The story behind SchnickAcres

Welcome!

In 1998, a young man and woman left city life to embrace a one hundred year old farmhouse that needed a lot of love.  With the help of family and friends they learned to take out walls, build walls, renovate kitchens and build horse stalls and paddock fences.  They had a sometimes clumsy approach to things that perhaps with a few bumps and bruises found them success in their task.  Hence the term "Schnick" was coined.  Schnick = the backwards, clumsy way of achieving success in any situation.

After four years there the house and barn had seen a lot of changes and so had their family.  They were married, welcomed a little baby girl into their family and considered a career change that came with a location change.  The little family of Schnicks set off on the next adventure and found themselves settling into a very nice suburb in Burlington Ontario.

Twelve years passed there in the Orchard community and three more little girls joined the clan.  Days were filled with friends, girl guides, swimming, dance and horse shows and the busyness of raising young children.  Mrs. Schnick was content but had known for sometime that she didn't feel quite settled in the subdivision.  It took Mr. Schnick to run out of 'fix it' projects (already few and far between in a newer home) to begin to feel that maybe it was time for a change.  What began as a quest for a little bit of extra space resulted in a whole new direction for the Schnicks.

On a cold March weekend morning, it was Mr. Schnick that was looking through MLS, the real estate site that came across an interesting property listed for sale.  That very afternoon he loaded his family into the family minivan to take the 40 km drive to take a peek.

Even in the bleak Canadian winter season, the view of the property from the road was limited due to trees.  Tall, full mature trees!  What they were able to see from the road were some of the temporary storage structures that were coined "tacky-shacks" by Mrs. Schnicks mother in law.  It was the discussion of these plastic 'tacky shacks' between the two adult Schnicks that caught the ears of the younger Schnicks and from that day on, the property was lovingly referred to as "the Shack house".  I'm sure this resulted in raised eyebrows whenever mentioned outside of the presence of an adult who could clarify.

Back to march... three days after the drive-by the seller's agent was contacted by the Schnicks and a visit to the home was arranged.   After a two hour visit that included a cold walk and tour of the barn Mr. and Mrs. Schnick agreed the Shack house felt like home.

What began as a search for a little bit of room - maybe just large enough for a pony has become a whole new life path.  Goals of self-sustainability, off grid living and community supported agriculture have become mainstream topics of discussion during morning coffee time.

Noble goals for sure.  Hard work.  Support of family and friends.  And to be sure, many bumps/hiccups/failures/ SCHNICKisms to be had along the way.  We hope that you will share our successes, our failures and our schnick moments with us here at SchnickAcres.