Diamond in the Rough

I am in the unique position of having the opportunity of going back in time to share the process of carving out a life at the farm with you. It allows me to go back through the photographs and articles I have written and truly reflect on just how far we have come over the years at The Farm.House.Studio.

When we bought the farm, I was still working as a high school Visual Arts teacher at RLDHS. Brad had just taken on the job at the municipal transfer station, so he didn’t have a whole heck of a lot of time off to spend at the farm. We drove down the 105 as often as we could, usually on a Saturday night, coming home late Sunday evening so I could be back in the classroom the next day.

When we first started staying at the farm, we couldn’t just move into the house that was there. The house had not been occupied for years, and all of the pipes had cracked. That meant no water and no plumbing. There was no electricity connected to the house, and it was in complete disarray. We knew that it was more than a weekend job, (turned into pretty well a full summer job) so we shifted our attention to a building that we called “The Love Shack”. I will leave you to wonder on your own about that. 😉

“The Love Shack” would become our home for the first few months of coming out to the farm.

Every building on the property was jam packed with stuff, and this building was no exception. But of all the buildings, we knew this one best fit the concept of being a diamond in the rough. It wouldn’t take toooooo much time to make it habitable. We just had to take out some stuff.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

All of this stuff, as a matter of fact. What you can NOT see here is that we also removed three full sized freezers from this little building that is only about 10×15 feet.

We found everything from electric insulators to old glasses, swizzle sticks to unique china. We really felt like those guys that have the pickers shows, going through everything and thinking about whether this stuff was something worth keeping, selling or throwing away. Little did we know at the time that we would still be doing this 4 years later in other buildings!

The desk drawers were littered with swizzle sticks! There were a lot of funky designs!
  • Toilet paper dolls, anyone?
  • I can see clearly now!
  • We eat a lot of picnics at the farm.
  • Pretty fancy living!
  • This was our home away from home for a while!

It was a (fairly) warm, dry, clean place to rest our weary feet after a long day of work at the farm and we were thankful for this little cubby hole of a room that we called our home away from home. Now a days, people call this living in a “tiny home”. We called it “doin’ what ya gotta do”!

We were cold and damp and didn’t have any proper rain gear, so we wrapped our clothes around our heads to keep us warm while we worked. PJ pants and t-shirts!

Stay tuned because in the next little while we’ll be sharing with you what emerged in the spring, after the snow melted.

Want to remember this? Post The Clever Corvid’s Farm House Studio blog called “A Diamond in the Rough” to your favorite Pinterest board! Just click on the picture and it’ll take ya there! Easy peasy. 😉

Brad and Alexander walk through the deep snow to have their first look at "The Love Shack"; an old building that had no water and only 30 amps of hydro, but it is where we lived when we first started going to The Farm.House.Studio. Ah, homesteading. Such a great life! #roughingit #farmstead #newhorizons #newexperiences #newbeginning

Author: theclevercorvidsfarmhousestudio

Rhonda (Bobinski) Beckman left Red Lake, Ontario, after high school to obtain her Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Degree, then continued on to receive her Bachelor of Education Degree at the University of Manitoba. She then returned and taught Visual Arts at Red Lake District High School for almost 20 years while continuing to make her own art on the side. In 2014, Rhonda established herself as the sole proprietor of The Clever Corvid Art and Art Workshops, where she runs artistic workshops for all ages and abilities in the community and beyond. She is now working on the next stage of her artistic career as she and her husband slowly transform 167 acres of land just outside of Dryden, Ontario, into a future artist's retreat. Rhonda can be found at local festivals and on Facebook, peddling her creative wares that are inspired by the beautiful nature that surrounds her.

2 Replies to “Diamond in the Rough”

Comments are closed.