For those who have problems with rural Nebraska (Niobrara: yard, recycle)

[roots'nbulbs]

Originally Posted by Sandhills Guru

So sorry if you feel you post about the use of llamas to scare away deer. Never heard of that method and can't locate anything that suggests it might work either.

May I suggest if you have a problem with deer eating your shrubs, take a look at this.

Keeping deer away from your garden.

Thank you. I was just enjoying the commentary on this thread, this morning. Perhaps I will comment as well, in time. But, right now I am busy with anticipating spring plantings and do not want the deer to wipe out my labors. So, thank you for the attention.

[roots'nbulbs]

I go back over these posts and still enjoy the conversation about the plains, i.e., Nebraska and whether or not it's good to live here.

I want to pose the question: "Would you move here, again, if you could go back in time and the choice was still there?"

I was born to a NE farm, moved away to Lincoln per my University years, stayed in Lincoln for 12 years, and moved back out to the So. central part of the state where I still travel, widely. I would answer that question this way: I do not regret living here, have had a very good life, but I really don't know what choice I would make. I do know that I would probably live my life in much the same way regardless of where I lived. As a wise sage said to me, once, "Wherever you go, you have to take yourself with you."

I know that a major problem for all of us is the backwards image Nebraska has to many people, elsewhere. But, then, that is changing with modern tourism and education and transportation and everything else that brings in new ideas. I have a friend who lives in a CA desert town and, gets the same insults, though. So, I guess, "Deal with it." As far as the potential mean spiritedness among young women that I was reading about on this post, ...it goes on everywhere. As another sage said to me, "If they take up space in my brain, they should be paying rent to me." I live here to be near family--stress enough---I just walk away from mean people and pretend they don't exist in my world. So, how about it...given a choice, where would you live...and work????

[aerahrtlu]

Los Angeles.
It's always been my dream of living there. But, it's not in the cards and I'm ok with that. If I win the lotto though, I'm so moving there!!

[itsMeFred]

Originally Posted by roots'nbulbs

So, how about it...given a choice, where would you live...and work????

When we win the Powerball, we're buying one of the ranches we used to work for, in the western Sandhills of Sheridan county.

[DTO Luv]

Originally Posted by aerahrtlu

Los Angeles.
It's always been my dream of living there. But, it's not in the cards and I'm ok with that. If I win the lotto though, I'm so moving there!!

Pass. THat place is a decrepit hell hole that relies on tv to make it look good. I've lived there and have family there. They don't like it and it's definitley not for me.

[SCGranny]

I could have moved anywhere last May. I had six places picked out to look at in several states and was open to more once I got there. I have lived in San Antonio, Albuquerque and Lordsburg, NM, Columbus, OH, and Charleston, SC; and know Seattle, Washington, DC, Jacksonville, FL, Salt Lake City, UT, much of SE ID, and New Orleans like a native. My son lives in Las Vegas and we visit there; my brother in ID where we like to go x-country skiing, and DH has lived in Los Angeles, Phillidelphia, Honolulu, and Sacremento.

We picked rural Nebraska. On purpose. It has everything we want and nothing we don't. I dread the day it becomes "discovered" and ruined by the same people who laid waste to ID, UT, TX, NM, CO, and WY. So we bought enough property so they can't move in next door to US!

[recycled]

My grandfather was born in Stirling in the SE part of NE (not far from Auburn, NE). I'm planning a road trip out that way in early summer. SC Granny, I've read quite a few of your CD posts about NE. Just curious, without giving too much detail that would cause hordes to flock to your area, which county or medium sized town are you within say 50 miles of? I like to explore back roads instead of driving the boring interstate highways and am curious about what the general area that you moved to looks like. It's likely not too far of a detour on my back roads trip from southern Cal to the SE corner of NE.

[SCGranny]

That is SUCH a good idea; there is no way that you can see the beauty of this state (or, ok, really, any state) from the Interstate! I'm West of Valentine, NE, pop 2500 or so - which I guess coming from CA, where 'small towns' are 200,000 pop, wouldn't even be a town at all!! LOL Hmmm... Chadron is larger and to the West of us by abt 90 miles. Hwy 20 is a 2-lane 'vein' that runs through the middle of northern NE. My daughter made it to Colorado on small back roads from here; mostly Hwy 20.

We live in the Sandhills; and the region looks like mostly very hilly, rolling prairie, dotted with cedars; racing even along the State roads, you can miss a lot. The Niobrara River, which slices through the area S of Valentine towards N Platte, you might barely notice from the road - but take one of those roads marked with the brown wooden signs and you will dip up and down over hills that are increasingly covered with trees - until you come upon the river, tumbling over falls and racing over the sand. People tube down this in the summer; nothing violent or injurious; just fun, and it is full of fish. The water is clear and COLD and so fresh you'll know you're getting ripped off by the bottled water companies! The hills and valleys hide many secrets; herds of antelope and deer that stare at you as you drive by, flocks of turkeys - we counted 40 the other day in one flock - that cross the road in front of you, swearing because you're in THEIR way... grouse and pheasant that suddenly leap up from right next to you and take flight. Hawks sitting glaring on fenceposts or plunging to prey with complete abandon.

