Country living

Sometimes the kids ask why we live in the middle of nowhere. And then they realize how much they enjoy all the things they do that we couldn't do in a subdivision.
 
Morgan3820 said:
Glad I chose to live in a small town in the countryside. Quiet
That’s all.
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Except for those darn airplanes making all that noise at the local strip. Gotta sign that petition... ;)
 
Despite the bear trying to get into our kitchen last week (my wife chased it out), the tree that crushed my wife's car during the recent storm, and probably no electricity for a week at least, yeah, I still like living in the woods.
 
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I have to have a mix. We have corn for neighbors but we also have a subdivision of 50 houses. Gives my kids other houses to go to to leave me alone....err, scoially interact. Big enough town to have plenty of shopping and restaurants and small enough that there is seldom a traffic jam. Small enough to have cheap hangar rent too.
 
That’s hard to do with a lot of jobs. Spent most of my life living in cities because that’s were the work was. Fortunately now I have a job where I can choose a rural area to work and live. City life just ain’t my thing.

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Velocity173 said:
That’s hard to do with a lot of jobs. Spent most of my life living in cities because that’s were the work was. Fortunately now I have a job where I can choose a rural area to work and live. City life just ain’t my thing.

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I moved to where I wanted to live. Then found the job.
 
I choose to live near small villages almost all of my adult life. No regrets. Living off the road system was best. It wasn't always easy, but it was what I wanted.

Unfortunately, with age I am wanting, actually my wife wants me to live close to better health care. Right now I have to drive 2 hours one way for most doctor appointments.

Hopefully this fall I will be moving to a big city in Wyoming. A totally new life for me and the wife as well as a career change. I have found it to be the best of both worlds. Living outside the city limits where it is peaceful and quiet, yet close enough for all the shopping my wife desires and has all the health care facilities I need. I was there 2 weeks ago and watched baby antelope playing in the field across the road from the hotel I was in. And they have trees there...
 
MuseChaser said:
Except for those darn airplanes making all that noise at the local strip. Gotta sign that petition... ;)
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You mean the daily crop duster 200ft over the house at 5am almost every morning isn't normal. Big piston engine job, not one of those quiet turbines.

Brian
 
I've always been a country boy. I've tried big city living, but I like my personal space and privacy way too much. The hustle and bustle gives me a headache. We live outside the city in the country, but are close enough that the amenities and resources aren't that far of a drive.
 
Dana said:
Despite the bear trying to get into our kitchen last week (my wife chased it out), the tree that crushed my wife's car during the recent storm, and probably no electricity for a week at least, yeah, I still like living in the woods.
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As I kid I remember my friends house, especially since he had a T-craft there and gave me my 1st airplane ride at about 4 years hold. I also remember him starting the Generator so he could pump water from the water truck, he had just returned with, to the house.

Drove by his old place last week, it is now a solar Farm.:) Nothing like going from no electricity to making electricity for others.

Brian
 
I've lived out of town since 1986, not only because I prefer the solitude, but even more just out of courtesy. I usually have very big dogs (currently without one, but the time will come again), and I'm a musician who keeps very strange hours, gets home at 2 or 3 am from gigs at times, then practices piano or trumpet until the sun comes up, or listens to Coltrane or Delius at realistic levels. Not only do I not like densely populated areas, but I can understand why densely populated areas may not like me.
 
brcase said:
As I kid I remember my friends house, especially since he had a T-craft there and gave me my 1st airplane ride at about 4 years hold...
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Woooof!!! That's the youngest pilot I've ever heard of.... how did he reach the rudder pedals or see over the panel?!?!
 
brcase said:
You mean the daily crop duster 200ft over the house at 5am almost every morning isn't normal. Big piston engine job, not one of those quiet turbines.

Brian
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I remember back in the late 1970s living in Napa, CA and waking up some weekends to the sound of burners overhead. Hot air balloons are a thing there.
 
Velocity173 said:
That’s hard to do with a lot of jobs. Spent most of my life living in cities because that’s were the work was. Fortunately now I have a job where I can choose a rural area to work and live. City life just ain’t my thing.
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I’m with you, rural life is great if you can afford it.

And anyone who says “Everything is cheaper in the country” simply is privileged enough to be able to ignore the fact that labor is too.

