Suburban versus Country Living
We moved to our new farm in April of this year from a small suburban homestead on the coast of Maine. Our previous home was situated on two acres in a quaint township within commuting distance of our state's largest city. Our new home is 93 acres of mostly fields in a town that boasts just under a thousand year round residents.
Needless to say there's a lot of things that are completely different about living in the country. While it is not everyone's cup of tea, the rural life has certainly suited us and most of the changes have been positive or easy to adjust to.
Among the many reasons that we moved, and looked for property with more acreage, was to have the ability to let our animals free range. Most of the animals only range with supervision, but even supervised free range is an improvement from their previous pasture spaces. When we let our geese or chickens out at our old home, they were limited by the size of our property. Our geese, in particular, have a peculiar habit of sitting in the center of the road every morning. It doesn't matter if that road is a little highway of commuters or a dusty country track, they seem to like the flat, warm surface for their morning grooming. The geese also were known to wander into neighbor's yards at our old home, an issue that would take a lot of effort on their part now.
Country living does mean planning your weeks with a little more care. We're far from living in a remote location like far northern or inland Maine has to offer, but we're still half an hour from the nearest grocery store. We don't have internet at our new home (we didn't at the old one either), but only once we were living out here did we find the need to re-subscribe to Netflix's DVD service - yes, they still offer that service.
The peace and quiet of the country requires some adjusting. While we love the silence of the fields that amplifies the singing crickets and frogs (and occasional geese), our sleep patterns were off for a few months after we moved. Silence means it is easy to wake up at every little branch moving.
We moved to the country for a number of reasons, the ability to grow larger crops and vegetable gardens being one of them. I'm so excited that next summer we should be getting nearly all of our food from our own garden, something we could have done at our old home, but which will be easier with more room to spread out.
For as much as we love being able to relax and not see neighbor's homes from ours, the animals love it even more. Chickens, geese, and even goats are thrilled at the chance to kick their heels and adventure around the place. And with all of our work clearing, soon they'll be able to adventure to even further corners - with supervision, of course.
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