Raven's Roost - adventures in the woods

[RoamingGnome]

A quick intro to our adventures in Lanark Highlands with some collage photos to start, and I'll go back to fill in details later...

In the spring of 2021 I had to have a hip replaced. Yuck... 60yrs old and now I had aftermarket parts in my body... I was off work 3 months recovering and spent a lot of time thinking about the future. The reality was working as a heavy equipment mechanic was gradually wearing me out, mentally and physically. The real estate markets were in early pandemic craziness as everyone wanted to buy a house and either get out of their apartment or move out of the big city into more rural areas. We decided a good plan for us was to sell our home in the city, buy a fixer upper somewhere in the countryside and bank the difference to help top up my retirement savings. The surgery went well (It was actually done as day surgery - I was home in my own bed that night) and as soon as I was given the green light to drive we were off looking at different options.

We quickly grew frustrated with the games real estate agents were playing, listing properties well below what the selling price should be in the hopes of a bidding war that would give everyone big bags of money (except the purchaser). We started considering other options - especially buying vacant land that we could build a Home and Garage on... Muskoka cottage country was over priced, and we wanted out of the GTA. Started looking on realtor.ca and cast a wide net... finally saw our property - 10acres of hardwood bush for $129,000 - the seller was an older gentleman who was severing some of his old family lands to help pay for his retirement. First question I asked was - Is that really the price or are you hoping for a bidding war and getting more money? - The old guy looked me in the eye and said - "That's the price I want, not a penny more, not a penny less..." The real estate agent told us there were more people coming on the weekend to look at the property - Kelly and I sat in our car for a few minutes, talked it over, got out and said - We'll buy it... subject to conditions of course - the main one was making sure there wasn't going to be any problems with the planning dept and actually building something there.

30 days later we were the happy owners of 10 acres in the Lanark Highlands - the property is basically a wooded hillside, with a creek running across the bottom of the property near the highway, and a nice (overgrown) clearing in the back at the top of the hillside where we had room for house and garage... The property had been previously logged and had overgrown skidder trails crisscrossing the slope.

I started buying and building things to make life easier at the property - chainsaw, gas powered weedwhacker, woodchipper, generator and built a small wooden shed to securely store everything up there. The property had a laneway roughed in up the west side of the property, and there was a skidder trail / cut line across the northern edge that went across the back side and past the clearing where we wanted to build our homestead. That skidder trail was too rough to drive a car/truck on, so we started by clearing the brush and undergrowth and making it at least a walkable path. Over the summer we would visit on weekends, (I returned to work at the end of June) clearing the land, making plans and sleeping in the back of our Tacoma. Sleeping in the back of a pickup was getting old quickly, and we craved a more solid structure with space to sleep, stand upright and a refuge from the bugs... Wood for the chipper shed had been expensive and we decided on a cheaper option - an 8x10 plastic garden shed on sale at Cdn Tire - It's basically a plastic hardsided tent with enough room for a bed, porta potti, table and chairs - compared to sleeping in the back of the truck it's quite posh...

Summer turned to autumn and we got to see what the property looked like decked out in fall colours - it's spectacular! We were very happy with our choice of a place to build a home in the woods...

We also met one of our neighbours who has a contracting business, and was doing work on his property next door... he offered to rough in a proper drive across the back of our property for a reasonable price and before winter arrived we could drive up to the clearing where we were going to build...

And that's today's instalment of our first years progress in the woods...

[propane1]

Very nice, I sure would like to have a place like that. All my 11 garden tractors and tea20 Ferguson tractor and all attachments would be there. House, garage, wood stove in each. That’s what you call livin.
Thanks for the pictures. And story.


Noel

[RoamingGnome]

Thanks Noel, It's still very much a work in progress,

The first summer was lots of excitement, full of hopes and dreams... this 2nd summer (just gone by) was mostly an exercise in patience and persistence as we navigated our way through different levels of bureaucracy dealing with Planning dept, Conservation Authority, Building Department, Health Department, finding a good local contractor and more - but now the well is in, and plans for the septic system and buildings approved so with a little luck we will break ground in early May when the snow / frost is gone...

Because the flat part of the property between the highway and the base of the hillside has a creek and a wetland designation for a bordering buffer zone we can only use about 2/3 of the property - and most of that is hillside... the property is 300m (1000') long and there is a 40m (130') rise from the highway to where we are going to build - there is lots of room to work with, it's just going to take time to create workable flat spots in the middle of the forest for outbuildings and such...

[propane1]

Wow that is quite a rise. All those departments you have to deal with is annoying. Just keep plugging along and you’ll get it to where you want it.


Noel

[DavidBarkey]

Raven's Roost is a nice piece of land . Great place to retire . the story and pics.

[JSinMO]

Looks like you picked a good spot! I hope the construction process goes as smoothly as possible for you guys.

I’ve never had to deal with use restrictions on private land. Even though it is not advisable, you can build in the floodplain here if you choose too. In your case are you just restricted from building on it, or is the designated area completely hands off?

[RoamingGnome]

Looks like you picked a good spot! I hope the construction process goes as smoothly as possible for you guys.

I’ve never had to deal with use restrictions on private land. Even though it is not advisable, you can build in the floodplain here if you choose too. In your case are you just restricted from building on it, or is the designated area completely hands off?

It's pretty much hands off - in a designated "wetland" any development has to be reviewed/approved by the local conservation authority. They have a mandate to oversee water quality, flood control, and land use around rivers and watersheds. Mostly they are ok to deal with, they are just trying to make sure cities and towns have a good clean drinking water supply and people have natural areas for recreation ...and that developers don't build in sensitive areas -

Fun Fact - "Southern Ontario" is only about 13% of the provincial land area - but it has 94% of the population (and it's also 34% of Canada's total Population) The majority of people live in an area 100 miles around Toronto. In the last 20-30 yrs it spread out in all directions and gobbled up all the farms and green spaces for cookie cutter subdivisions - The rest of the province is pretty much empty and undeveloped outside of a few small cities / towns in Northern Ontario -

[Eugen]

That looks great Gerry, and I'm very happy for you and your wife! As far as I'm concerned there is no better "playground" than a few acres of land on which you can build something, and use tractors and such. I would also love to have a few acres, so I will live vicariously through your journey.

On this little patch of land where we live I'm trying to also build an addition to the small shack we live in, and septic system. Similar to you, I got a Case 680E backhoe, and some Case garden tractors. But you have the advantage of knowing what you're doing as a heavy equipment mechanic, I was kinda fumbling in the dark with the repairs of the big backhoe, and nice and skilled people here on this site were very helpful. Your kind of adventures fit right in here I think, as we like anything to do with Case garden tractors and so much more. Thank you for sharing these great pictures, I'll make sure to add you on instagram.