My last attempt at “country life” ended when I moved 65 miles for a 50% raise doing 1/3rd of the work of the lower paying job. That is when I realized that I like money more than country or city life.
 
I’ve lived rural for most of my life including in no damn where Alaska and on a farm in Washington. My wife and I currently live18 miles out of town, just off a 2 lane state highway. It takes about 25 minutes to get to town (Coeur d’Alene, Idaho). Although we live on the lake, we have no near neighbors; the closest is 1600’ away. The pluses are great view, no pesky neighbors, lots of wildlife and of course the lake. We can go for days without seeing anyone which has been handy for COVID-19. The downside is no meaningful fire protection or law enforcement (at least 45 minute response time, and for fire, they will bring the fire boat and their only responsibility is to prevent the spread of the fire - so the house is gonna be toast) or ambulance service. We have a membership in Life Flight and we also have a defibrillator that we both have been trained on. Snow removal in the winter can be a challenge so we make sure we don’t have to go get groceries on a weekly basis. Still, all in all, I wouldn’t give up country living.
 
MarkH said:
I’m with you, rural life is great if you can afford it.

And anyone who says “Everything is cheaper in the country” simply is privileged enough to be able to ignore the fact that labor is too.

My last attempt at “country life” ended when I moved 65 miles for a 50% raise doing 1/3rd of the work of the lower paying job. That is when I realized that I like money more than country or city life.
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Yeah the problem arises in the rural areas, there just aren’t enough decent paying jobs to support living comfortably. For the most part, you either have to work from home or do a long commute to the city job to keep the country lifestyle.

Living outside the city does have its draw backs though. Lots of upkeep with dealing with Mother Nature. I’m essentially in the woods and I’m always dealing with downed trees, power outages, slow internet, poor water pressure. Lots of varmints too. Just in the past 3 days there was a Black Bear across the street from me, had two Raccoons that woke me up this AM and had these two deer in the driveway when I got home a few minutes ago.

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I’ve, as an adult making such distinctions, always mandated that I would never willingly live anywhere that I couldn’t relieve myself urinary-wise in the yard.....pretty well defines no close neighbors, and the cows don’t pay any attention.
 
wrbix said:
I’ve, as an adult making such distinctions, always mandated that I would never willingly live anywhere that I couldn’t relieve myself urinary-wise in the yard.....pretty well defines no close neighbors, and the cows don’t pay any attention.
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I whizzed in my backyard right after I bought the house. seemed like a good luck kind of thing to do. I have one neighbor but I didn't really give a shnit.
 
wrbix said:
I’ve, as an adult making such distinctions, always mandated that I would never willingly live anywhere that I couldn’t relieve myself urinary-wise in the yard.....pretty well defines no close neighbors, and the cows don’t pay any attention.
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My distance that I like to have to neighbors is gunshot distance.....

I got a bullet hole in my 5th wheel a few years ago courtesy of some new renters that rented the house 100 yards away. Then one morning a few months later I found several .22 holes in my garage door. Those renters got removed that day by the sheriffs deputies and county SWAT folks.

Sadly the old folks that used to live there got too old to live alone, so they let their useless grandson (who apparently liked to shoot guns out the window) rent the house. The current renters seem to be quiet but are now junking up the property. Might be time to make a call again.

Can't wait to get to WY....
 
We live in a small town, last week I spent 5 days commuting to Paine Field, I don't like standing in the ferry lines. or the fences around the airport.
 
Jumpmaster said:
It takes about 25 minutes to get to town (Coeur d’Alene, Idaho). Although we live on the lake, we have no near neighbors...wouldn’t give up country living.
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Nice! Coeur d’Alene or Sandpoint are near the top of our list of retirement destinations in a few years. I’m originally from (southern) Idaho, and have been wanting to get back out that way ever since. Gorgeous country!
 
Velocity173 said:
Living outside the city does have its draw backs though. Lots of upkeep with dealing with Mother Nature. I’m essentially in the woods and I’m always dealing with downed trees, power outages, slow internet, poor water pressure. Lots of varmints too. Just in the past 3 days there was a Black Bear across the street from me, had two Raccoons that woke me up this AM and had these two deer in the driveway when I got home a few minutes ago.
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I'm still not seeing the drawbacks...:D
 
Most of the folks I know who live in the country commute to work in the city. No how, no way. Life is too short to spend all that time sitting in traffic.
 
steingar said:
Most of the folks I know who live in the country commute to work in the city. No how, no way. Life is too short to spend all that time sitting in traffic.
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That's why "balance" is important.

