Let's talk about Country Living

There are good things and bad things about living outside a town or city.

I grew up on an orchard just on the outskirts of a small town. My wife grew up in a city and, later on a cattle ranch--both in grinding poverty.
My job took us to the city and then to a smaller town of 25,000. We couldn't stand the city and when we moved to the smaller town we bought out in the 'burbs where there were 5-acre lots. A little better but we still wanted further out. So we moved an hour away from town to a 160 acre spot that was lightly populated. We have our ups and downs but I wouldn't change it for much now and wished I could have done it years earlier, since we home schooled our boys anyway.



My boys were going to college by the time we moved and they spent two years commuting to town to go to school. I commuted for a few years until the company I worked for changed hands and the new company didn't use engineers--so I ended up out in the cold.

So the first downside is distance, which equals fuel cost and vehicle wear and tear. And when you get on in age, there is the concern of access to hospitals and such.

But you have the chance of building a house that is all on one level so your wife doesn't have to hack stairs all the time. In other words, designed for her.

If you tend to use outside contractors for any service on your home, such as washing machine repair, renovations, etc, you will pay more because of the distance. About all the outside help I use is a honey truck for sucking my septic tank. I do everything else myself. And if you want to drop off a vehicle in town for service, its a pain, 'cause now mom has to bring her vehicle to town to pick you up. So I tend to do all my own monkey wrenching on our vehicles. It's tons cheaper.

When we moved here, there was no internet except for dial-up and satellite, which is slow and expensive. I got involved with a local group and we formed a non-profit society to bring internet to the area. We got government grants and set up a wireless network so I'm sending this to you on high-speed broadband which we basically "home-grew". I worked on every one of the towers we set up.

You still don't get to choose your neighbors in the country. I have two neighbors, one who borders my property and one who is just a stones throw past another side, both of whom have been busted twice for grow-ops. Dumber than bags of hammers. We had to tell one of them to stay the **** out, because the old guy who used to own our property was lonely and let these druggies walk all over him. But distance helps, and you can control that when you are choosing a property to purchase.

But be aware that small communities can be clickie (SP). We don't fit in too well because we don't do dope. But we don't care because we don't need the socializing. Some people may not do well if you find you don't fit the local mold.

I wish my kids could have grown up on this property because it is a perfect place for a kid to grow up--they could take a 22 and head out into the bush and pot a few squirrels and grouse and the like. We have Elk in our hay fields and watched a big Grizzly on the back 40 earlier this spring. Not many of them but there are lots of black bears. And a few cougars follow the elk. There is room to dirt bike, lots of back country (logging) roads to blast up and explore and lakes to fish. They could have had horses (my wife is raising them) if they wanted.

If your scrapping is your 9-5, then you need to take a close look at the logistics of being away from the source of the scrap. That brings a focus on the fuel cost. Some people who scrap cars make it a point to reuse the gas from the scrapped vehicles which could save you a bundle.

Personally, I'm looking at cutting my travel costs by looking at using waste oil in a diesel pickup. As long as you filter waste oil down to a couple of microns, you can burn it directly in a diesel engine without having to make bio-diesel. There is lots of waste oil available around here and every scrap car should have a couple of gallons by the time you drain the engine, trans, and differential.

The power goes out more often away from towns, so you'll probably end up with a small generator and a way to power some essentials when this happens. I'm lucky enough to have gravity-fed water but we still need to power up our deep freezers and fridge, because our outages tend to be several hours when they happen.

Machinery can be whatever you need or want. I have to have a tractor for haying, so I've used it for snowplowing in the winter. I like my shop tools so I have quite a few and these are valuable when you have something break down. A welder and cutting torch doesn't hurt, either. This all boils back to how self-sufficient you want to be. Some people around here just pay a few bucks for the local guy with a snow blade on his 4x4 to plow them out. I can't afford that.

Living in the country can be a hassle or a blessing. You and your wife have to decide which way to look at it. Your own nature is what you need to understand. When the roof is leaking or the car won't start or the well has quit or the septic tank backs up....how do you react? The solution to these problems can be vastly different if you are in the country or city.

My 0.02.

Jon.