Living in the country has its unique sets of beautiful moments and difficult challenges. Below are just 5 country living realities.
1. Critters!
If it is not mice in the attic, it is rats in the yard, or gophers in the garden, or skunks under the porch, and a snake always seems to be hiding in the weeds. Of course, the wildlife is not always pesky and unwanted. The hawks, owls, quail, and rabbits are an absolute delight!
2. Distance from civilization!
Living outside of a city has many perks, but it rarely breeds convenience. Gone are the days of driving two minutes across town to get to Walmart, the library, the park, or my favorite restaurant! Forgetting something at the grocery store or picking up the wrong part at the hardware store costs approximately $20 in gas and 1-2 hours that I could have spent doing something else.
3. Stars!
I confess that I have never lived in a large enough city to possess more than three grocery stores. As long as the clouds did not take over the sky, I could see the stars. However, the vast number of stars in the vast country skies is a sight I hope I will never take for granted. Watch for a while, and you might even see a falling star or two!
4. Driving down dirt roads!
Is the road wide enough for more than one lane? It doesn’t matter! We drive down the middle unless we either 1) must move over for another vehicle or 2) the road is a bumpy washboard that will damage the truck.
Also, real country folks know that mudding is for teenage boys with nothing better to do than wreck a dirt road and potentially mess up their breaks. I said what I said. Sorry, not sorry!
5. Exercise happens in the yard or field, not in a gym.
Who needs a rowing machine when you can have hoop hoes, wheelbarrows, large animals, forty-pound boxes of produce, and the occasional truck to push out of the mud it should not have been playing in?
Living in the country is less convenient than living in the city, but it brings the most extraordinary experiences that I would not trade for anything. I could not ask for a more meaningful life than one lived among the wildlife, stars, and quiet sounds of nature.
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