Our three year sojourn in the country was a learning experience that was full of surprises, some good and some not so good.
I had expected the drive to and from work to be one of the negative things about living beyond the sidewalks but it turned out to be just the opposite. I found that the long drive into work in the morning gave me time to organize my thoughts and plan my day. In the evening, as I drove from freeway to highway to back road to the dirt road where we lived, I found that the cares of the day gradually slipped away and by the time I turned into our lane I felt calm and refreshed.
Most mornings and evenings in the country we had spectacular sunrises and sunsets that were more colorful than any painting could ever be. It was a great feeling to sit on the back porch in the morning, sipping a cup of coffee, watching the sun rise over the oaks in the back woods and realizing that we owned everything that we could see. It was also a terrific feeling of freedom to be able to tramp and drive over the fields with no one to tell us that we had to keep to someone else's path.
Simple pleasures delighted us when we lived in the country. I enjoyed working in the garden I had carved out of the back pasture. My wife loved to get on the riding mower and mow the walking path around the property. We liked picking the wild dewberries and mustang grapes that grew in the creek bottoms and along the fences and making syrups, jellies and pies from them.
Birds were abundant in our area and we never tired of seeing them, especially those that were rare sights. The year that a pair of painted buntings built a nest in a hackberry near the compost heap we couldn't wait to catch a glimpse of them as they shuttled back and forth to feed their brood. We were used to seeing bluejays in the burbs, but we had never seen bluebirds until we moved to the country. One day we we awoke to a raucous sound in the garden and discovered that a flock of guineas had stopped there to feed. In the early morning of the first day of the new millennium I went up the hill to the top of our lane with a camera to record the first sunrise of the 2000's and was rewarded by some terrific shots of a pair of great blue herons crossing the path of the moon on their way to feed at someone's stock pond.
Some of the things we experienced in the country were not so pleasant though. We had always thought that living beyond the burbs meant that we would have peace and quiet. Sometimes it was tranquil and peaceful. At other times it was noisier than life in the suburbs. Ranchers and farmers get up early. Many mornings we awoke at dawn to the sound of a tractor or backhoe in a nearby field. Other times it was the bellowing of bulls on opposite sides of the fence that announced the arrival of another day. Often that was after a night spent trying to sleep through the yapping and howling of coyotes in the dry creek bed fifty feet from our bedroom window or the barking of guard dogs across the back creek. The evening quiet was frequently shattered by the roar of a dune buggy from a neighboring property. So much for peace and quiet in the country.
In sparsely populated rural areas it is often the case that many of the local residents are related to each other and come from families that have lived in the area for many generations. While a lot of the folks are friendly, they also are somewhat clannish and suspicious of outsiders. It seemed as though every time we met someone new their first question was “Why did you move here?” Over time we did meet many of the local residents and socialized with them at public functions like the VFD garage sale and the mutual insurance company yearly fish fry, but the local folks considered anyone whose family hadn't lived there for several generations to be “new people” and not part of the local population. One of the reasons for this is that a lot of “new people” such as ourselves didn't stay for more than a few years. We did discover that new people who lived in the area on a permanent basis as we did were treated better than week-enders who went out to “the land” a couple of times a month to play rancher. Weekend places were targets for break-ins and other mischief, but that seldom happened to new people who lived on the land on a permanent basis. Once we went away for a three-week vacation and discovered when we returned that we had neglected to lock the door before we left. To our surprise our place was untouched. I don't think that would have happened if we had done the same thing while living in the burbs.
Another thing that caught us by surprise in the country was the large number of animals wandering through the place and along the back roads. We expected to have wild animals such as coyotes, skunks, feral hogs and the like taking up residence or passing through our woods and fields. What we hadn't anticipated was the large number of dogs running loose. Several neighbors had guard dogs of one kind or another that didn't understand where their territory ended and ours began. It was pretty common to see German shepherds or great Pyrenees roaming through our property. Once I was treed in our back woods by two great Danes that decided that I was trespassing there. While many of these dogs belonged to neighbors, a fair number of them were strays that had been dropped off by folks from the city or suburbs. I have heard people say that farmers will adopt stray dogs. While that does sometimes happen, more often the dogs come to a bad end. Stray dogs tend to chase cattle and other livestock and a rancher who has a nursing cow that's had her udders torn by being run into a barbed wire fence by stray dogs is going to treat the dogs just like he would coyotes or other varmints.
