Moving to a small town?

This headline caught my eye today: "Small Town Culture Shocks In America Go Viral, Answers Are Very Accurate." It's based on a Reddit thread entitled "People who moved from cities to small towns, what was the biggest culture shock?"

As the headlines imply, it's a different lifestyle when people move from urban areas to small towns. Here is what people wrote:

• Of course it matters where you’ve moved but when you enter a restaurant or bar everyone turns to see who’s come in. At first it was off putting then you realize they’re just looking to see if it’s someone they know. :)
• After 5pm it’s effectively a ghost town. Nothing open but one 24 hour gas station.
• The dating pool is ankle deep. Someone has to break up, and we all move over one.
• Having to drive 30 miles for groceries.
• When we moved to our tiny town in northern PA, the biggest shock was that absolutely nothing was open past 7pm, or on the weekends. The library's only open until 4pm during the week, and not at all on the weekend.
• Grocery store employees asked me how my dog, Hailey, was doing.
• The only store within walkable distance only sells liquor, snacks, and lottery tickets
• I lived in Vermont for a time and small town life required a lot more planning. The grocery store was a 45 minute drive, so if you went once a week and forgot something you did without it. Four wheel drive was a must. The people were more friendly and tolerant than I expected. Like the big city, no one really gave a sh*t what other people did. People in the suburbs seem a lot more conformist than people in the city or in rural areas.
• Everyone, and I mean everyone, knowing all of your business.
• Not judging, but the high percentage of very young parents (e.g. first kid at 18, 19, 20).
• I moved to a small town and now I know my neighbor’s cat better than my own family. Life is quieter but the gossip is way more entertaining
• Loss of anonymity. Couldn’t go anywhere without running into people I knew.
• More meth than the Hallmark Channel would have you believe.
• Everybody knowing each other, easier to hear about everyone’s gossip/drama, driving 20+ minutes just to get groceries, and some people do not take kindly to outsiders lol.
• Nobody locks their doors or windows.
• Simple things. Places to eat. Running to a hardware store takes an hour and a half. Where i live we have 2 gas stations. A McDonald's and a Subway.
• Everyone knows everyone else’s business. I am a deeply private person, and I hate this.
• In a small town everyone knows everyone and in a big city no one give a sh*t who anyone else is.
• Grew up outside of Dallas, spent my first 4 years out of college as a field engineer. Holy f*ck. The towns I was sent to barely qualify as villages. Less than 1000 people, dying infrastructure, no signs of investment. Maybe a gas station and corner store if they are lucky, a coffee shop that’s only open until 3pm wouldn’t be shocking. You meet people who have never left the state they were born in, a lot of times they don’t know what exists more then a 4 hour drive away It makes you wonder where our education system failed and why society doesn’t care.
• Your reputation actually matters. If you piss off the wrong person, you can find yourself frozen out of a lot of social events and financial opportunities.
• Parking everywhere is free
• Honestly, how many stupid people there are. They don't stand out as much when it's a big city, but when they're the majority in a small town it's really obvious.
• I moved from a town of 100k to a town of 650 as a kid. The biggest shock was that not only did everyone in town already know we were coming, but they knew all of our names, what grades we were in, etc. It was f*cking creepy in retrospect.
• In the cities nobody cares about what anyone else does. In the small towns everyone is in everyone else’s business. (Generalizing of course)

So let's hear from you if you've moved from big city to small town. What kind of culture shock did you experience?

Things missing

We've had an unusual late summer and early autumn. The weather is perfectly normal; but what's notable are the things missing.

The biggest missing thing is wild plums.

This part of Idaho has wild plums up the whazoo. In years past, they've been so thick, they've weighed down branches and carpeted the ground.

But this year? Nothing. Literally nothing. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. Of the hundreds of thousands of wild plum trees in the region, apparently not a single one yielded fruit. Lots of people were commenting on it.

Another thing missing this year, believe it or not, is blackberries. With wild blackberry bushes everywhere, normally there is tons of fruit.

This year? Absolutely nothing. And I mean nothing. The bushes all look healthy, but they bore not a single berry.

Another thing missing: Rose hips. Wild roses are a thorny staple around here, and they've always produced abundant rose hips.

Unlike the plums or the blackberries, there are some rose hips on some of the rose bushes, but they're small, scarce, and anemic, even though the rose bushes themselves seem healthy.

