By Rory Hale – REALTOR®, Rural Properties & Acreages near Calgary

You’re driving down a dusty Alberta backroad, your truck bouncing along as golden fields stretch out on either side. Maybe there’s a distant mountain range on the horizon or a cluster of aspen trees swaying gently in the breeze. You spot a “For Sale” sign and think, “Could this be it? My own slice of country paradise?”

But here’s the thing: No two rural properties are the same. They’re as unique as the people who built them – from...

By Rory Hale – REALTOR®, Rural Properties & Acreages near Calgary

"Woody Woodpecker’s Real-Life Cousin: The Pileated Woodpeckers of the Alberta Foothills"

Living rural can mean starting your day with the rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of a feathered carpenter hard at work, carving out his masterpiece on an old aspen tree. Out here in the Alberta foothills, that sound isn’t coming from a construction site — it’s the signature call of the Pileated Woodpecker, nature’s own lumberjack.

As a rural realtor,...