S4 ● E126 How we ended up at Ridgedale...

It's getting dark so early these days. I just wanted to make a quick video today telling the story of how we ended up at the farm in the first place. For those of you that have read our book, you'll have seen the story pretty printed there. And it's a story I always tell to people coming to the farm because I feel like it's a pretty special story, actually. And it brings a lot of hope to those of you that are looking for land and looking to start up. And it seems far away, you don't have the money or can't see an open door to get onto land. And I think that's common throughout the globe. Access to land is a major problem. And access to finances. To start this up, as I've been sharing throughout the season and in older videos, you know, we've done this really on a shoestring budget and there's pros and cons to doing things in that way. We did it that way because we had no choice. But really, the story of how we ended up with this little house in the middle of nowhere is pretty cool. So I'm from the uk. Someone was asking why I didn't stay in the uk. Well, time, place and circumstance is my response. I mean, I was coming out of a relationship. I actually came here to help someone earn some money back from some unscrupulous dealings that I had suffered the year before. And so put on an event as a creative solution. And what amazed me when I came here is just the amount of land that's not being utilized, the amount of buildings that are undervalued. The buildings on this property are, you know, really not worth anything. It's the, the actual land that's got the value and, you know, for €90,000 that we bought this farm in England, you could buy maybe a garage to park your car in for that. So I was able to just, you know, actually do something immediately. And so it was a long winded journey actually to get to this place. And I started a relationship with Johanna and I built a circus wagon. I had a German circus wagon that I kidded out almost like a narrowboat. I'd lived on boats in the UK for many years and had several boats that I did up, retrofitted and improved them and sold them to make a little bit of cash and bought a bigger one, etc. And so taking a space like that was partly so I could move into this new relationship and explore the idea of moving to Sweden without relying too fundamentally on anyone else. And the idea Being that I could sell that and move on if it didn't work out. Originally I was only planning to come for two weeks and then leave again, but I ended up sticking around. And after a while we started looking at properties and we had an interesting process of typing in our search goals into different property searches. We had about 50 goals. I list some of them in our book. We wanted to be a certain distance from international travel. We needed like a market to sell things. We needed to be on land that could demonstrate the sort of enterprises that we knew we'd be dealing with to things like keyline design. And I wanted to have the possibility to be self sufficient with water and power longer term. And we wanted a bit of forestry and at least 4 hectares of pasture. We actually looked at farms ranging from 3 to 45 hectares, I think it was. Now Swedish property has gone bidding and what's interesting about them is that a lot of people in the price bracket we were working with looking for a holiday home and most, you know, properties like this, they're not going to be farmed ever. Most people aren't going into farming. There's very few young Swedish people moving back out to the countryside and trying to set up profitable regenerative agricultures. We had quite a lot of goals, but then the only one that we never actually attained by moving to what's now Ridgedale was to be a certain distance from the sea. But then we have this beautiful lake about a kilometer away that we go to for swimming and fishing and relaxing in the summer as well. So we met all of our goals and it was a really interesting process. What would happen in the bidding process that properties are sold by Here we would like scan through properties that fit the climate zone we wanted to be in. So we overlaid a map of Swedish climate zones onto Google Earth so we could then look at population centers within the regions we wanted. The Swedish climate zones go the opposite way to American ones. So we wanted like, number one, would be the warmest climate down in the south. But what's interesting about Sweden, it's a very long country and on the inland sea you get warm climate zones all the way up quite far north. Sweden's extremely long and so a few hundred kilometers north of here you can have the same climate belt because of the effects of the water there. So we put all this data into Google Earth, which is an amazingly powerful tool for what it is, and that allowed us to start narrowing down searches and then we could type locations into some of the property searches and give a radius from those places, we knew we wanted to have something like a 50 kilometer selling radius to keep products local and try and work intimately with customers. And it was an amazing process because we were looking around and we would look at the maps and we would up the budget a bit and down the budget a bit and just see what differences we had. We were looking at properties for 600,000 crowns. That's about €60,000. That's not a lot of money to buy a farm up in the very north of Sweden. You can buy quite nice properties for that. I mean, you can buy 150 hectare farms with huge outbuildings for, you know, €100,000. But there's a reason why is no one wants to live up there and there's no market for sort of projects that we're producing. So, you know, we had. We looked at very different things. And something I've always recommended to people is, okay, if you've got a budget and you want to start something like this up, don't spend more than 30, 40% of your budget on the property, because it costs a lot more to do up that property than to purchase it. And obviously it depends on the circumstance and what you're trying to do specifically, but it's very tempting on these search sites to add another €10,000, €20,000, and soon you've found this beautiful property that you can't actually afford. And one of the keys to the success of this place has not been taking on debt we can't afford. So we were very careful not to go too high with our bidding, and we were careful to be able to make a business plan that could pay that off rapidly. We wanted to pay it off in five years flat because we knew that, you know, this is a hard life, and we didn't want to work hard for the next 50 years. We wanted to work hard and then pass it on, hopefully, or grow the business out in other directions, as it were. But what would happen is we find these nice properties and we would turn up