Another thing missing: Honey locust seed pods. We have a honey locust tree in our yard (when I photographed this, the leaves had almost all dropped).

Normally this trees drops hundreds of big honkin' seed pods. This year? Hardly any, maybe one percent of the amount we normally get.

Another thing missing: Mushrooms. Last year we had loads and loads of mushrooms popping up everywhere.

This year? Nothing. I've seen precisely zero mushrooms around us. Last year we had tons, especially after a hike in the mountains. (To be fair, there might be mushrooms along the hiking path; we haven't been there this year.)

The one thing that hasn't been impacted this year is apples, both wild and domestic. We have thousands of wild apple trees, and they've been producing heavily (no doubt to the relief of the wildlife, considering the dearth of other fruit). Our own trees produced a bumper crop.

As for everything else, I have no idea why we're having such a shortage of routine things. To the best of my knowledge, this year hasn't been wetter or drier or hotter or colder than normal.

Go figure.

The private life of pheasants

One of the fun little things I like to do is sneak up to the gate in the barn and peek into the corral to see what kind of wildlife I can surprise. I've glimpsed all kinds of critters – deer, quail, pheasants, even an elk (outside the fence, not inside).

Yesterday I snuck up, peeked through the gate, and caught a handsome male pheasant engaged in a private moment preening his feathers.

What a handsome boy.

 Just one of those little pleasures of country life.

Mechanicking, country style

We had to take our old jeep in for some specialized mechanic work.

We bought this little vehicle five years ago, and it's served us well. However it needed some electrical work (relays, etc.) replaced as well as additional maintenance that were beyond the capacity of our primary mechanic (whose specialty is tires, but who does some mechanic work on the side), so off it went. Yesterday afternoon we got the call the car was fixed and ready to pick up.

The mechanic is a young family man, and he works in a shop on his property, which is located on a lovely stretch of road surrounded by broad meadows. Nice place to raise a family, especially since the dad works at home.

As Don and I crested the hill and crossed the meadow toward the mechanic's home, we saw elk. Lots of elk. Dozens of elk, possibly close to a hundred. I'd never so many elk in one location. With such a broad expanse of meadow, I suppose it's a natural place for them to hang out.

While Don paid for the vehicle, I crept to the edge of the lawn, peered through some bushes, and tried to photograph a few of the animals.

The herd was scattered over several acres, so I could only get a few animals into any single photo at a time.

The animals were calm and unhurried.

We've been in Idaho over 20 years now, and never have I seen such quantity of elk as we've seen around this place. It's delightful.

I followed Don home in the newly repaired vehicle just as the sun set.

Mechanicking, country style. Gotta love it.

Panic-searching off-grid living

In the late 1960s and early 70s – when I was far too young to be aware of societal trends – the hippies went back to the land. I was vaguely aware of the movement, and since my interests (even as a child) have always dovetailed rural, I saw nothing unusual in people wanting to grow their own food and live according to the seasons.

I looked up "Back-to-the-land movement" on Wikipedia and noted some interesting passages:

A back-to-the-land movement is any of various agrarian movements across different historical periods. The common thread is a call for people to take up smallholding and to grow food from the land with an emphasis on a greater degree of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and local community than found in a prevailing industrial or postindustrial way of life. There have been a variety of motives behind such movements, such as social reform, land reform, and civilian war efforts. Groups involved have included political reformers, counterculture hippies, and religious separatists. ... But what made the later phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s especially significant was that the rural-relocation trend was sizable enough that it was identified in the American demographic statistics.

[I]n the decades after World War II, "The world was forced to confront the dark shadow of science and industry... There was a clarion call for a return to a life of human scale." ... Many people were attracted to getting more in touch with the basics just mentioned, but the movement could also have been fueled by the negatives of modern life: rampant consumerism, the failings of government and society, including the Vietnam War, and a perceived general urban deterioration, including a growing public concern about air and water pollution.

Now keep this in mind for a few minutes as I draw your attention to an article I saw this past week: "Americans Panic-Search 'Live Off Grid' As Housing Crisis Worsens And Democrat Cities Implode."

It seems what's old is new again. While we may now remember the back-to-the-land movement of the 60s and 70s with the softening of nostalgia, it was based in the harsh and desperate reality of the time, including war, corruption, environmental concerns, and skyrocketing inflation (something I do remember as a child since it impacted my parents so badly).

