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Old 09-16-2010, 07:02 PM
 
40 posts, read 83,638 times
Reputation: 35

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I live outside a small town of about 4,000 people. When I was much younger I hated it because I was very restless and needed a lot of stimulation and activities or I felt like my head would explode.

Now, at age 40 and having lived in the country full-time since 2003 I really like it. I do spend a lot of time indoors especally in the winter. I would have never thought that I could stay indoors a full 2 weeks but I did just that in a particularly heavy snow season. I think to make it you have to be more settled and able to entertain yourself. I hate to admit it but I do watch soap operas, I know I know......And I like to read a lot. I am also kept pretty busy since I cook everything from scratch.

I was surprised to hear so many people say that the women are the ones who cant handle rural life. I've been wondering this myself for awhile. I think that modern culture has been teaching women to look outside the home for fulfillment. I watch shows like The Real Housewives mainly as entertainment but their lifestyles are very foreign to me and I would personally not be happy living that way. Maybe I am just boring.
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Old 09-18-2010, 05:23 AM
 
2,725 posts, read 5,181,496 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brushrunner View Post
Our DIL lives 15 miles from the City but in her mind she lives in the city.It is nothing for her to make 4 or 5 trips to town a day.

We live 50 miles from the city make the trip on the most part 2 times a month.

We went by a house yesterday by us,my wife told me in the last 15 years it has changed hands 3 times.

This got me to thinking so many are trying to move from the city to the country but it doesn't take long for them to realize that its not that easy to shop or whatever every day.So they consider rural living just too hard.Not long and they are running back to the city.

See so many every year come here camping and say oh I would love to live here for the peace and quiet I'm thinking no you wouldn't!

Just some thoughts.

brushrunner
Don't people try to get needs met with as little effort as possible? Yes, there is the person who is willing to maintain a house and a yard just using the 6 simple machines. However, I doubt that many people would be happy that their only free time is probably going to be spent resting on a front porch when the neighbor is using a complex machine that either he created or that he traded for.

Getting your needs met with as little effort as possible can mean: I don't have to tend to a garden. I don't have to take care of animals for meat. I don't have to dig a well for water or go down to the river. I don't have to build my own house or make my own clothes. I can have the fruits of those labors simply by working in an air-conditioned office. That is the whole point of progress. To get needs met with as little effort as possible.

There is a book called The Continuum Concept: In Search for Happiness Lost. An American woman stayed with a tribe in the Amazon rainforest. She described in this book how these people got their needs met. In order to get fresh water, the women went down to the river many times during the day and it was not an easy path. The American woman wondered why they had not figured out a more efficient way of obtaining water. Why not move closer to the river she suggested. The tribe offered to move her closer to the river but that they would stay where they were. She thought about all the time wasted going up and down the hillside. Their response to her: time on the path is no less valuable than time after arrival. This is the opposite of what we are taught in the US.
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Old 10-09-2010, 02:37 AM
 
1,314 posts, read 3,435,979 times
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like most of the posters here i like the rural out in the middle of nowhere lifestyle..as far the whole thing for food and other supplies when i get loney and want to talk to someone i go to the local greasy spoon and talk to people i met there ..for i have found it the wife who wants to move away not the husband for the husband like to fish or enjoy the rural lifestyle and the wife wants the social networks that she had back where you come from and she will keep on intill the husband put the place up for sale just to please her ..

as long as i have internet conntection to order items off of amazon and buy the case website along with the sat dish set up for tvs shows i like iam ok about beening alone ....along with haveing a full stocked pantry dureing the winter time for just in case moments ..it ok to run a out of something in the summer time or it warm outside and winter has not fully kicked in ..but once winter has fully kicked in and you seeing winter storm warning on the local news it time to make sure the house everything that you need to survive without help for a while from back up heat source to beening able to care for a cut or a wound without haveing outside help to beening able to have your own power source to keep the running without the local power company help with everything inbetween the normal for a back country life style..

so that means have more toliet paper and papertowels and dish soap and laundry soap and 1000 other things in the pantry to handle what life throws at you in the back country ..

for i have been traped up there with a snow storm for a couple of days and had people go it does not bother you to not have a person around ...i tell them i have the best time in the world for waking up in the morning with a cup of hot tea in hand and watching the world from a warm and secured place is like nothing else in this world ..

for you get to hear the world around you without the people cell phones going off or people talking on there cellphones along with a whole bunch of things that you get to leave the modern world behind when liveing out in the rural areas..

before i head to the places for food shopping ..i go to the book store along with the local dvd place for movies i like then go out to eat before going food shopping with the list i have ..when shopping i go to the book store along with the wally word shopping to get movies and other items i need..i do this about every two weeks and i get my fix for the modern world at times..

one of the things i do which make a friend a laugh about is i hit the kfc and subway and pizza place i like and order a couple of the diff foot long sub sandwichs and a bucket of chicken with everything and a couple of large pizza to take with me home and i will eat off those for a couple of days and then i get my fast food fix at times..


it funny when i go up to my place i turn my cell phone off to not to have the thing ruin my quiet time when iam up there along with the fact i do not want work to be able to get ahold of me when iam off enjoying my quiet me time ..i know that bad but it true..
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Old 10-09-2010, 03:05 AM
 
Location: United States
2 posts, read 1,907 times
Reputation: 10
I am a metro person you should say. I love the noise and love to have people around me. Only a few times you want to be away from the crowd, but thats for a few hours/days only. But you don't need to get away from the city for that. Just sit locked up in your house, easy isn't it?
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Old 10-09-2010, 03:17 AM
 