and see basically if we could design what we wanted to do in that space and have a good look at the buildings and look at the soil. And what we found is most people were looking for holiday homes, so they would just have a quick look around the house and then, you know, the bids could double the price immediately. If it had any kind of cute factor, that bidding game, it really brings out different elements with people. Like people are walking around trying to put each other off bidding in some cases. Like, we looked at one amazing property that it was out of a fairy tale. It had beautiful beech forests. It's a bit further south in here where beech forests are more common. Amazing buildings in perfect scale and, like, laid out beautifully. And, oh, it was a dream property. And it was going for something like €50,000. It was perfect. We could afford it. Like, bam, straight like that. And immediately on the first hour, it went up to three times the price because it had that cute factor. But we heard people going around in the bidding saying, like, oh, it looks like there's been rats in here. And, oh, don't know if these buildings are going to stand more in a few more years. You know, they're trying to put people off and play a psychological game. And, yeah, it taught us a bit about how that works. And it is a bit of a psychological game with this bidding. Now, the story of, like, getting to here is quite interesting because this property was going for about six times our budget. And we'd seen it before because we were looking at different price brackets and tiers. And then suddenly it was getting to November time and my schedule. I was working abroad a lot, doing a lot of project work and consultancy abroad at that time. And I was saying to Johanna, like, hey, you know, if we don't find something this season, I'm gonna have to take on work for next year. I'm gonna be out the country a lot of the year, and it's just not gonna happen. Then, you know, we were kind of getting disillusioned because we'd been to dozens of properties at this point and, you know, frantically designing the properties and really laying out plans, and then just to be out bid straight away, it was like, ah. And then what happened is this property actually came down in price to €90,000. And we were like, oh, very interesting. We'd seen the maps. They weren't the best quality maps, but we liked them. We could see the potential in this property. And the photos that had been put out on the website were really poor. And you kind of build up a pattern language. When you've looked at, you know, several thousand properties in detail, trying to scrounge as much information as you can, you kind of get a picture of what's what. And Sweden's divided up in very weird ways, where sometimes on paper, the properties would look amazing. Really nice buildings, loads of land, cheap price. And then you look at the topographic maps, and the property would be like a kilometer long and 20 meters wide. And it's just a forestry parcel that's been divided up between kids. When the you Know, the mother and father have died or whatever. Just totally unusable properties that, you know, no one could ever farm. I wish I could have a job dividing properties up based on the scale of permanence. That would be my ideal job, I think. But anyway, we were looking. Hey, Mies. We were looking at this place and when the price came down, we thought, well, let's just phone them up and see. So we phoned up. The estate agent said, yeah, basically there's been no interest in the property except for one couple back in the summer, and they would have had to sell their house before they could make a bid. And that was like three or four months ago and there's been no other viewers. So we were thinking, ah, we could get in here and just put a bid in real low at like €60,000. And we knew, like, coming into the winter, it's quite expensive to keep a house if you're not living there here, because you need to put electric heating on, basically, and that's just really expensive to run. I mean, people often want to sell for a bit cheaper just to get rid of the hassle of maintaining the property over the winter. So we came down and we wanted to view the property and we drove four or five hours from Stockholm to get here and we loved it. The house was very simple and, you know, no one had lived here for a little while, certainly for that year. And the grounds were overgrown, the grass is, you know, just full of thatch. And we really liked the property. We felt like, yeah, we could definitely do what we want to do here. The streams running through the property in the forest. And then we met the neighbours, our neighbors here, and they came and they gave us fika, which is like morning, like refreshments, coffee, etc. And showed us around and they were lovely and that really just made us feel good. We went to our local town Sunday and we felt like, yeah, this is cute. It's, you know, it's just a small town in Sweden, but it felt comfortable and nice. And so we went and put a bid in at 600,000, about €60,000. And we were feeling quite hopeful about it. And we didn't actually have that money. We had taken a loan and we also took a loan from one of my past students who wanted to put some of her inheritance into projects she wanted to support over and over again and just have it on loose terms and when it comes back she would reinvest it somewhere else. And it was really cool. That gave us like a budget that we kept for Starting up the project, we still wanted to limit our property purchase price. So then the lady at the end of the week, she phoned up and she was like, well, you never guess what. The other couple have sold their house and they've just come along and put a bid in at the original asking price. And we were like, ah, you know, like, we've been all the way out here and it was costing money, you know, and time to come and check places around Sweden. And immediately, just instinctively, we phoned up and put a bid in at a higher price, really not having any money to do that. And it was kind of interesting. It was like a feeling like we had to get in on that psychological game. And then we were living in a little cottage near Stockholm. And I think Johanna basically at the end of that week, had a dream. And she had a dream where an old man came into the kitchen at that cottage and basically sat down at the table and gave her his blessing. And she woke up incredibly excited. And she was like, I feel like we're just going to get this place, like. And she was so confident about this sort of premonitions dream that I got really confident and inspired by that too, because it was, you know, wishful thinking for my part. And so we were getting to the end of that week and we wanted to phone up and close the deal. We were like wanting to put some pressure