"What's piqued our interest," begins the article, "is the sudden panic by some Americans searching 'live off grid' on the internet, hitting the highest level in five years. The driving force behind finding a rural piece of land for dirt cheap, buying or building a tiny home, installing solar panels, and sourcing your own food and water might have to do with the worst inflation storm in a generation while cities implode under the weight of soaring violent crime."

The article cites urban violence, the affordable housing crisis, and the availability of rural internet as some of the fuel behind this latest back-to-the-land movement. Tiny-home kits, solar panels, and RV living are all aspects of the undertaking.

I have no illusions that "panic-searching" for off-grid living options is born of anything less than desperation, much as the last one was.

Where it will lead is anyone's guess......

Cluttercore?

I stumbled across an article a few months ago about a concept called "cluttercore." The article was entitled "Cluttercore Is the Trend Many Parents Need Right Now." The subheadline read, "Think you should get rid of all the stuff in your home? The trending aesthetic of cluttercore says parents can celebrate the chaos instead."

What caught my eye, however, was not the headline so much as the photo that accompanied it. Feast your eyes on this:

This, let me point out, is a kitchen – a place of functional food preparation, as well as a place requiring daily cleaning. It's also a place where oil, grease, and regular spills occur. How in tarnation is this kitchen cleaned?

"The design [cluttercore] trend gives a name to a child-like aesthetic most parents already have in their homes," explains the article. "The gorgeous chaos of trinkets, bits, and baubles, like the pages of an I Spy book come to life. Cluttercore is the celebration of things. For parents who battle the explosion of stuff that babies and kids can bring into the house, the design trend is like a dream come true because it means your clutter is trendy now."

For the family profiled in the article, the wife felt a rush of relief when she saw "cluttercore" trending on social media. "I felt both seen and accepted," she says. "I didn't know someone had come up with a name for my way of keeping house."

Later in the article, it says: "Pre-pandemic, home décor was all about minimalism, with an emphasis on decluttering – and let's be honest, sometimes rage cleaning – to conform to restrictive ideas of what living spaces should look like. For families with children, living in a minimalist house can feel like waging a war with waves of stuff."

I kinda get what these folks are saying. Sometimes it's easier to embrace stuff than fight it. If things are well organized, stuff can bring great joy (such as our collection of books).

Yet images like the photo above and the one below don't fill me with joy. They fill me with...something else.

(Just one word: Dusting.)

Now of course, I realize these photos are at the extreme end of the spectrum. I also realize that in the grand scheme of things, there are worse things than "cluttercore" homes. There's certainly something to be said about family members respecting each other's collections of cherished items.

"Parent culture and retailers often encourage the accumulation of kid stuff, then decluttering gurus and services tell parents they can help them get rid of the stuff," notes the article. "It's a vicious cycle from which cluttercore could offer a way out. 'I do think that it is a positive way to change the narrative around a 'messy home,'' says Dr. Espinoza. 'Cluttercore can relieve families of the pressure to keep an immaculate living space, especially when that expectation is made impossible by small children. By allowing parents to embrace the messiness of their lives, they can spend less time worrying about tidying up and more time living in the moment and connecting with their children and partner.'"

But, I dunno, it also seems like a line is crossed at some point, doesn't it?

I suppose, like hoarding, that line is crossed when the function of a room is impaired. No one can cook in the kitchen pictured above. No one can eat in the dining room pictured above.

However a quick search for the term "cluttercore" on Google Images reveals plenty of perfectly functional, if crowded, rooms.

So, while I'll admit "cluttercore" is not my cup of tea, I'm in no position to criticize. Ahem.

Care and feeding of septic systems

A reader posted the following comment:

"Off topic comment/request: We are moving in 3 weeks to our new-to-us rural house/cabin. Neither my husband nor I have ever before lived in a home with a septic system. I've watched YT videos and read a wide variety of contradictory comments about what to do/not to do.

"I would greatly appreciate suggestions from those here with the experience we lack. I've purchased a deodorizing container for toilet wipes (can those things be burned?). I've read not to use anti-bacterial soap. I need some practical, middle-of-the-road advice (not an absolute ecological purist and I'm not planning on making my own laundry detergent right now).

"The septic tank was cleaned out just last year (by previous one year owner who purchased it from original builder and 24 year owner) and it's located beneath a small, rock-lined pond (formerly filled with Koi) so we really hope not to need to do this again any time soon. Any reasonable suggestions greatly appreciated."

