A farm is born: Fat Chance

When Josh and I pulled in to Kingston almost a year ago, we knew this would happen. It was just a matter of when and how. Finding ourselves a home in the summer was step one, but our yard wasn't quite big enough to do what we wanted to do.

For three months we hunted for land to rent. We started by asking neighbours with vacant land: 'have you got 1 acre to spare?' Each day after work we would clean ourselves up, and approach one of our target land owners, usually by knocking on their door. We were bubbling and excited, and we had our speech down pat. I thought it would be easy. It wasn't. It was rejection after referral after rejection. And some funny conversations along the way:

'Sorry, I don't think so' -90 year old owner of a 100-acre farm
'Ok, well thanks anyways' - me, dressed in overalls and pigtails (no, I wasn't that cute)
'You can come back and ask me again next year.....but I'll probably say no again'

'We've got 20 acres right back there that I would let you use if I hadn't drained out the well 10 years ago. Did you know that Farm Boy is hiring? Corrections is also a great employer' -neighbour and dog-rescuer. Not too supportive of our chosen career path

'You should definitely talk to Andrea Cumpson' -everyone else (we did.)

In the end it was a friendly couple who own a 4-acre plot of land 5 minutes north of us who saved us from land-hunting and farm-creation failure. We heard about them through a friend of a friend. They shared our excitement (what little we had left) and offered the rental of their land and well. Finally! A contract was drawn, and a farm was born: Fat Chance Farmstead. www.fatchancefarmstead.com


Here is our brand spanking new website. What do you think?