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are laughing at all the chaos of life that exists in densely populated areas. I live in a pretty dense suburb and honestly i'm at my wits end with how people are in this populated area. When i take vacations and i drive to the country i think it's paradise hearing pretty much nothing but birds chirping and crickets.
I don't think life is meant to be in a rat race everyday just to keep buying the same throwaway goods week after week.
I don't really know what i'm trying to say here lol but the country life is calling my name.
are laughing at all the chaos of life that exists in densely populated areas. I live in a pretty dense suburb and honestly i'm at my wits end with how people are in this populated area. When i take vacations and i drive to the country i think it's paradise hearing pretty much nothing but birds chirping and crickets.
I don't think life is meant to be in a rat race everyday just to keep buying the same throwaway goods week after week.
I don't really know what i'm trying to say here lol but the country life is calling my name.
When people moved from the farms to the cities, it was because of jobs not quality of life, and that still holds true today as most rural areas don't have a lot of jobs available, and it's tough to make a living off the land when we in agriculture are in competition with cheap foods imported from elsewhere.
When the government pays farmers to take land out of production, (CRP program), that means the farmer does ok, but the implement dealer, the seed and fertilizer stores, the repair shops all take a hit not to mention the farmer doesn't need to hire any hands for working his property. The economy of small towns in my state is dire.
Normally they're peopled with older retired folks raising their grandkids as the parents drive trucks or follow the oil patch or construction or work out of state just to get enough money to survive.
If you have the money to support yourself from investments or an internet job of some sort, or you won the lottery and have a monthly mailbox check coming in, yeah, you can do alright in the country here, but if you need a job to support yourself, better think twice before telling your boss to shove it, packing up the family and going back to the country.
Many areas of my state lack medical care, you plan on driving 100 miles or so to see a doctor or dentist. (my dentist is 30 miles from where I live, and in a different town), and emergency care may only be a few volunteers covering an area the size of a small eastern state, and may not be able to reach you if the roads are blocked by snow or cut off by wildfires.
In the case of real time sensitive emergencies such as fire or heart attack or snake bite, it could be hours before help can arrive if at all.
There's no shopping unless you go to one of the handful of "big towns" of over 6,000 people, (as long as you only need to shop at a ShopKo or Pamida), power or the roads may be cut off at any time by blizzards, floods or high winds so you better be able to store about a month's worth of food all year round and be able to produce your own power and have a heat source for your home that is independent of any outside supply.
There are innumerable good things about living rural, but anyone contemplating moving to the country should be aware of the differences from the easy access to everything you have in the city, and what hurdles you can face living remotely. Services like city water, sewer, garbage pickup doesn't exist. County roads are plowed, usually when they get around to it, so you have to have your own equipment and do all of that including road maintenance yourself.
Not a lot of city folks realize the amount of work you do just for basic things like taking a trip to the grocery store.
We have problems here too, they're just different from city life. There is no perfect place, just what's perfect for you and the way you live.
Last edited by MTSilvertip; 06-16-2016 at 06:41 AM..
Many areas of my state lack medical care, you plan on driving 100 miles or so to see a doctor or dentist.... and emergency care may only be a few volunteers covering an area the size of a small eastern state, and may not be able to reach you if the roads are blocked by snow or cut off by wildfires.... There's no shopping unless you go to one of the handful of "big towns" of over 6,000 people, and be able to produce your own power and have a heat source for your home that is independent of any outside supply.
My, my, my! They must be putting somethin' in the water out there in WY and MT!
While all of this above is true (sorta), it's sounds as if MTS is just trying to hog the countryside to himself!
Wow, have we ever become spoiled in the past century! 100 years ago, country folk heated with wood, lit with oil, and had never used a flush toilet. There were no farm machines (unless you consider a horse or an ox a "machine"). Yet, they raised crops, raised big families, could outwork us 10 to 1, and felt betrayed when the industrial revolution called all their native sons to cities as they returned from WW 1.
Don't try having a heart attack in the middle of NYC during rush hour, especially if there's 1/2" of snow on the city streets! Yep, you can get bitten by a snake, too, as so many city kids have them as pets, and flush 'em down the toilets into the city sewers when they get bored. Shopping? 100 years ago "shopping" was the local mercantile next town over. Today, it's Amazon and UPS out on the country roads. Either one beats trying to find a parking space at the local malls.
