne of Green Gables. That's one tiny corner of the island. And while it's a small island by provincial standards, it's got a lot to do. It's a three-hour drive from the northern tip to the eastern tip. Charlottetown is a small city that acts big, but it's smaller than Chatham. And yet, they pack a lot of stuff to do there. Summerside is beautiful; the harbor is just gorgeous at any time of day. There are beaches galore, nature trails and ATV runs, and the area outside the two cities can basically be described as 'split' between farmland and forest. You've got acres of trees next to acres of potatoes and barley. There's still a lot to explore and enjoy.
I said when we first moved here that I could spend the rest of my life on this island and never leave. That's partly because I'm cheap, and don't really want to shell out fifty bucks to cross the Confederation Bridge. But it's also because there's literally nowhere else I would rather be than right here, on this island, on this farm, with my family.
Next week, I plan to work with Ashton to dig up the gardens we're going to be preparing for next spring. There will be a bunch of garlic going in before the snow falls, of course, and in the spring we're going to get some serious planting done. We dabbled this year, and it was a lot of work; next year, we're getting serious.
So, come on out to this little island and see what I'm talking about. You won't regret it.
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