2015 Ideas Forum for Youth in Agriculture

Today I participate in what I would consider to be my first venture into making agriculture a serious aspect of my life. 

An e-conference was held between the agriculture communities in Dryden (where I participated), Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Fort Frances. It was a great opportunity for someone like me (who is interested in breaking into the agribusiness scene) to find out more about the local market and gain invaluable contacts and market research information. As I work towards startup this sort of information will be vital!!

All this learning is so absurdly exciting for me, I can't even begin to describe! And we didn't even really talk agriculture, but business!

Another viewing...

Yesterday (sunday) (my day off) I was up at 8 (ok, that was pretty much sleeping in, but with the time change... not really!) and by 9 I was back at the house. Yep, same one from last weekend.

This weekend instead of just wandering and getting a "feel" for the place, I was all business. I brought Claude (my "farm boss" / architect friend) and my dad (who's a jack-of-all-trades and has renovated two houses) and Claude's girlfriend Tracey (it's always nice to have another female perspective!)... and my coveralls.

I spent a good couple of hours crawling around in the crawlspace, checking out the attic and breaking a path through the snow to the three out buildings.

Still no pictures, sorry! But I don't want to get anyone else's hopes up besides mine! Here's the verdict:

The house's foundation isn't 100% but it's a near miss. The older section of the place (built in 1958) will need to be lifted and shimmed... sounds like a lot but I'm confident I can get it done at minimal cost.

The flooring in that part of the house is nasty old carpet which I'd want to remove anyway... so if I do that and pull up the subfloor... I'll have a lot more room (than the foot tall crawlspace under there) to work.

The bit of black mold by the door isn't as bad as it seems, just bad insulation. The whole roof will likely need work in the insulation department... but apparently that's typical and not worth worrying over too much.

(Just working on some estimates for how much that will cost me!)

Besides that, the out buildings are phenomenal, the property is gorgeous and I am so anxious to put in an offer its absurd.

How was your weekend?