Small Town Country Life

Small town life has so many charms – so much “realness” that living in a large city misses.  The level of trust, from being able to let your kids play out to leaving doors unlocked on your truck to the feeling of being in a small town shop.

You can go into the Ace Hardware (which has two separate buildings) – and need to buy say paint and some bolts – which happen to be in two different buildings - they will trust you to walk out the door with merchandise and cross the parking lot – trust that you are going into the other building and that you are going to pay over there.  No car alarms, house alarm, metal detectors.  Trust – that is something that was completely missing where I came from. 

The pleasantness of knowing folks from all over town, knowing the cashier in the grocery store, the meat processor (that’d be the man who comes out to put down your cow or pig when you are ready to harvest them), the mead man… ah, mead – even if you are not a Viking – you have got to try it - visit http://www.hiddenledendwinery.com my favorite is Choke Cherry – it’s like drinking candy – very dangerous!

I love running in to folks all over the place that you know, and having folks know me.  I like having neighbors who jump in help and who we know well enough to know when they need help – and being able to do that.  Real community.

Walking out the door and having the beauty of God’s creation take your breath away – rather than seeing man made things everywhere you look.

Living in the country – raising your own food – living a simpler life and yet one with far more work and satisfaction.  Having a common connectedness to all of life – being more connected to the food supply, and to other folks.

Having things happen seasonally – fair time, harvest time, hatching time, poultry processing time, haying time, even winter time where time seems to slow down.

So removed from the suburban life, where kids in any house are relatively doing the same things or types of things – kids are gone to soccer, baseball, gymnastics, mom’s are busy with suburbia life.  There is some of that here – but not so many city folks, city activities.

One day fishing the Bitterroot River, one day hunting or archery practice, one day riding horses in the woods, one day skiing or snowboarding, one day trapping or hunting, hatching chicks, watching the lambs give birth, bottle feeding a baby goat and then watching it chase the children through the house and laughing ‘til my sides hurt. 

There is a wider array of “different” here…  

Knowing a housewife who has dead foxes in her freezer because her husband hasn’t had time to skin ‘em out.   Or folks who have large animal limbs in the front yard with the dogs gnawin’ on em’.

I have never lived in such a small place. 

I have never known so many people. 

I have never felt so full. 

One of our favorite artists wrote a song entitled, “Fuller Sense of Place” you can download and listen to it here http://www.nathanclarkgeorge.com – I recommend that you do:)

Posted by The Farm Girl’s Mom