Renters are weeds....

A rainbow shows how close to heaven our barn is on BluBelle Farm.

How sad it is to see a place you put blood - sweat and tears into become run down by lazy renters! After all the work Jen and I (and friends who visited) put into clearing away tumble weeds and putting up fencing - just to see the fields completely over run with weeds and fencing all broken is heart breaking.

I guess I was never cut out to be a landlord. I hate having to chase people for rent. I hate having to send official notices telling renters that they have to 'pay on time or move out'. I hate having to try and tip toe around sensativities when people are living in the last dream we had.

But a landlord I am - and a hard-arsed one at that. The final notice was sent and as of the 18 May, the rent-to-buy process is over....and I will be dealing with just a renter who has 13 days to pack up and move out.

I just need to keep a focus on the prize here. Why should the renters live in our last dream and stop us from moving onto the next dream? Why are they on 5 acres and a 1976 sq 4 brd room house when we are on 0 acres, 2 bedroom apartment?

So we now have our fingers crossed that the next stage (they moving out and us cleaning up) goes smoothly!

The dream has already started....

It may seem funny that we have already have a name for our Farm, but not actually a farm! But I guess that is the way we roll - we work on big plans building on ideas we have from our past experiences and things we have read or seen. And to be honest, this is the fun part.

So let me start by telling you about the name - Murramarang is a special place on the coast of NSW Australia. It is a beautiful national park with the most wonderful beaches, fascinating coastal clifflines and amazing animals (marine as well as terrestrial). We love the place - and even have a caravan (trailer) in a nearby campground that we maintain from the USA....just so we know we always can stay when we visit Australia. We wanted to always remind ourselves of this special place...and so have decided.

So where will it be? We are currently looking, negotiating and dreaming about places in the lakes district of Maine, USA. This is, for the geographically challenged, the most northeastern state of the USA - a wooded, lake draped piece of heaven just a short commuter flight from Boston, New York and Washington DC. It is also a place of mountains, a beautiful coastline and a fascinating history. Each village is a step back in time with beautiful old white farmhouses and red barns surrounded by stone walls. Each stream has the remains of an old mill. Our farm hunt is around 40 min drive inland from Portland (the largest population center of Maine) in a area full of beautiful lakes carved from the local granite by glaciers of past.

Why a farm? After 40+ years of me living in cities in Australia and USA, we bought a small farm (5 acres) on the plains of Colorado close to work. It was just a weed patch - but with sweat and planning we made it a respectable horse farm by putting in fences, a pole barn and other sheds and infrastructure. We learned a lot along the way - mainly how important it was to have water (Colorado plains is really a high desert).