I'd say that life's too short to spend all of it in a sub-division and dealing with local streets.
 
We moved from the San Francisco noise and traffic to rural Sonoma County surrounded by golf courses and vineyards, and are loving it. We're both retired, so no commute except for the 20 minute drive to my hangar at Sonoma County Airport.
 
In 2002 we moved to a rural area about 5 miles outside a small town. My wife could keep horses, my son and I could shoot .22s in the backyard, etc. Neighbors raised cows and chickens. I accepted a 40 mile commute twice a day for the privilege.

But today the growth has caught up to us and there are housing developments replacing orange groves and businesses replacing pastures.

We’ll need to move again soon.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I'm still not seeing the drawbacks...:D
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Well the bears and raccoons rip my bird feeders down and they make a mess out of trash cans. My bushes are bare because of the deer always munching on them. Got plenty of ticks and chiggers. Got plenty of snakes including a robust Copperhead population. Carpenter bees have made my house siding look like Swiss cheese. Other than all that, I get along well with nature.
 
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Stan Cooper said:
We moved from the San Francisco noise and traffic to rural Sonoma County surrounded by golf courses and vineyards, and are loving it. We're both retired, so no commute except for the 20 minute drive to my hangar at Sonoma County Airport.
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I moved from a semi-rural area in Colorado (about an hour from Denver) to San Francisco. I didn't think there would be enough things to do out there after I stopped working, without a long drive. I still think that would have been the case. There are many things I can do here that I couldn't do there, interestingly outdoor things, even before Covid. That said, the City has a lot of problems. One good thing about now is that there are fewer people! Besides, I live in a more mellow area, not a trendy or troubled one.
 
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Half Fast said:
In 2002 we moved to a rural area about 5 miles outside a small town. My wife could keep horses, my son and I could shoot .22s in the backyard, etc. Neighbors raised cows and chickens. I accepted a 40 mile commute twice a day for the privilege.

But today the growth has caught up to us and there are housing developments replacing orange groves and businesses replacing pastures.

We’ll need to move again soon.
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We bought our property figuring that by the time the kids were moving out of the house, the urban sprawl would likely catch up and we'd be able to sell off to a developer or sell at a significant premium to someone who wants this kind of property. We'll see how that pans out in another 15 years or so.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
We bought our property figuring that by the time the kids were moving out of the house, the urban sprawl would likely catch up and we'd be able to sell off to a developer or sell at a significant premium to someone who wants this kind of property. We'll see how that pans out in another 15 years or so.
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That's about where we stand. This was a good place to raise the kids, and the sprawl didn't catch up until they were grown. My youngest moved out a couple of years ago. I'm planning to retire in a few months, so there won't be much anchoring us here. It might be two or three years before we move, but when we do we'll try to get a few acres in horse country.

I have a Downs daughter who lives in an independent living facility in Lakeland, so we'll want to stay within about a 2 hour drive of her just in case some need arises. Likely we'll look for something west of Ocala.
 
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midwestpa24 said:
I'm still not seeing the drawbacks...:D
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Well, lonely rural areas are good places for drug deals and to dump a body occasionally. There have been a few murders over the years, and once the cops found a human torso (just the torso) in a nearby pasture. Then there was the time three men held up a convenience store and murdered the clerk, then abandoned their vehicle and took off on foot through the groves. They tried to hide in a neighbor's barn that night and we had a helicopter circling with a search light while sheriff's deputies searched the area at 1 a.m.

But at least out here, if the deputies have to start shooting at someone they don't mind too much if we join in. :)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
We bought our property figuring that by the time the kids were moving out of the house, the urban sprawl would likely catch up and we'd be able to sell off to a developer or sell at a significant premium to someone who wants this kind of property. We'll see how that pans out in another 15 years or so.
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Our town is dying (at least it feels that way) so I guess in 15 years I will be in the country instead of in the city! :eek::oops:
 
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