“Wanna go to Nova Scotia?”

In December 2020 it was becoming clear that the dream we'd been working toward was becoming less plausible. We hadn’t just been dreaming, we’d been scheming. In our beautiful future we'd fly off to tropical Belize. There we'd grow a business, bask in the glory of nature, soak up the sun, and wash our worries away in the river.

Several snags cropped up, one right after another. Our plans unravelled. Our hopes started to sink.

Then Jim said it,

“Wanna go to Nova Scotia?”

Blue grey sky with golden yellow horizon. The sun surrounded with pops of pink. Beneath the skyline the waters reflect the colours.

It took nanoseconds for me to say yes.

Our moment of choice

It took nanoseconds for me to say yes. From that moment on, folks met us with reactions in one of two categories:

the “Umm, are you sure? (Oh no… they’ve lost it…) or
the “That sounds amazing!” (When can I come? How can I help?)

Nearing the end of the traditional western career model, we'd started thinking about retirement. What needed to be done now to make sure we were prepared to transition out of the workforce.
(You know the thing they have seminars about to remind you, you're getting old and should be leaving soon.)

Sitting down, we brainstormed our criteria.

After decades in careers with days that began at dawn and stretched into the evening, we found ourselves unbalanced and burnt out. Like so many others, we were drained from the daily duties of juggling careers, family, commitments–life. We were making ourselves miserable. We knew change was necessary, and the more upheaval the world hit us with (remember, this was 2020), the more timely it all seemed.

Is waiting for retirement really the answer to an unbalanced life?

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

— Henry David Thoreau

Never having been much for fence-sitting, after Jim suggested Nova Scotia and we thought,
Yup, this feels right! Our home was listed two months later and sold just as quickly as we’d decided to go for it.

Why not now?

The space we now call home was imagined, found, and bought in the three short months from December 2020 to February 2021. Being February 2021, we only had the chance to see our new home through screens.

We took a leap of faith that our eyes would not deceive us—trusting what we knew in our bones. It would only be three more months before we crossed four provinces to come home to roost in April 2021 to find out if we were right.

We are still pinching ourselves.

Is this real?

A striking sunset with golden hues and grey clouds. Atop a hill two cabins bathe in the evening's glow.

Can everyday life be this mystical?

Restful & Refreshing

The moment we met the soil, our agricultural roots resurfaced. We made hay when the sun was shining. No time was wasted getting the property tidied up, and our first cabin booking was in June 2021. Additional cabins were built in Spring 2022, and a fully accessible cottage was added in the Summer of 2024. The steady growth of bookings has continued as we got to work on the side of business and brand.

Companion animals trotted into our lives once more: chickens, Highlander cows, alpacas, and even an Irish Wolfhound graze and grow alongside our woodland friends. The property is growing with purposeful additions that will maintain the balance of privacy, serenity, and harmony—the physical space and the vibe: equal parts restful and refreshing.