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Frequently Asked Questions
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Q:

how long does it take to get to montreal, and is it bad on the roads in winter?

 

do u get revenue from the apples?

 

why are u selling?

 

how many bedrooms are there?



do u have a dining room?

 

how much are your taxes annually?


school taxes?

 

how far are u from the states?

 

which border crossing are u near?

 

if we were to come from west island, what is the quickest way?

 

what about shopping in the area? what stores do u have? is there a clinic nearby? dentist? to get to montreal, what is the best way and quickest?

 

where are u moving to?

 

do u ever have a water problem? meaning flooding?

 

is there a room above the garage? does it have plumbing etc? is it possible to have if there isnt any?

 

do u have a pond or stream on your property?

 

how much of the acreage is cultivated, are u close to trails?

 

can u go riding right from the property?

 

are there any churches close by?

 

how far are yr neighbours and are they friendly?

 

is it an english, french or bilingual community?

 

wondering if there are any pools or swimming nearby? lakes?

 

how are the roads in the winter? are they plowed often and salted or sanded well?

A:

One hour drive across the Mercier Bridge to downtown Mtl. door to door. We don't have hurricanes or tsunamis or earthquakes; we have winter driving. The worst stretch on a commute to Montreal is Route 138 between St. Martine and Mercier. They cut every tree from there to the St. Lawrence River so the wind can sometimes sweep across the open land and create drifts.

You have to do the work to make money on apples. The best way now is either U-pick open to the public pick your own and serve pies and juice......or produce apples without much chemical spray for juice and/or hard cider/ice cider.

My wife got a "real" job as a church minister in Picton, Ontario. Although we both love Quebec and lived there 25 years, we are both from Penna. and Sask. so Ontario is closer to home and parents in Pgh. and Buffalo.

Franklin and the Chateauguay Valley are less affluent than West Island, very mixed F&E and truly authentic rural. The people are generous and very community minded. There are pockets of affluent highly educated professional people but mostly a healthy mix of hard-working fifth generation families and city people who chose to get away from the rush.

4 bedrooms upstairs plus the giant "studio" which some say they would make into the Master Bedroom.

Dining room is attached to the kitchen with an island between.....open concept......also one of the living rooms is attached then another with sliding pocket doors on the first level, another room private hidden behind the staircase on that level too.

All taxes total around $2,200 but you get about 70 percent back if you are a registered farm and make $5,000 gross annually.

We are 4 miles from the Franklin / Churubusco border crossing and another couple miles to the Churubusco, NY post office.

Without looking at a map I would guess via Valleyfield is the most direct route. I drove from our farm to Ile Perrot windmill park in exactly an hour last week by Autoroute 20.

Shopping options for big box stores: Valleyfield 30 minutes, Chateauguay 40 minutes, St. Jean sur Richelieu, Plattsburgh, Massena, Malone, NY.

Ormstown Medical Centre and Barrie Memorial Hospital are 12 minutes away. We always go to Emergency if we need care and there are no horror stories about lack of service. Major medical attention is in Valleyfield. Dentists all over the Valley, Huntingdon, Ormstown, etc. We do grocery shopping wherever we are that day.....Richelieu and Metro in St. Chrysostome, Lac des Pins (St. Antoine Abbe), Ormstown is the big IGA but we were always passing by Mercier and Chateauguay too for Maxi and 24 hour stores. Champlain, NY has them too.

Never flooding. No possible way up here on Covey Hill!

The basement has dampness after snow melt due to some minor drainage and gutter issues but never flooding. A ditch was dug a couple years ago for $1,000 that would drain any water without pumps.

This is not a "très propre" house from the suburbs. It is an old farmhouse with all the quirks like some floors a bit sloping and some doors a bit not perfectly square, but if you're looking for authenticity in the country that's part of the charm.

Above the attached garage is the huge studio with hardwood floor. This could be transformed into an apartment and the water connections are right below the northeast corner. Baseboard electric heaters work great.