I'm smack on the other side of the equation here. If you want to try country life, figure out how you're going to get there. There's no life any finer!
My, my, my! They must be putting somethin' in the water out there in WY and MT!
While all of this above is true (sorta), it's sounds as if MTS is just trying to hog the countryside to himself!
Wow, have we ever become spoiled in the past century! 100 years ago, country folk heated with wood, lit with oil, and had never used a flush toilet. There were no farm machines (unless you consider a horse or an ox a "machine"). Yet, they raised crops, raised big families, could outwork us 10 to 1, and felt betrayed when the industrial revolution called all their native sons to cities as they returned from WW 1.
Don't try having a heart attack in the middle of NYC during rush hour, especially if there's 1/2" of snow on the city streets! Yep, you can get bitten by a snake, too, as so many city kids have them as pets, and flush 'em down the toilets into the city sewers when they get bored. Shopping? 100 years ago "shopping" was the local mercantile next town over. Today, it's Amazon and UPS out on the country roads. Either one beats trying to find a parking space at the local malls.
I'm smack on the other side of the equation here. If you want to try country life, figure out how you're going to get there. There's no life any finer!
Just trying to interject a little reality into the situation. I don't care if someone wants to move to the country, but I see it time after time where someone comes here, builds their dream home, run out of money or can't find a job, and leave totally crushed a year after they moved in.
Not trying to be a downer, but really, would you buy a rifle without opening the action, or buy a new car or truck without a test drive?
A major move or lifestyle change is serious and has repercussions. Country life isn't just chirping birds any more than city life is just traffic congestion, there's more to the story. If the OP want's to move to the country, fine with me, I was just trying to let them know it isn't like living in the burbs with fewer neighbors, it's an entirely different life.
When you bought your place in Maine and moved, did you just do it or did you research the area and plan on what you would do?
That's all I was trying to convey.
Just trying to interject a little reality into the situation. I don't care if someone wants to move to the country, but I see it time after time where someone comes here, builds their dream home, run out of money or can't find a job, and leave totally crushed a year after they moved in.
There's a reason why Maine is the poorest state in New England. The land of logging trucks in the northern half of the state is an economic wasteland. Sure, you can be Henry David Thoreau in your cabin in the woods but Thoreau died at age 43 and suffered from chronic health problems for his last decade. It all sounds great until the wheels fall off. The rest of us end up subsidizing those people. They wouldn't have electricity, telephone, or cellular service without the rest of the country paying a big tax on their bill. My tax dollars fund their Medicaid.
My, my, my! They must be putting somethin' in the water out there in WY and MT!
While all of this above is true (sorta), it's sounds as if MTS is just trying to hog the countryside to himself!
Wow, have we ever become spoiled in the past century! 100 years ago, country folk heated with wood, lit with oil, and had never used a flush toilet. There were no farm machines (unless you consider a horse or an ox a "machine"). Yet, they raised crops, raised big families, could outwork us 10 to 1, and felt betrayed when the industrial revolution called all their native sons to cities as they returned from WW 1.
Don't try having a heart attack in the middle of NYC during rush hour, especially if there's 1/2" of snow on the city streets! Yep, you can get bitten by a snake, too, as so many city kids have them as pets, and flush 'em down the toilets into the city sewers when they get bored. Shopping? 100 years ago "shopping" was the local mercantile next town over. Today, it's Amazon and UPS out on the country roads. Either one beats trying to find a parking space at the local malls.
I'm smack on the other side of the equation here. If you want to try country life, figure out how you're going to get there. There's no life any finer!
do you know why Wyoming has a population of only 500,000 people?
People come here during the spring or during early summer for sturgis. They look around and say "wow! How pretty" And they buy some land and start building a house or just buy a house thinking they got a great deal.
Then Winter comes.....
Or they look around and think "This town dosent have a (Your choice of small business) here. Lets retire and open one. They retire, sell their house in XYZ city. Move and spend a couple hundred K on a opening their dream business and no one comes or at first business is good then Townie girl opens a similar business in her grandpa's boarded up store front and all the customers go there instead.
Of they show up and buy their house and settle in then never make any friends. Ever. Because the vast majority of people in Wyoming have no social skills
I love visiting the countryside from time to time, but I couldn't live there, judging by living in the suburbs last year. I was miserable in the suburbs, and moved back to the city.
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