The monsters called with tales of all the fun things they’re doing in the country. They went fishing last night and today, supposedly catching a TON of bass and perch. They’ve ridden Papa’s poor horses to death, learning how to trot and even riding outside of the corral.
Today, they went to an Amish farm and got to milk a cow, pet a goat, and ride in a buggy. How cool is that? I want to go!
Seriously, every time we go to Papa’s I get the country yearning. I want a garden and animals of my own. It’s all the fence fixing and snakes and ticks and no high-speed internet that worries me. (I have to have high-speed for the Evil Day Job.) I could get Hughes Net but I’ve heard bad things about them. Plus the kids are in excellent schools right now and have a ton of friends here. Moving to a much smaller country school is quite a change, and I want them to have the best possible chances for scholarships. I can testify to how difficult it can be to win college scholarships when you come from a small school. There’s just not as many opportunities. Is it worth the trade off?
We haven’t decided yet but we’re talking about it every time we go to the country.
Meanwhile, the kids don’t want to come home. Might have something to do with school starting next week….or just that they’re having that much fun.
As someone who lives in the sticks, I can tell you the internet is my BIGGEST problem. What I would give for Verizon FiOS. My provider sometimes warns us when they’re going to do upgrades but ‘something’ always happens and they end up shutting us down weeks later–without any notice. Needless to say they don’t inspire confidence.
That aside, I like living in the country. But I don’t have kids and I can understand that you have to think of their futures. At least they get the chance to experience a little bit of the country. That’s more than most kids get.
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Well, Joely, if yours are anything like mine it’s a ‘grass is greener’ kinda thing. My kids love going to my in-laws…feeding the horses, etc. But they only last about two weeks before the lack of internet and dish/cable drive them batty.
Just another sign of the times, I guess. I had a blissful two years in the middle of nowhere growing up. We had a tepee (real from a local nation) by a creek we would camp in whenever the weather was nice enough. We had ponies and caught salamanders and had to walk a quarter mile just to get to the school bus stop. We grew everything, canning and freezing the harvests. Of course, we only had one TV channel which was bad even back when most of the area had five, LOL, and the phone was a party line.
But I completely understand where you’re coming from. I wish like anything we lived in the middle of nowhere, my climate was more conducive to gardening and homesteading like Maria’s doing, and the quiet of not having neighbors cheek and jowl.
You know I miss the country, Sis, so I feel your pain. It is a little bit “grass is greener”, I’m sure, but I’ve also just never been comfortable living in a city. Even a small one like mine. It’s home because of the people and because it’s so familiar after these 15 years, not because of the wide open spaces.
Every time I drive down to see Mom or Dad or Kristi, I feel that tug. That “come on back home” tug. I just… can’t afford it. I mean, I can’t even afford here, and that’s with all sorts of jobs (none of which are available right now, of course). How could I afford such a small town, even with more reasonable housing rates, when there’s no guarantee of a job?
But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t buy a 100-acre (or 1000-acre!) plot in a New York minute if I won the PowerBall jackpot. Ha!