A Place in the Country 1995

Dear Friend in the city:

Before you give up that hectic, fast-lane city life for the simple, peaceful life here in the country let me tell you how it’s treated us since we came here.

Remember the beautiful stone fireplace in the den — the one that evoked images of pipe and slippers, roasting chestnuts, a sleeping cat and the stitching of a quilt?  Well, the fireplace is a heat robber.  It sucks up all the heat produced by other means and blows it up the chimney.

We put in an insert and it puts out wonderful heat; however, John cannot keep up with the wood cutting, hauling and then totin’ in — to say nothing of the ashes that have to be toted out!  I vacuum, he decides then ashes have to be taken out.  You can’t imagine the dust and cinders that operation deposits on the furniture.

And about the chestnuts — chestnuts haven’t grown around here in 50 years, as some disease came through and wiped out all the chestnut trees.

We do have a cat and dog, but they bring in fleas so that erases that picture.  We wistfully dream of living close enough to the mainline so that we could enjoy cable TV. We can pick up the three major network channels (even though we have lots of snow) provided the weather is not too bad.

Recently we’ve had lots of tornadoes and spent time in the basement — sometimes without any electricity at all.  This also means we have no water since  we have a pump in the well.

And what about that beautiful herd we planned to have grazing behind the white wooden fence?  As it turned out, wooden fences are too expensive to install and maintain.  They are only good for cover pictures on magazines.  We use “bob wahr” fences and watch then rapidly rust away only to have to be replaced.

About the cows themselves — they have to be fed (no matter how cold, rainy or how deep the snow), watered, doctored, midwifed, dehorned, wormed, loaded, hauled, bought, sold, bred and inevitably the dead have to be disposed of (and this does cost money).

So you might want to spend some time studying animal husbandry and veterinary medicine before you make your move to the simple life.

There’ll be lots of maintenance to do, so be well-versed in repairs such as heating and air conditioning, appliances (both large and small), well pump and septic tank.  This is to say nothing of the car, pickup truck, tractor, tiller and chain saw.  I can’t recall a day in the ten years we’ve lived here that all our equipment has been in working order at the same time.

Since we last talked, our life has been further simplified by a VCR and computer! More on that later.

Oh well, space is running out.  Sorry I don’t have room to tell you about the mice, rats, ticks, flies, wasps, hornets, coyotes, skunks and the fact that the nearest good hamburger is 15 miles away — but then I wouldn’t want to discourage you.

Just let us know when you are ready to make your move.  We may have just the place for you.  It’s really great living here with our style of country living.