And 3 Reasons It’s Less Amazing

 This past winter, I moved to the country. My new town-mates regularly ask me and my family, “Why’d you move here?”

We usually smile and think something like, “If you only knew.”

The short answer is: this is where the house that we bought was.

The long answer…well, it goes on for some time, touching on family history, philosophy, current politics, timing factors, spiritual/emotional states, the hand of God…

For the time being, I’ll confine myself to nine reasons I’m glad we abandoned the middle-class urban environment for the middle-class farmhouse environment.

First, a few of the downsides, just for balance’s sake:

–It’s a five-minute drive to town limits, and maybe ten to the grocery store! In all seriousness, though, my mom has to drive 50 to 60 minutes one-way for her job.

–The road just outside our front door is posted 45 mph, instead of 30. (Which means people are going 60, instead of 45, like our old neighborhood.)

–Our electricity has been pretty steady, but our furnaces are powered by a propane tank out back, and so far it seems to suck propane like a fireplace sucks oxygen. It isn’t always great to be disconnected from the city gas-lines — evidence: the great propane debacle of January ’16, where we huddled around the electric heaters wearing four or five layers, longing for the appearance of the propane truck.

And now, the upsides – the cheery benefits to being on the OUT side of the city:

+You get to use your high-beams. Every time I drive home in the dark, as I turn off the main drag onto our twisty country road and flick on my “country lights”, I feel a little surge of satisfaction.

+No sirens in the night. Sirens are a reminder that somewhere, perhaps close-by, firemen and policemen are facing threats, and injured people are calling on paramedics to aid them. Our house is much more relaxing without that constant reminder.

+No kids running down the middle of the street, playing ball in front of cars. In a related benefit, if the neighbors have a karaoke pool party at one in the morning, I might hear them over the coyotes and the romantic rumble of the nearby train…but probably not. Plus, we live across from the county sheriff, so they probably do their karaoke pool parties at reasonable hours.

+No one has set our garage on fire since we got here.

+TREES! Lots of trees!

+Stars. Moon. On a cloudless night, you can see how much light the heavenly bodies really give, without encumbrance from the nearby lights of people.

+We can plant our garden however we want without any of the neighbors anonymously reporting us to the city so they’ll send us nasty-grams telling us to dig up our cucumbers because they didn’t like it. Also, our neighbors here don’t have a handicapped spot in front of their house that they never use, but will call in anyone who spends more than 6.5 minutes on the wrong side of the telephone poll. Ah, those were the days…

+No garbage trucks. No offense to garbagemen, but we’re enjoying not having to pay a monthly fee to get our garbage scattered across our back yard — unless the alley is “icy”, in which case they don’t come at all (without telling anyone, of course). Now, instead, my pyromaniac mother has her own burn barrel…and LOVES IT.

+One word: TAXES.

I’ll end with one bonus reason: we have an old, broken down silo on our property. Dystopian and medieval at the same time! Whoop!

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Kimia Wood has been making stories since she was little, and loves bringing imaginary people to life. You can find out more about her works under the “Books” tab, and/or subscribe to the mailing list.