"What do you do with a couple of hours to waste? Hmmm…even though I just finished a round a golf this morning, I think I'll head back to the course and work on making all my 5-footers..."

This was a post from a friend of mine who obviously has a lot of spare time on his hands. He is not working right now. He’s trying to figure out what he wants to do for the rest of his life. So for now he does a lot of golfing.

Now I too enjoy golfing. And I believe in taking time for relaxing endeavors.

But still, I was struck by his question as to what he should do as he had "a couple of hours to waste."

To waste?

While we all need to have down time, if we find out that we have a lot of spare time on our hands we have some choices to make.

Life is too short--too full of opportunities--to waste any part of it.

The first choice is to just use the time up…indeed, just waste it. Fill in the time: watch a rerun, do something over again—do anything at all--to just pass the time.

My opinion? What a waste.

The second choice is to stay busy living. When I started out in my adult life, I had a plan. While the plan has taken many detours with twists and changes, I’ve always tried to make my life count and be relevant to myself, family and friends.

I have never had any time to "waste time." Now don't get me wrong; there is certainly a place for "down time," and we all need it.

I am talking more of an attitude of just existing instead of living deliberately.  

I have "retired" from what I was doing professionally (developing and building on large properties), but at the time of that major change, I decided that I didn't want to sit back and rock away my life.

I wanted the second half of my life to count as well.

So Marie and I deliberately spent time planning and discussing what our future would look like. We decided to move to a rural area and become farmer/ranchers.

Now, we grow things. My life is different now, but my passion for what I am doing is just as intense as it was before. I just couldn't see myself on the golf course half of my life, biding my time till I am done and so bored that I drift away.

Now I live a very purposeful rural-based life, farming and ranching--and helping others discover if this lifestyle is right for them as well. Being a farmer (part time or full time) is not for everyone, but it is hugely rewarding. 

Marie and I are very involved with the agricultural community, and our past experiences are bringing some fresh ideas to this area. We work with others, helping them with things that we have done or are learning about.

On a personal level, we are investigating some new businesses as well, including starting a feed mill and a poultry hatchery.

Wow, this is some cool new stuff, and we will certainly not be bored!

So, when your plan or circumstances take you out of your original passion or career, and you are looking for something new, don't settle for "time wasting " in life. What you have to give and contribute is too vital and important to those around you.

Take a leap, and continue to make your life count.

Of course, you will need to have an occasional round of golf mixed in… 

Read more about my new life focus here on my family blog, Rural Living Today. 

At a recent gathering of local gardeners, a woman mentioned sharing plant starts with her next door neighbors.

“They live half a mile away,” she added. “Isn’t that funny, when your closest neighbors live way down the road?”  

Like me, she had moved from a suburban neighborhood. A few years ago we hardly had to raise our voices to talk to our neighbors, from our deck to theirs. Now we can’t even holler to our neighbors…we have to use a telephone or head on over in person. 

The rural life, while rife with beautiful scenic views and picturesque landscapes, can also feel isolated. If one likes solitude, it can be found on a remote piece of land far from neighbors and traffic. If one likes lots of company, that requires lots of visiting.  

Personally I could not live alone on our property very long. Though I’m very much a homebody, I am not a good loner. Jim and I, settled into our little routine, can go for days without seeing anyone else. We do have a good internet connection and phones. We communicate daily with family and friends via phone, email, and texting.

But there’s nothing like “people with skin on,” as a child once described it. So we make a point of seeing people - both by having people come by and by leaving our place to go out where the people are.

We were fortunate to find a friend from long ago living near our new home, and since then other friends have moved to the area. But we've also found some great ways to branch out and find new friends.

If you’re starting out in a new area, there are several ways you can go about meeting people, making new friends, and getting integrated into the community. 

• Meet your neighbors. We’ve met most of the families on our road and found every one of them to be friendly and warm. We’ve shared ideas, swapped tips, and helped each other out. One neighbor, also new, invited everyone over to get acquainted one evening.
• Get to know local merchants. Our tiny town has just a few businesses. Farther up the highway are others, and even more in the nearest sizable town. Wherever we go, people welcome us to the community and are glad to give us suggestions or pointers about the area.
• Find sources for local information. Visit the local library for community history materials and photos. Pick up visitor guides, pamphlets, maps, and event schedules at the chamber of commerce.
• Seek out special interest groups to meet like-minded individuals. Look for garden clubs, service organizations, churches, and other groups and places where people gather with a common purpose.
• Volunteer in the community — at a nursing home, food bank, animal shelter — meet people and provide a valuable service at the same time.
• Get acquainted with your local county extension agents and agricultural organizations. They have a wealth of information on gardening, livestock, forestry, food preservation, and a multitude of other topics. Get on their email lists to be notified of classes, workshops and other educational events. 

