Why Am I Doing This?

I have recently been reading a new blog - well, it is new to me - by Small Farm Girl.  As I usually do when reading a new blog, I start from the beginning.  In one of her older posts, she asks why each of her followers blogs....so...why do I blog?

At first, it started out as a way to get through the winter....not one of my best times of the year.  The shorter days, cold weather, wind and snow are not fun for me.  Even though I grew up in the Northeast, I never "got used to it" - and now that I live in the "South", I was hoping I would not have those things anymore...but alas, we still get cold weather, wind and snow.  Just not to the extreme that we did up north.

As I continued to blog, I thought, hey - maybe the journey and struggles we have endured, I mean encountered, may help someone else who is doing the same thing or thinking about it.  So, I keep blogging.  There are a lot of differences between living in the "big city" and now being out in the country.  Let me illustrate for those of you who may only have the knowledge of one and not the other.

Living in the City

• When you move into your house, the electric, water and natural gas are already turned on and ready to go
• There is already landscaping around your home (probably not much, but it is there)
• You have grass in the yard
• Your home has been treated for bugs (termites, etc.)
• The only bugs you have to deal with are ants, mosquitoes and Japanese beetles (in the Spring)
• You have a driveway
• Your mailbox is about 30 feet from your front door

Living in the Country

• You have to drill the well, have the septic tank and leach field installed and jump through hoops to get your house the way the county wants it so they will give the approval for the power company to come out and turn on the electric (we were on a generator for 7 weeks!!) - what did we need?  Gutters....really?!?! Yes...
• There is no landscaping - other than the woods; no grass, just mud everywhere whenever it rains
• There are BUGS - every kind you can conceivably imagine, and then some!  I swear we find a new kind every day!
• There is no driveway - and when you do put down the gravel to make one, it disappears the following winter/spring because it sinks into the mud when you drive on it - you have to keep putting down dump truck loads for 3 years before it finally stays on the surface!  Which is why I drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee with 4-wheel drive :-)
• Your mailbox is 1,200 feet round trip - that's almost a quarter of a mile!

These are just a few things that come to mind immediately.  There are a bunch more, believe me...but, there are some things you can only have in the country - peace and quiet (no cars speeding by with their music blaring, no kids screaming and riding their bikes on your lawn), stars in the sky at night (it's DARK out in the country at night), chickens in your backyard, a vegetable garden (or at least the semblance of one) and a 24-ft. above-ground pool in your front yard!

So, for those who wish they could live in the country, I wish you luck in achieving your dream.  For those of us who are already there,  isn't it great?!?!?!