The Country vs. Suburbia

When my husband and I moved 5 years ago, we left a large city and moved to a small town. We chose to live just outside that small town on about 7 acres of land. There are great advantages to living in a metropolis, but there are things I love about our simple country life, as well. So, here I go to discuss the pros and cons of country and city life. . . Hang with me, though, and don't go out and buy a country home before you read my second list - especially the part about animals. . . Okay here goes. . .

Reasons why I love my country life:
1.) Wide open spaces - Something about driving down the little road to our home brings songs like Wide open spaces (Dixie Chicks) and I want to live where the green grass grows (Tim McGraw) to mind. It is spacious and serene. You can breathe deeply of the fresh country air. And, my boys can run and yell and laugh as loud and as hard as they want at anytime day or night. And, that is a good thing, a great thing. I love to watch them run, hard, across the grass. It just feels good.
2.) The Animals - Now this will also be a negative. . . We have a neighbor (down the road, turn left, & up a big hill) with 7 horses or as JCT refers to them, "ney neys." We regularly see deer, turkey, and rabbits. Canadian Geese mate at our pond every spring. Which reminds me, our pond is stocked with brim and bass. On occasion we have seen beaver and foxes. And, animals are so fun for little boys!!
3.) The sounds & smells- Summer nights here are alive with noise. Frogs croaking, crickets chirping, etc. We were gone for a week once this summer, and as we unpacked our car upon our arrival home, the sounds of the country were pure music to my ears. And, there is a smell here, a good smell, that is home to me. I smell it as soon as I open the car door after a long road trip. It is pure heaven to me. And, I have to mention my favorite country smell. . . the overwhelming smell of the wild honeysuckle that grow in the woods around our house.
4.) The stars - I could teach an astronomy class for homeschoolers in my front yard on any clear night. I love it. We have only one street light - way down the street from us. So, night is a thick blanket of black sky, and it seems every star in the universe is visible. After Erik and I put the boys to bed, we take a walk around the yard. It is pure peace to my soul.
5.) Quiet - Our street is quiet, really quiet. No lie, if we are laying in bed at 10:30 and a car drives down our road, my husband jumps out of bed and looks out the window to see who it is!! No one on our street (besides us, on occasion) stays out past 10. Another thing that I love is that we know eachother. As a neighborhood, we know eachother well. We keep an eye on eachother's houses. As the boys play in the evening, our whole family stops and waves everytime a car drives by to welcome another neighbor home after a day at work. It really is a nice sort of place to live, our simple sweet country home.
Okay, so here is the rest of the story. . .

Reasons why I'd love to run to suburbia. . .
1.) Starbucks chai latte - I have to drive approximately 30 miles to indulge in one of these.
2.)Animals - Okay, here goes, if anything will scare you out of living in the country the next few sentences will do the trick. Shortly after we moved here, I encountered 3 scary animals in a mere 24 hours. I almost made Erik pack up and move me (but, I'm glad I didn't). Okay, it began one afternoon when I saw a snake in the backyard. Erik had said that if I saw a snake I should kill it with a hoe. So, I quoted 2 Tim. 1:7 and went to get the lethal hoe. (Did I mention that I was raised in city limits?) Okay, now my primary goal here was not really so much to kill the snake, but rather to be able to tell this story valiantly to my husband over dinner. "Oh, honey, I forgot to tell you what I did today. . ." So, I raised the hoe above my head, and with all my might, I hit that silly snake. The only problem is that I guess I wasn't strong enough to actually sever the snake, so I just made him mad, really mad, stabbed him in the back mad! As soon as the hoe hit his back, he sat up - like the cobras you see on animal planet, and he hissed. So, I dropped the hoe, said, "You win," and ran in the house as fast as I could!! A few hours later Erik and I had a run-in with a wounded bird caught in our breezeway. We thought it was a bat(remember the pitch black nights - we couldn't see), so I, of course was screaming at the top of my lungs while he fumbled around looking for the right key! If those 2 weren't bad enough, the story goes on. We went inside, discussed moving me to the city, and then went to bed. The next morning I got up to tinkle. All was well until I stood up. Through my sleepy eyes, I saw something in the toliet, but I couldn't make out what it was. So, I turned on the light, and I saw it, the last straw, he was going to have to move me to the city. . . It was a mouse, yes, a mouse, in my toliet, dead, floating, with his little ears, etc. I showed him to my husband. Erik said he came up through the septic system. I said I didn't want a septic system any more. I don't want animals in my toliets, especially disease-infested rodents. Oh, my. . . Thankfully, I can honestly say none of these things have happened since. I may have seen one other snake, but no wounded birds or rodents.
3.) Mega-churches with awesome pastors - All my city-friends have great churches with awesome praise & worship and teaching. I get fed mainly off the internet and through Bible studies. My country church does however have wonderful potluck dinners, and the organist can really rock!! :-)
4.) Easy access to workout facilities - My workout includes pushing my boys in a jog stroller up to see the "ney neys." And, if you have ever seen the hill I have to climb to get there, you'd know that this definitely qualifies as a workout!!
5.) Target, Pottery Barn, a wide variety of restaurants, zoos, etc. We have to drive a good distance for these things, and that at times can be quite disturbing.

But, all in all the simple life suits me. I'm quite content to stay here as long as God would have us to stay. "Bloom where you're planted" is a quote I try to live by, and in the sweet country earth, blooming has come naturally for me!!