One reader already chimed in with her two cents' worth:

"At 86, I have owned 4 homes. Three of them on septic. My current home is one of them. "Pro's" for septic are many. No sewer charge and independence from city for service are the greatest. "Cons" are more in the caution area. Remember that everything liquid in your house goes through septic. That includes washer, dish washer, bathroom sinks, disposal, etc. Don't flush Kleenex type products as they tend to float rather than dissolve. No or very little antibacterial products as they will kill your good bacteria. Good bye Clorox. Learn to check for "safe for septic" in the fine print. Depending on the size of your family, cleaning every 3-5 years is the rule. Living alone, I don't think I will ever have to have it pumped out again. Good luck and relax. It's no big deal. - Julia"

C'mon, folks, let's help this reader out. Chime in with your experience and expertise on the care and feeding of septic systems. One ... two ... three ... GO!

How many cows?

In response to a post I put up a couple weeks ago on how our neighbor's cows just had calves, a reader asked: "Is there a general rule of how much acreage a heifer would take? We're thinking of getting one next year, but not sure we have enough. We have about 10 acres, but most of it is wooded, so we would have to supplement the 2 - 3 acres of pasture with hay."

There's no cut-and-dried one-size-fits-all requirement for how much land a cow needs, because it depends on whether you're planning on grazing your animals year-round, confining your animals to a paddock, or something in between. It also depends on whether you live in the lush croplands of Virginia or the dry Mohave Desert.

Yet another variable is whether you must feed during the winter, or if your winters are mild enough that the animals can graze year round. If you live in Tennessee, your pasture and available forage will be far different than if you live in North Dakota.

Obviously there's no easy answer to how much land a cow requires. The important thing is not to obtain more animals than your land can comfortably support. Work with what you have, and be prepared to supplement with purchased hay as needed.

Remember, a cow's "job" – what she does for twelve hours a day – is to eat. It is surprising how quickly a cow or two can eat down a small pasture.  But just because you only have a one-acre field shouldn't preclude you from getting cows. However, you will need to purchase hay to feed them, because one acre is not enough land to support anything bovine.

Cows can indeed be kept on small plots – an acre or two – but they must be fed. We used to own a home with a two-acre pasture on which we kept three bovines (cow/calf and yearling steer). We needed to supplement their feed about nine months out of the year.

Additionally, the reader mentioned he/she was getting ONE heifer. Please don't. Get two. Consider getting a steer or another heifer as a companion. Cows are herd animals, and a solitary cow suffers from loneliness and may act out with behavioral issues as a result.

Interesting assumptions

Under a post labeled "Pics That Capture The Unique Spirit of New York City, As Shared In This Online Community," I came across this photo:

The unusual juxtaposition in this photo is actually extremely artistic, or so I thought.

Then I noticed a couple of comments below:

So you don't have to squint, the comment reads: "IDK ["I don't know"] how people are ok living this way. This place is a nightmare... Give me the country."

To which someone replied, "Because it’s busy and there’s places to go and lots of things to do and not boring and barren with yokels and hicks all over. Trash on the street is better than trash human beings."

Hmmm. Those are some interesting assumptions ... on both sides of the argument.

Dream big, I always say

I noticed our neighbor's cat in our pasture the other morning, focusing on something.

This section of pasture appears to be a rich hunting ground, and we often see our neighbor's cats making short work of voles and mice. But this time the cat was looking a little beyond a small rock outcrop. She seemed nervous, too.

But whatever she was stalking certainly had her attention.

Interestingly, a couple of turkeys walked past just about then. It seemed the cat and the turkeys completely ignored each other, though to be fair those huge (by comparison) turkeys could be why the cat appeared nervous.

Turkey: "Hey, watcha doing?" Cat: "Shut up. Shut up!"

I finally saw what the cat was focusing on: a couple of male pheasants.

Well, that's ambitious. Those pheasants are nearly as big as the cat. Dream big, I always say.

Another turkey walked by the pheasant. Can you imagine the conversation? Turkey: "Pssst. Hey Charlie, the cat is after you." Pheasant: "Thanks, Hank. Let him try."

Pheasant: "I seeee you!"

Cat: "Nuts. The jig is up. Retreat!"

Ah, kitty drama.

Some thoughts on minimalism

Recently I watched an indie move on the myriad benefits of minimalism.

