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I'm in western Ky. and live about a couple miles from I-24. During the summer it's not unusual for my wife and I to be sitting in the front yard in our swing at midnight. It's so quiet around here we can hear the traffic from the interstate at night.
LOL bouncethelight - shhhhh - Nebraska IS heaven... tell no one.
Well, it IS heaven - for us. A lot of intelligent, educated people, with conservative values that they don't talk about, they just DO. (I can make jokes and puns about everything from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and people GET them! ) Rurally speaking, folks carry sidearms as a matter of course (lots of unfriendly critters out here still, you may need to dispatch one swiftly) and no one talks about it. You'll be sitting in a local restaurant and hear intense discussions about politics from several folks in flannel shirts, cowboy hats, and beat-up chaps, covered in dust and smelling of leather, cow manure and horse sweat. Tractors and hay rakes ply the roads everywhere. The winters are long and COLD - temps are sometimes -40 with the 60 mph wind. And the wind blows almost ALL of the time. The potato farms are putting in their sets right now, and the corn is getting seeded this week too. The ground was frozen too hard to dig three weeks ago... There are no ordinances where I live; we tore down the old garage and built a new one (actually a shop for DH to work in) and no one said a word. Hunting and fishing (and ice fishing) abound here, as do swimming and boating and 'tubing' the rivers. The kids may have iPods and cel phones, and post videos on YouTube - but they also work from the time they are 12. No one ever whines that "there's nothing for kids to do!" - there's endless sports, drama clubs, music groups and bands affiliated with the schools; they bowl or go to the movies - after their chores are done. No one complains about our cows or horses right along the perimeter of the town, or the chickens and roosters cackling or crowing; they tell us they like it! They don't complain about the smell of chicken waste, because it fertilizes the corn, or the cow manure because it fertilizes the gardens.
It isn't perfect, of course; there's some liberals who want to tell people how to live and run their own lives, but people for the most part smile and ignore them. The coyotes howl on the back hills, turkey and deer wander through our yard like they live here, and neighbors come into the yard just to chat. We leave our windows and doors open in the daytime, and our neighbors leave their keys in their trucks 'in case someone needs to move it'. We trade DH's expertise with machinery and engines for fresh produce and hay bales. The nights are long and dark and silent, unlit by streetlights or headlights, and the owls and coyotes are the only sounds for miles, with the occasional whinny or snort or moo from the corral.
Not everyone can live like this; a lot of people think that they can but then they want the fast food joints, the entertainment, the bright lights and heaving pounding bustle of the city to let them know that they are alive. We already know we are alive, and we would stay right here on the farm if we didn't have to go to town for doctor's appts, etc occasionally.
Yesterday the rains moved in and the wind started howling, it was damp and cold and grey outside... inside, we had the woodstove going and all was warm and quiet. Today the doves are who-whoing outside, and the the lilacs are about to bloom. Everything's popping up in the greenhouse; this weekend we will plow our garden, till in the compost pile that's been fermenting since last summer, and start to work the orchard. Life is good...
I was raised in the suburbs of Louisville, but none of my family is from there originally. I grew up with an appreciation of the rural life, and my grandparents often took me, my brother and sister to their farm land in southern Kentucky while we were being raised up. Now, they have built a house out there and my husband and I plan to build a house on the farm when he gets out of the Navy. I can't wait! I love quiet country nights full of bright star light, sitting on the porch swing watching the lightning bugs dance above the lawn with a big glass of sweet tea, waving at the folks driving their tractors down the street, going for a stroll back in the woods, sitting in a deer stand reading a book or enjoying nature just for the sheer relaxation, wading in the creek, fishin in the pond all by myself, playing my classic country music as loud as I want, having a barbecue and inviting as many folks as we want because we don't have to worry about parking space, and not being anywhere near the hustle and bustle of a busy city street. The Rural Life is my heaven on earth and I can't wait to get back! I'm homesick just thinking bout it.
Belle, I live further west in Kentucky, but all that hit home. One of my wife's young granddaughters stayed with us one summer and couldn't wait till dark so she could catch lightning bugs and keep them in a jar next to her bed at night. She kept talking about it so much her little sister wanted to come the next summer for lightning bugs. lol My grandfather, before his death in 1938, wrote a syndicated newspaper column read across the U.S. He said he had chances to fish the deep oceans and lakes and rivers around the world, but none of them could compare to the pond on somebody's farm. He said the thing about fishing in a pond, if you got tired of fishing where you were, just get up, walk around to the other side of the pond, sit down and start fishing!
I have never lived in a town over 15,000 people and have no plans on changing that living arrangement. I love small towns!
I love living rurally on the outskirts of a very small town. I have a lot of space to grow produce (we bought the adjoining land dirt cheap at tax sale). We have a woodlot for firewood - heating our house is cheap in winter. I have a job where I can walk to work (only two miles). Lots of Amish. Low crime. No more "keeping up with the Joneses".
Living in rural areas is a bad thing if you are single male, since most rural areas have more cows and pigs than actual Humans, so it is not a great place to pick up women.
Living in rural areas is a bad thing if you are single male, since most rural areas have more cows and pigs than actual Humans, so it is not a great place to pick up women.
Two years ago, a guy in a neighboring county was arrested for improprieties with a sheep. This is TRUE.
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) Rurally speaking, folks carry sidearms as a matter of course (lots of unfriendly critters out here still, you may need to dispatch one swiftly) and no one talks about it. You'll be sitting in a local restaurant and hear intense discussions about politics from several folks in flannel shirts, cowboy hats, and beat-up chaps, covered in dust and smelling of leather, cow manure and horse sweat. Tractors and hay rakes ply the roads everywhere. The winters are long and COLD - temps are sometimes -40 with the 60 mph wind. And the wind blows almost ALL of the time. The potato farms are putting in their sets right now, and the corn is getting seeded this week too. The ground was frozen too hard to dig three weeks ago...
There are no ordinances where I live; we tore down the old garage and built a new one (actually a shop for DH to work in) and no one said a word. Hunting and fishing (and ice fishing) abound here, as do swimming and boating and 'tubing' the rivers. The kids may have iPods and cel phones, and post videos on YouTube - but they also work from the time they are 12. No one ever whines that "there's nothing for kids to do!" - there's endless sports, drama clubs, music groups and bands affiliated with the schools; they bowl or go to the movies - after their chores are done. No one complains about our cows or horses right along the perimeter of the town, or the chickens and roosters cackling or crowing; they tell us they like it! They don't complain about the smell of chicken waste, because it fertilizes the corn, or the cow manure because it fertilizes the gardens. 
