I titled this blog “Adventures in Rural Living” because for our family, rural living has truly been an adventure.
We’ve lived on three rural properties and in several suburban and urban settings. By far, country living has offered the most challenges, as well as the most laughs for us and for our neighbors. Surprises — good and bad — seem to abound.
As time goes by, I’ll be sharing some of those highs and lows with you in detail, but today I’ll offer a brief glimpse at what I mean by the adventures of rural living.
• A cold morning displays a beautiful sunrise with long rays of sparkle glistening on fields of snow.
• A phone call from a neighbor informs you that your cows are in her yard — again.
• A bird’s nest with three delicate blue-green eggs is found on the tongue of your horse trailer.
• A piece of equipment breaks, requiring expensive repairs, and it turns out to be your own fault.
• A glance out the window reveals a doe and her fawn walking across your yard.
• A routine drive becomes a nightmare when your truck settles into a river of mud and turns on its side.
• A hen that disappeared a month ago walks out of the woods with a parade of baby chicks.
• A pleasant stroll makes your heart race when you see very fresh bear scat on your road.
• A visiting city child is awed by the opportunity to gather fresh eggs for his breakfast.
• A chimney fire has you worried when the fire department can’t find your house.
• A summer meal consists totally of foods you raised on your own property.
• A horse refuses to walk into the trailer when you are late for a 4H horse show.
• A grape picked on the day after the first frost is the sweetest thing you have ever, ever tasted.
• A frozen outdoor water spigot means hauling buckets of water from the house to the barn.
• A child tells you she would rather help you in the garden than watch television.
• A raccoon reaches through a hole in your chicken coop and leaves a laying hen with one wing.
• A tire swing on a gnarly old tree is the favorite toy of all the neighborhood kids.
• A tractor part breaks right in the middle of a big job on the only day you have time to do it.
• A cow in the pasture that was pregnant last time you looked suddenly has a wobbly calf standing at her side.
I’m ending with a positive point because the beautiful, exciting, and thrilling moments are some of the reasons we love rural living.
The other points? Those not-so-beautiful, unexciting, definitely not thrilling moments?
Well, we endure them. We survive them. We try to learn something from them. We hope they never happen again.
But we know they’re just part of the package.
