10 Reasons I Miss Living in the Country

September 12, 2010 5 Comments

For all it’s downsides, growing up in the country had some strong advantages. Many of them I am only now beginning to fully appreciate…

….Mostly because it is now my children I’d like to isolate in the lonely barrenness that is the middle of nowhere. When I was growing up, it was sheer torture being out there.

Here are my top ten reasons (so far) for wanting to return to the isolated country life:

1) The teenage toilet paper brigade loses interest at about the six mile point. I never had to clean up a TP and shaving cream mess. Of course, I was a social reject and probably wouldn’t have been chosen TP-worthy anyway.

Note to self: Investigate ways to de-popularize my children.

2) Climbing a haystack for exercise and solitude is much cheaper than driving to and paying for yoga classes and a shrink.

3) No one gives a rats behind how many horses, cows, goats, chickens, or other strange and unique critters you choose to keep, nor do they care how they smell. If you can pay the feed bill and stand the smell, you can have the critters.

4) Really bad teenage drivers don’t usually show off their engine revving corner-sliding skills that far out. The teen drivers out there are too busy hauling hay or plowing a field to be very annoying.

5) Baby rattles aren’t necessary. Just find a nice-sized diamondback snake and use his post-mortem remains for infant entertainment. (Actually, I DON’T miss rattlesnakes. Those are one of God’s creatures I can certainly live without.)

6) Being grounded is hardly noticeable. What? Wanna take away my social life? What social life? I live 10 miles from the nearest human my age. Go ahead…make my day.

7) Driving lessons start early…..like about age 6. There is no crunch to squeeze in all of the driver’s ed hours, no worry about finding a road on which to teach driving skills. Just a few fences to dodge and gates to avoid….unless you terrorize your father badly enough early on so that he never puts you on a tractor and barely lets you drive a pickup.

Dear Dad….It was all part of my evil plan to avoid plowing forever.

8. If you choose to ditch church, everyone just figures you had a livestock or mud issue to deal with and they leave you alone about it. God excuses and forgives those kinds of absences.

9) Power outages are never ten minutes long. They are HOURS and sometimes days long. Sucks if you have an entire cow in the freezer or if the temperature is minus 20. Much fun if the kids are all at a friends house and you and hubby are alone with candles, strawberries, and whipped cream.

This assumes of course that your hubby is not the one having to go fix the power outage.

10) Edutainment is free. With that many animals, you will not need to go see a movie to laugh until your sides hurt, plus your children will know every part of the mammalian, reptilian, and insect life cycles including specific details for how each critter makes babies.

Have you ever seen rabbits “do it”? ‘Nuff said.

5 thoughts on “10 Reasons I Miss Living in the Country”

      1. Ah the joys of life with beautiful teenage girls. Oh well, sounds like they have a chore to do today! Only happened to me once, even in town – I wasn’t all that popular either.

  1. All those things are valid plus a lot more. Like the peace of mind that in that long 15 mile drive to get something from the store you have a hundreth of the possibility of being car-jacked, mugged, molested, or otherwise attacked during the 5 block trip you’d make in the city. Like I always say, there’s nothing wrong with cities that removing the humans wouldn’t cure. Great post!!
    Sandy
    http://www.sandysays1.wordpress.com

    1. Fortunately for me, even living in town, car-jackings are not something we experience. I am thankful I don’t live in a city. And I’m with you…..there’s nothing wrong with a lot of things that removing humans wouldn’t cure! Thanks for stopping by.

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