1,496 posts, read 2,435,075 times
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u also maybe to say ,Rural Life just Quiet and comfortable.
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Old 10-09-2010, 09:06 PM
 
Location: San Jose, CA
7,688 posts, read 29,104,876 times
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I find myself bored and tired by city life. I live in a city of a million people, but spend most of my time inside because I just don't care for all the things that city folk like to do. Going to the movies, going out to dinner, going shopping, going to sports events or concerts, or even just driving around for fun all are annoying experiences because of the infinite supply of inconsiderate people. Even sitting in my house is often unpleasant for the same reason. The noise and pollution are not my cup of tea at all. I'd rather be somewhere that the unpleasant smells and noises were coming from creatures instead of machines, thanks.
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Old 12-29-2011, 02:04 PM
 
1,148 posts, read 1,680,715 times
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The lack of jobs makes rural life difficult. In my area, there are none. Most of the people I know that can make it in this town are people who applied for disability because they "hurt" their back. Then, there are plenty of families who get welfare and work under the table.

I don't want to live off the government so I am looking at larger cities.

The cost of commuting is a real killer. Gas is SO EXPENSIVE these days. Since everyone in my area has to commute 25 miles or so just go to the grocery store or work, a lot of people are finding it financially difficult to stay here. I know people who make $20 an hour(which is a good wage for Indiana) who are struggling because of high gas prices.
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Old 12-29-2011, 08:52 PM
 
Location: North Central Illinois
7,343 posts, read 5,459,117 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redroses777 View Post
The lack of jobs makes rural life difficult. In my area, there are none. Most of the people I know that can make it in this town are people who applied for disability because they "hurt" their back. Then, there are plenty of families who get welfare and work under the table.

I don't want to live off the government so I am looking at larger cities.

The cost of commuting is a real killer. Gas is SO EXPENSIVE these days. Since everyone in my area has to commute 25 miles or so just go to the grocery store or work, a lot of people are finding it financially difficult to stay here. I know people who make $20 an hour(which is a good wage for Indiana) who are struggling because of high gas prices.
Sounds like where I live. If there is nothing holding you to the town you live in I would definately look into moving to a city.
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Old 01-17-2012, 08:48 PM
 
34 posts, read 71,419 times
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I am with the vast majority of posters on this thread, who love the quiet, natural and less turbulent life and who are quite happy spending lots of time alone or have their time peppered with one or more people, when the fancy takes them, etc.

I too don't feel any need to "do stuff" that city lovers rave about and even though I was raised in a huge city, I didn't care for it one little bit and I spent most of my free time alone.

I've never lived in a small town, never mind in a rural area, but the idea appeals to me very much.

What I'd like to find out about first are how the basics of living that I am used to having without thinking about them are provided for with in rural locations, like electricity, heating, drinking water, toilet waste and all kinds of trash.
What considerations do I have to make or allow for with these things?

In addition, I am diabetic and I need to have refrigerated insulin (amongst other meds) at home and which need to be sent to me in a refrigerated container (usually via UPS) or collected by me from a location that isn't too far away.
I think this will probably limit where I can live, unless someone here has the same medicine needs and can tell me how they manage.

Finally, if anyone knows of any books that cover living rurally for novices, please can you let me have the details.
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Old 01-17-2012, 09:56 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,331 posts, read 61,154,439 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WhereDoIBelong View Post
... What I'd like to find out about first are how the basics of living that I am used to having without thinking about them are provided for with in rural locations, like electricity, heating, drinking water, toilet waste and all kinds of trash. What considerations do I have to make or allow for with these things?
In 'rural' you can go from living as modern as you wish to hermit in the wilderness if you wish. There is a wide spectrum.

I am in a town of 250. The town's people got together in 1935 they burned the town's charter. We have no mayor, no city council and no tax collector. Most towns in this state [52%] are Un-incorporated Towns like this. How this state is setup requires no township can ever move it's borders to expand. So the cities can not expand to absorb little towns around them. I pay property taxes directly to the state at $1 an acre.

In my township, on my 150 acres of dense forest we have electricity. My home has heat from multiple sources. I have my own well for drinking water, and leechfield for sewage. The county here provides 'free' garbage pickup at the road side. I have a landline which provides me with DSL. I have daily USPS, UPS, and FEDEX service.

I have friends who are entirely off-grid so they generate their own electricity. There are people who hand-pump their water from a well, use outhouses, and burn/bury trash. No phone, and some who have no mail delivery.

You can be rural and yet experience anywhere in a wide spectrum of these cultural dependencies.



The difference is that everything is quite. I watch the seasons. I see eagle in the trees. I can watch beaver, or moose. Whether I am reading a book in a meadow or while fishing; or tending goats and sheep as they play and interacting with each of their personalities; or watching a beehive as it swarms and it's new queen searches for a new home; it is all at a relaxed pace.

Now is the time for planning next year's gardens. In a few months comes maple tapping season. Followed by fiddlehead season. Then garden prepping, etc.

Each thing is done in it's appropriate time, in it's season. Few things are rushed.

Granted there are exceptions like hay-farmers often end up trying to cut fast, or else bailing fast as they watch for rain. But I don't do hay, so I do not have that worry.






Quote:
... In addition, I am diabetic and I need to have refrigerated insulin (amongst other meds) at home and which need to be sent to me in a refrigerated container (usually via UPS) or collected by me from a location that isn't too far away. I think this will probably limit where I can live, unless someone here has the same medicine needs and can tell me how they manage.
I really do not see this as being very limiting.

I am not diabetic, I admit. Though I keep a large assortment of medical [antibiotics, vaxxes, antiparasitics, rabies, tetnus, etc] injectables on hand that all must be refrigerated.

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