I took my daughter to Smith Falls and en route down a narrow dirt road there were about 10 horses standing in a pasture. I stopped the car and got out and they came over and crowded around us, geldings, mares, and colts of all different ages, vying just for a scratch. I didn't think they would let us leave! LOL

It's the peace that gets you, though. The feeling that things have gone on the same way here for 100 years and will go on the same way for 100 more. Animals and people, braving the blizzards and the summer sun, doing what needs to be done. Even the brandings and parties they have are never overly rowdy; people either working or playing, sure of themselves and who they are, doing things that need to be done quietly, efficiently, and without fanfare; but always with a quick smile and hello. I've been to several events now where people have written their own skits and performed them; organized their own singing and musical groups for their own entertainment and that of their neighbors. Of course they can't hire 'big name' people to come to the back hills and entertain them, so they entertain each other. They preserve the beauty of their parks and playgrounds as if they owned them personally - and many have invested their time and planted trees or bought benches and cared for everything, and there are memorial plaques. My next-door neighbors own a ranch south and west of town, and he frequently brings his buckboard and two into town, to work them and keep them trained. They also take a few hours out of their busy schedule every weekend to go to the local cemetary to keep it clean and mowed and neat. What there ISN'T is graffiti and wanton vandalism. The structures of the older buildings, their careful attention to detail (many of the houses in our town have stained glass windows) their strength and longevity, are a testimonial to a strong and hardy people who do not give up beauty for utility. So if you get a chance, stop and wander around the parks that they lovingly care for, or look at the neat houses and businesses that are clean and tidy and as individual as the owners. One bank on the main street in Valentine has a cattle drive in brick relief down the entire front of their building! The bank in my town has a stained glass skylight, about 6X10...

Those who need the rush and bustle of something going on in their lives, 24-7, simply don't understand it and can't appreciate it. And I really do feel sorry for them. The natural status of man, to overcome the elements of nature as well as of himself, to grow and become and be, are all right here. As Louis L'Amour said, "I have seen the elephant" and I am content to never see him again. He is a gaudy, exciting carnival trick, lit with neon and festooned with greed and passionate, endless directionless busyness, like hysterical dancing to a bottomless techno blast, and I need and want something more intrinsically satisfying, with more longevity, in my life. This is it. This is home.

[roots'nbulbs]

I think a psychology study once revealed that there are two to three components that people need for happiness where they live. That would be to have green plants and the comfort of both old people and very, young people somewhere in their vicinity. I've always watched out for that.

There are other places where I would be very, happy to live, but each of them resemble what I seem to have, here, in rural Nebraska. I think the conditions that are best are when you have control, (at least mostly), of your own life. Make your own choices, mistakes as well as good ones.

Here, I know that I can roam the paths and the grassland at will. I can take my camera or I can just go about for licking my wounds or I can just be.

I don't mind the cold winters as I love to curl up and have an excuse to not work--just watch the wind blow or the snow. Whatever. The only part of Nebraska that I do not like is when it's so hot and the wind just pelts dirt at ya'--usually, late July. Good time to take a trip to the mountains. We always did that when I was a kid. Shut the irrigation down in August and went to Estes Park to cool off. It was a tradition in farm country. Came back in time to get new things for school. Not a bad life.

[recycled]

SC Granny, roots n' bulbs, both of you are gifted with the kind of writing skills that have kept me interested in CD Forum for over 2 years. Roots n' bulbs, I see you are a recent CD Forum member, so I sent you some rep points as a friendly welcome. SC Granny, if you don't already have a job writing a column at at some little local newspaper there in the Sandhills, you really should. I've read countless CD posts from people in all corners of our country and beyond that describe the good or bad about the area they live in. Never have I envisioned a picture painted from words quite like the way you described your corner of the world.

I've also lived in a variety of places that have provided a basis for comparison. I'm a San Francisco native that has lived in Orange County the past 9+ years, but I've also lived in New Jersey, Alabama, Germany, Russia, Chile and Brazil. I've visited all 50 states and 40+ other countries. The interesting thing is that I have never lived in a place that kept me from finding a way to enjoy living there, even here in the vast Orange County megalopolis. I'm looking forward to a road trip out to the great plains this summer. Clean air, clean water, wide open spaces, clear skies at night (without urban light interference) to gaze at the stars. My Chevy van (aka little cabin on wheels) can't wait to get out and explore.