Welcome back!
I decided to tackle something controversial in this blog. Oh, don’t worry, it’s not political.
I am facing the sunset years of my career in IT, and I realize that I don’t want to “die at my desk.”
I worry about getting old and not having enough money to live. Sadly, living with undiagnosed bi-polar disorder for the first 56 years of my life resulted in me lacking self-control in many ways, including purchases. I made a lot of bad financial decisions that resulted in my having far less money in the bank then I should have had by now. The split from my wife meant that we had to divide what we had in half. I had to invest my half in the farmhouse to make it livable.
With the cost of living going through the roof, I have some big decisions to make regarding what I will do next. There was a point in my life when I believed the winery would fund my retirement. Clearly, that didn’t work out as planned.
Now, I look at the farm and wonder if there’s a future in market gardening, blogging, and YouTube.
Of course, another possibility would be to sell everything, pack up the Wonder Twins (my 2 rescue miniature pinschers), and move to a country where the cost of living is significantly lower than it is in Canada.
This is where the controversy comes in play. I love living in Canada. Well, except for the winter, but I can’t change that. I will have saved a modest amount of money in the next 5 years which, when combined with any proceeds from the farm, and my Canada Pension Plan (CPP) would give me a decent monthly income. It would mean leaving everyone I know behind and starting all over again. I have to be realistic in that I doubt I could afford to fly back to Canada even once a year.
I’d likely have to learn a new language, but that doesn’t really concern me.
I could write books in my abundant spare time.
I love to fish. I could fish for some of my food (once a Subsistence farmer, always a Subsistence farmer). Depending on where I would go, I could raise animals for meat and have laying hens. I might even get a pig, goat, or lamb!
Then again, I may just stay on the farm, make a go of it and hope for the best. One never knows what the future will bring, but I do know that running this farm is substantially less work than the winery was and even if it doesn’t make me rich in my old age, I will always have food.
I guess that does address my biggest fear.
Ah, to have a crystal ball.
Until next time
Louis
____________________________________________________________________
I’ve launched a YouTube channel for the homestead that you can find at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYhZ1s_14TaPZvGkd6qiauA
If you could, please stop in, view the video, select ‘Like,’ subscribe, and share the link. These things will really help the channel get off the ground.
Please visit my farm’s Facebook page for more: https://www.facebook.com/BlueGypsyHomestead