If you were able to view the website you'll see the pond which is about 200 feet long. Right now it's a bit grown in by wild shrubs but my idea is to landscape one side for easier access and swimming. Horses would love it. There are numerous natural springs bubbling out of the hillside on our property and the ditches are like rushing streams full of very pure mountain water in the spring. Rare salamanders inhabit the Outarde Est watershed at the back of our property due to this pure groundwater. See www.rivierechateauguay.qc.ca. Also for scientific study of the Hill: www.escer.uqam.ca/covey_hill/accueil.html

I cut ski and mountain bike trails around the property and we connect with some neighbours' trails and farm lanes through the woods giving us about 4 - 6 kms. They also have a sauna in an old milkhouse which is great after a xc ski trip!!

The trails are wide enough to give haywagon rides then there are some smaller walking trail offshoots.

If you ride horseback on paved roads, Brooks Road is totally untravelled and spectacular panorama. At night you feel on top of the world looking toward Montreal on the horizon.

See the neighbours' website: www.vergersocenas.com.

Neighbours below us on Brooks Road are francophone, next one up is francophone, next one half-half, next 3 neighbours are anglophone. Directly across Brooks Road from us the houses are along Route 202 out of sight one anglophone farm and one francophone farm. Everyone knows each other and respects each other's privacy and help each other clean snow and during power outtages and lend equipment and notify of suspicious vehicles.

There are many choices of churches, at least 4 English protestant denominations within a 12 minute drive and many others within a half-hour drive. Why are there so many? My friend says either the pioneers here were very religious or they fought a lot.

Franklin Elementary School is one of the main reasons we moved to this community. There are approx. 50 students K-6. It is one of the last true country schools and the residents recently battled hard to preserve it. See photos: www.franklincentre.com. It is the heart of the English community for events. St. Antoine Abbe has a little French school. High school for English is CVR in Ormstown. For French in Huntingdon, Arthur-Pigeon. Some students attend high school just across the border at Chateaugay, NY. CEGEP is a half hour away in Valleyfield or an hour to West Island or downtown Montreal.

For horse lovers:

Inside the barns has been renovated a bit too. There is a tack room with heat and fluorescent lighting and pipes to install toilet and water. It was a former dairy barn so it has a cement floor and huge hayloft. Windows are partly re-done but several need repaired. There are presently no stalls.

The apples were managed by us for 4 years but a neighbour has taken over the spraying, pruning and picking for no charge this year. We removed over 4,000 apple trees during those 4 years to make it more manageable for a "gentleman farmer".

The maple sugarbush provides an easy income of gross $4,000 each year, no work involved, another neighbour taps, gathers sap, boils and cans. We have a quota to sell 5,200 pounds of syrup and we are permitted to sell as much as we want at the farm gate.

On the website there is one photo of the unfinished basement. Setting up the ping-pong table. Stone walls from a 19th century foundation (we understand) before this house 1935. Old beams hand-hewn. New woodstove airtight EPA standards, firewood storage, water filtration system to remove a bit of iron (Culligan aeration no salts or maintenance), no sump pump necessary.

Big horse community at fairgrounds and especially around Hemmingford.

My daughter has a Paint horse that we were going to board at home but she took Candee to CEGEP with her and boarded in Lennoxville. She kept her in Franklin part of the year and rode to our farm sometimes to ride our trails in the woods and orchards.

Swimming is great with all the freshwater bodies nearby.....Lac St Francois at St-Anicet, Lake Champlain at Rouse's Point, Adirondack Park waterfalls and streams 20 minutes south, neighbours' pools, Ormstown public outdoor pool, Valleyfield indoor pool, Lac des Pins water park 7 minutes' drive away......

Our neighbour is in charge of the winter roads in the municipality of Franklin and he patrols every day and calls out the plows wherever needed. Sometimes there can be ice on the township's lower roads and none up on the hill and vice versa. To reach Brooks Road there are 2 steep approaches which are heavily salted because they come to a T at the highway 202.

Please be sure to check out www.countryhouseforsale.net too.

See more photos on www.lesPAC.com
See the apple growers of the region
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