Before you know it, your neighborhood will span miles. Some of the people you meet will become your friends, and soon you’ll have a new social network and support system of people to enjoy life with.

Canton is a quaint little town with around nine thousand people. It has that country feel to it with small farms all around us and the Farmington River about a 1/4 mile away with many trout management areas. The pheasant and small game hunting is good here, and the deer and turkey are abundant. The school system is one of the best in the state, and there are good people here who have been here all of their lives and whose families have been here for generations. Now, being that this is still Connecticut, there are the “yuppie” types who commute to the Hartford area every day and live in those expensive cookie cutter homes that all look alike up on the hill that used to be woods and mountains. But they are all in one area of town, so the town still holds most of its original country landscape and charm. (Now, I’m not being derogatory towards the “newer” people of town, but we all know that a lot of small town governments now allow those neighborhoods. You know those neighborhoods. The ones with the people who have those great paying jobs, beautiful homes and SUVs. The ones who live to keep up with the Jones’. They have 2.3 children who play soccer and they hire people to mow their lawns and put up their Christmas decorations.  Ah yes, tax base, tax base, tax base... )

Our home is beautiful. We are on an acre of land with about twenty acres of open space bordering our property out back. We clown around telling each other and everyone else that we have twenty one acres! The house is a two family, surprise, surprise. Tami and I have a four bedroom cape with an attached four bedroom cape/colonial next door. That’s where my sister, brother in law, mom and the kids live. There is a four-car garage that we call “The Barn.” We call it the barn because the tax office has it listed as a barn, and it’s valued at a whole lot less that way. I’m good with that. There is a dirt road that runs along our place and ends about a mile away at the firehouse. We ride our ATVs on it all the time.

Our lives have changed a lot since coming here. Tami is teaching in a town about fifteen minutes away with a smaller population than Canton. She teaches special education students in middle school. Special ed has been her specialty her whole career. While that vocation has its share of problems, she really prefers small town problems as opposed to the ones of the cities. With fewer students, she gets to be more involved with them. I’m more comfortable with her teaching in a small town rather than a big city. Now, I don’t worry about her going to work everyday. She has also gotten very involved at church. She is the chairperson for the women’s group there and runs the food for the hungry collection.

Our daughter Amanda was here with us for a year and a half then decided to join the Navy. She didn’t enjoy or grasp the college life and decided the Navy was her future. We think she made a wise decision. She is recently married now to a guy who is also in the navy. He is on a sub and she is stateside. They have given Tami and I a beautiful granddaughter, and now another one is on the way. We miss them very much. They live in Norfolk, Virginia, where they are both stationed. He’s from Nebraska and likes the idea of farming. I was trying to get him to come up here to our sub-base so maybe we could do some farming together, but our daughter didn’t like that idea. I’m now keeping quiet about it. Oh well, I tried.

Our son Michael has made some friends here. He was resentful of the move at first. He missed his friends very much, and we couldn’t get him involved in the area. He preferred hanging out with his old friends at the beach, playing pool and videos at the many game rooms in the area and going to the mall to meet up with the girls. That was much more exciting to him than muddin' up dirt roads with pickup trucks and going to bon fires on Friday nights at the state forest with the boys around here. He did eventually start making some friends here the last eight months or so, but none of it matters anymore anyway. He has just decided to go to school in Florida. He is going to motorcycle mechanic school in March. He wants to own a Harley Davidson repair shop. I’m very excited for him!

My mother couldn’t be happier living next door with my sister, and her now three children and husband. She is busy with them every day. She cleans and does the laundry and most of the cooking. She has two Golden Retrievers and a Pug. She breeds the two Goldens and we are awaiting the new set of puppies in about three days. This will be the original Golden’s second litter. Mom is going to let her rest now and breed the other Golden from the first set of pups.

My sister is active with the kids and teaches Sunday school. She misses the city life a little bit, but says she likes our new life better and wouldn’t want to raise the kids anywhere else. My brother-in-law has a full time job driving a truck all over the state for a produce company. He loves his job and takes all of the overtime he can get. (It isn’t easy raising three kids today financially, especially here in Connecticut. Contrary to popular belief, we are all not rich in Connecticut.)