on there. And the estate agent phoned up and was like, you'll never guess what. The old man that lived here died last night. And basically there's nothing going to be able to happen for a week because there's going to be a funeral, all this stuff. So, you know, I'm sorry for the delay, but I'll have to get back to you. Sure, okay. And so then we waited about a week and then she phoned up again and she said, you never guess what. The original couple have come back in with a higher bid. And we were like, our heart sank because we, you know, we knew we couldn't afford to put in a higher bid. We just didn't have the money and we couldn't risk the. Like, you have to put a deposit down to secure the Property, I think 10%, but if you can't come up with the rest of the payments on the terms, then you forfeit your deposit. And that was all the cash we had. So we were freaking out, thinking what on earth to do. And then she phoned up again on the Monday and said, well, you never guess what. The owners phoned me up and said she wants to refuse the higher bid and wants to sell it to you guys at the original asking price. But you need to come down here today and come and sign the papers. So it was a snowstorm, it was colder than it is now. And so we had, we jumped in the car and we had a four hour drive straight down here. And it was, it was really interesting. We got here and just on the corner here, we were just walking around the corner here. We got here an hour before our scheduled meeting because we wanted to just have another look around the property because we'd only really seen the property for a couple of hours. And this young man walked around the corner and said, are you buying the property? And we were like, think so. And he was like, well, look, I'm from the village and I'm fed up with the rubbish Internet around here and I'm part of this fiber optic association that's bringing fiber optic to the village. And today's the last day you could sign up for fiber optic Internet. It's going to be a gigabit fiber optics. It cost €3,000 to join and they're coming by with a digger tomorrow. Do you want to sign up? So we signed up this contract before we had even met with the estate agent. And then we met with the estate agent and did the papers and we had to go and sign the final papers with the owner. She had obviously just buried her husband and was, you know, obviously is a very traumatic place. And she told us a bit of her story. She had lived here 50 years. She was childhood friends with our amazing neighbors here and they were very thrifty. They were known to be like super self resilient and looked after property, doing horse drawn agriculture and raising their own, you know, self sustained animals and vegetables. And basically she said, we asked why they were selling the property and she told us her story that basically the old man had got dementia and she couldn't look after the property at the same time as caring for him. And that had gone on for a couple of years. And her daughters were living in. They're grown up and living in the south of Sweden. They are like, come on mum, you got to take a holiday. You got to, you know, take some rest. So after two years of asking her, she went down south to take a holiday. And the minute she got off the bus he had rung up and he had fallen off a ladder and broken his leg. And what's really interesting is in Johannes Dream, the old man had come hobbling into the kitchen with his bad leg and I don't know what to make of that. And, you know, it's what to make of it. But it's very interesting and it's happened a few times. And the spirit of this place has, you know, the way the farm has developed has continued on that note. It's just been the right people turning up at the right time to get the jobs done. We've needed doing. And that's really something I can't explain, but it seems to be the way these things go. When you put your heart and mind into something fully and completely, then people get drawn to that, people gravitate to that. And we've had amazing people come through who have just shown the perfect skills and gifts and talents at exactly the right time. And I think there was some care. We wrote letters to the previous owner. It was a strategy we tried with different properties, just explaining our intention. You know, hey, we're going to really care for this place. We're going to do something really beautiful here and something amazing here. And that obviously struck a chord with the previous owner here because they had lived here 50 years. I mean, they loved this landscape and loved this place. And to know that someone's caring for it rather than just taking a holiday home or, you know, it's. It rings a different chord to the right person. And yeah, I just love to share that story because I feel like, you know, we. We were Starting with about €20,000 in our pocket not long before that, with no real. You know, I've been looking for land for over a decade in some ways, and I never felt any closer to actualizing that. I never really expected to end up in Sweden in a colder, more expensive, more conservative and highly regulated place in England. But I'm really happy I have. It's a beautiful place to farm. It's amazing to farm in these dramatic seasons in the dark. But, you know, it just goes to show, like, you can't plan those things sometimes. So I wanted to share this story today just for those of you that, you know, it feels like a long way away in a far off dream that those things can just happen really suddenly. You know, I looked at land in Southeast Asia, I looked at land in Southern Europe, I've looked at land in the uk. I've looked at collaborations with other people, and there's many options and you could start with rented land. I had gone and approached a farmer with a holistic grazer from Sweden to get a rental deal to do dairy calves for meat with pastry boilers on a rented farm. This.com But I really wanted to have our own place because I knew some of the things that we would do here just wouldn't suit rent land. But yeah, I just wanted to share that for, you know, some inspiration. If it feels like you've been efforting so hard to get onto land or get the funds together to start it, it can happen. And there's mysterious things that go on when you really commit your mind to stuff. And yeah, I think there's a lot that we can draw from that. So anyway, that's all I got for today. I got some exciting announcements to make in the next few days, so stay tuned for that. We've got some really cool events happening next year and I want to introduce some of those in the coming days. Thanks as always for watching. You can find out a lot more in our book Making Small Farms Work and Online Training that's released next week is in the notes below. So thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video.