 |
| A very relaxed Sam |
"What if the farm takes ages to sell or doesn't sell at all?" I said to Howard. "After all, the market isn't exactly bouyant at the moment. Or what if we do sell it and then wish we hadn't?" And then the 'what about the alpacas' question managed to fight its way out of my subconscious where I had put it for safe keeping because it had been just too hard a concept for me to contemplate.
"And assuming we can sell the farm, what are we going to do about the alpacas?" I asked in a slightly querulous voice. Suddenly all my exhilaration and elation had vanished. I felt incredibly deflated and more than a little worried. Howard was busy studying his slippers, obviously hoping they would provide him with the answers. Or maybe he was simply hoping they would reveal where on earth his normally obscenely optimistic wife had disappeared to!
"But you're supposed to be the positive one," he said to me. "You always believe that we can make things work. Surely you believe we can make this work too? We don't have to sell the alpacas - we can keep them and agist them. That way you can have the best of both worlds. Can't you see that?" he reasoned.
 |
| Munlochy Alpacas |
Now this was an absolute novelty - Howard being both pragmatic and positive - and it took me unawares! But, of course, once Howard put it like that I could see we could indeed have the best of both worlds - although at that particular point in time I had no idea how on earth we could put the plan into practise. I simply worked on the principle that something would turn up. It usually did, so why should this be any different? Now, as the inimitable Charles Schultz once said, "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia!" So I grasped this particularly sound piece of advice with both hands and gave up worrying, replacing it instead with slightly manic bouts of industry.
 |
| McKendry Road - our home for 8 years |
The valuer and the real estate agent were consulted on the saleability of the farm, their individual verdicts being meticulously assessed and dissected as we worked out what our next step should be. Well obviously we would wait til spring when the market should be better and then list the farm with the real estate agent. Or would we? You see, the problem was a little voice in my head kept on saying to me, 'Go on, just take a punt. List the farm now on Trade Me! After all, what have you got to lose?' This was madness...or was it? It was the middle of winter. Who would want to buy a small farm in the middle of winter when everything looked slightly sad? But then, it might just work! How good would it feel if it did work?
"OK, so we're going to list the farm on Trade Me for a couple of weeks and see what happens," I announced to Howard. He dragged himself away from his Kindle and the nautical adventures that he was engrossed in and gave me a look that said 'Have you completely lost your marbles, woman?' However, to his absolute credit he managed to avoid saying that, opting instead for the safer "Oh, alright then. When exactly were you thinking of doing that?" The answer of 'today' left him resembling a stunned mullet, muttering things like "We don't know what to write" and "We don't have any photos". Excuses, excuses! Had he no imagination? It was so easily solved. I wasn't too bad at writing things and we possessed a digital camera. At that point in time, I believed I could have sold snow to the Eskimos.
Just before midnight on Saturday, we completed the listing and uploaded it to the Trade Me site. I felt a slight twinge of uncertainty as we paid out the $299 for the listing, but gave myself a stern talking to. This was going to work. It simply had to. Why? Probably for no better reason than to preserve my pride and because I don't like being wrong!! And work it did. Within two weeks the farm was sold and we were ready for the next chapter in our life to begin.
