I have a garage in the city and a truck to bring things to and fro, but it gets old loading and unloading the truck, and the truck needs to be able to haul building materials in to the property. Clearly, I need storage on the property that is 1) weather tight, and 2) secure, in which to store all of the new toys this place will necessitate give me an excuse to buy.

While working out a solution, I also began to warm up to the idea of an ATV (four wheeler, quad, quad bike, probably some other names I don’t know) for the purpose of shuttling stuff up and down from the lake more easily, as well as getting to the back of the property without a twenty-plus minute hike.

In May, 2020 I closed on 69 acres of vacant land on a little lake in the Kawarthas, north-east of Toronto.

I didn’t know I wanted this until, as I like to say, I got bored before most people at the start of the pandemic. I’m a border collie; I need space to play. I searched online for properties within 2.5h of the city, on water, and 50 acres or more. Why? Not sure, but I wanted a forest to play with. What does that mean? I don’t know. My timing was lucky; very soon after agreeing to purchase, rural and particularly cottage country property values inflated as people fled the now-unsettlingly-quiet urban areas.