After living in the country for three years we had a different kind of adjustment to make when we moved back to the suburbs. For one thing, we no longer owned everything we saw from our porch. In fact, the view from our house is pretty much a view of our neighbors' houses and yards. No more beautiful sunrises and sunsets. The burbs can be pretty noisy too. We thought that the sound of coyotes yammering in the creek bed was annoying until the first time our next-door neighbors had a hot tub party in their backyard thirty feet from our bedroom window.
Of course, suburban subdivisions have home owner associations to deal with neighborhood nuisances. That was another adjustment problem however. My wife loves to hang sheets outside to dry in nice weather but that's a no-no in our subdivision.
There certainly are advantages to living closer to town of course. We're only two miles from a decent supermarket instead of thirty and we no longer have to drive an hour to our dentist or doctor. That is a real blessing when you have to have a colonoscopy at 7:00 in the morning. We are also closer to those of our kids who live in the area. That makes it easier to attend the grandkids' school events. We are pretty close to our friends from our old neighborhood too, so we can socialize with them again. And we like having broadband access. So we are generally glad that we are back in the burbs but we wouldn't have missed our country experiences for anything. We have a lot of fond memories of that time. If we had it to do over, however, we would have done some things differently.
If we were considering retiring to the country today we would try do more effective research about the reality of country life. While reading books and articles written by people who have made the move to the country is useful, it is important to understand that many of the authors focus on only the positive experiences they have had. If you are considering retiring to the country, my advice is to talk to people who can give you a balanced view of living in the area in which you are interested. One good place to start is with the agriculture agent in the county of your choice. He or she can tell you a lot about the area, including not only agricultural information, such as the ability of the land to support gardening or hobby ranching, and the cost of obtaining adequate water and power, but also information on the people who already live there, such as whether there are already a lot of newcomers or whether the place you are interested in is currently populated mostly by people whose families have lived there for generations. Definitely do not try to obtain information about the area from realtors, builders or others who profit by encouraging people to move into the area.
Take a long, hard look at your personality, skills and abilities and financial situation. Do you require frequent social interaction or can you stand to be isolated for long periods? Do you have the money and/or strength and skills to do the work that is required or to hire someone to do the things that you cannot do? For example, most small places that are carved out of larger farms or ranches will need to be fenced on two or more sides. Can you do the work or will you have to hire someone to fence your property? If you need to hire someone, can you afford to do that? If your place isn't fenced, it will not only make it impossible for you to raise livestock, but you will also be troubled by loose livestock, stray dogs and feral animals.
It is useful to write out a list of the things you want to do with the property when you get it. This will help you to determine the work that must be done as well as the amount and type of property you will need. If you want to keep horses on your property, you probably don't want one that is fenced with barbed wire or field fencing. You would more likely want to use slick wire or a hot wire. If you do that, however, it will not keep strays and other animals off the property.
If you plan to supplement your retirement income by working either full or part time then decide whether you can work from home at your country place or whether you will have to commute to your job. If you work from home, can you get the quality of service you require for phone and Internet connections? If you commute, can you get out of your place and back in a reasonable time if there are snows, heavy rains, flooding or bridge construction across your path?
You should also consider your needs for medical and dental support. Is there sufficient support available locally or will you have to drive for some distance to visit a doctor or dentist? Is there emergency medical support available locally?
These are some of the things you should consider if you plan to retire to the country. Even though my wife and I didn't research the answers to most of these questions before we moved, and we eventually decided that we weren't really cut out for country life, we enjoyed the experience of retiring to the country and wouldn't have missed it for the world. We met a lot of interesting people, learned a lot about life and ourselves and, on balance, we had a heck of a ride. Just don't ask us to do it again.
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