I'll admit, minimalism is something that has always intrigued me. Who doesn't like the idea of a streamlined, pared-down lifestyle, right? Admit it, doesn't a small part of you long to own so little that you can throw a few changes of clothes in a souped-up van and hit the road?

But in 2020, when we left our old home and moved to our new, it became abundantly clear we were nowhere near achieving that mythical standard. That's what comes of having a homestead farm, a home business, an obsession (cough cough) with books, and frankly a life.

(Yes, these boxes are all books.)

Moving was an eye-opening experience in many ways, not least of which was how many possessions we had. Downsizing from a 3600-square-foot home into a 1400-square-foot-home (and then partitioning some of that square footage for Older Daughter's suite, leaving Don and I with 1000 square feet) was also enlightening. If nothing else, it allowed us to prioritize what we used frequently vs. what we didn't, what we needed and what we didn't.

A thousand square feet of living space for two people is more than adequate. For heaven's sake, that's luxurious by international standards. We have friends with a dozen children (literally) who make do with 1400 square feet and still manage to have a gracious, welcoming, relatively uncluttered home.

What this downsizing did was allow us to sort our household possessions and delete the unnecessary. We plan to hold a whopper of a yard sale later in the summer and offload the excess. Whatever doesn't sell will get donated.

But we will still be left with a lot of stuff – not so much in the house as in the barn. In fact, the house is in decent shape, but the barn is still a chaotic mess. Some of these jumbled items are long-term storage things: Boxes of books belonging to Younger Daughter, shop tools and equipment, farm supplies, stored items, etc. But a lot of it falls into the category of, "What we were thinking by holding onto this?"

Additionally, minimalism clashes with homesteading. We'll always need tools and equipment to garden, raise livestock, preserve food, fix, create, MacGyver, and otherwise, y'know, live.

The truth, of course, is minimalism by itself solves nothing, except perhaps the chore of dusting. My thought is it has less to do with the number of things owned as it has to do with how your time is spent, the focus on career and ambition to the exclusion of family, etc. For that, the minimalist movement is worthy of praise.

Here's the good news: in cleaning, sorting, and organizing the barn, we are, in a way, minimizing our possessions. Certainly we're discerning between what we need and what we don't. Let's just say it's going to be a heckuva yard sale when the time comes.

We'll never have the pure-white, stark, bleak, barren, desolate, austere, harsh, bare, empty home (can you tell I'm not a fan?) which characterizes the minimalist movement.

Instead we'll focus on making our home cozy and welcoming, with warm colors and comfortable reading spaces and "peace within thy walls," even if it means we have a little too much stuff.

Once we have the barn sorted and organized, and once have have the things we no longer want or need taking up space, we will have minimalized to the extent we want. And that, dear readers, is the best we plan to do.

What are your thoughts on minimalism?

Blasted from a sound sleep

I usually go to bed far earlier than Don. I've always been an early bird, he's always been a night owl. So last night, I'm peacefully slumbering, when I was blasted out of a sound sleep by the sound of...

Yes, a single mosquito was buzzing around me and dive-bombing my ears. How is it such a tiny insect can waken people from the deepest sleep?

For an hour I lay there, trying to cover my head or hunt the little bugger down or otherwise enable myself to resume sleep. Finally I stumbled out of the bedroom.

"What's up?" Don asked, baffled by my sudden and groggy appearance.

"Mosquito," I growled. I hunted around for a bottle of insect repellent I knew Older Daughter had left somewhere, but was unable to find it in my sleep-interrupted stupor.

I went back to bed, and the same mosquito instantly resumed its bombardment of my face. It was far too hot to sleep with a sheet over my head. After another half-hour of tossing and turning, I remembered where Older Daughter had left the repellent. I stumbled out of the bedroom again, fetched the repellent, and sprayed it all over my hair and arms, then sprayed some on my hands and wiped it on my face. Then I went back to bed.

Don followed a short time later. He snuggled down and put his arm around me as he always does when falling asleep, and then we both heard the evil whine of the same evil little bugger, looking for a spot to dine. Due to the repellent I wore, it focused on Don.

"There it is," I muttered.

"Right there," Don agreed. Then, SMACK!!

And that was the end of our nighttime foe. I don't know how Don managed to kill a single mosquito with one slap in the pitch-dark after I'd fought it for 90 minutes, but once again my husband proved himself a hero in my eyes.

I overslept this morning as a result, but at least I slept.