Things to expect living in the country.

[they'reHISchickens]

Keep reading and learning about the animals. Make sure you feel self sufficient about medicines for the kids because it's a long way to the dr. when one gets sick. Figure out how to survive with heat, water, and cooking during storms. Can you handle being confined for 5 days with your kids and no outside contact during a storm?
Find a local mentor to tell you the local ins and outs.
Expect manure and loose animals and varmints.
Yes you need a gun ( a .22 with scope should be adequate). If a rabid-looking raccoon or a mangy fox shows up in the near pasture, the police aren't going to come running. Practice shooting it enough to feel safe.
Are you both comfortable with isolation and being alone? There are not many coffeeklatches out in the country and people aren't usually close enough to talk over a back fence. You have enough kids that they will keep each other company

 

[Duramaxgirl]

Living in the country isn't that hard

I had a big city friend that moved to a town near by a while back. After living here 2 years he had to move back to the city because he got tired of nothing to do after 6pm! I was like 'walmarts open 24/7 what's your problem'?? And I can't handle living in the city. I once lived in a small town of 300 people that was enough 'city' for me!
If you like going out at night and having and exciting 'night life' stay in the city. Other then that its not to bad! If you like fresh air and privacy and a little extra work, then its for you! If you want it then you'll get used to it

 

[michickenwrangler]

Deer will eat EVERYTHING in your garden. Apparently the ones around here havent read the part in my gardening book about tomato plants being poisonous...

Make friends with the neighbors, they may have a posthole digger you want to borrow.

Make sure you return the favors in kind. You may have a chainsaw they need to use.

A good dog is a must.

Agree with the previous poster about doing all your in-town errands in one trip. Nothing makes you swear faster than being halfway home and realizing you forgot to stop at the hardware store.

 

[Kaitie09]

Definitely have back up power. If a tree sways here too hard we lose power for hours. No power = no water. In the spring some places have good deals on generators that they could not sell during the winter. We also have propane here so that if we lose power, we just need a lighter to start the range and cook.

I don't know if I live in an odd place, but all of our neighbors let their animals run free. The neighbor's sheep flock and the other's horse graze the fields all day. Our goats are out if we are home, and the neighbors like that they are clear-cutting their woods. All the dogs stay on their property, and leave the animals alone (they've gotten rammed one too many times). Our chickens are the only ones that do not get let out because the dogs would snatch them up in a heartbeat.

 

[TheHalfWayCoop]

This is all fabulous advice and it's going in a book along with my 10,000 questions to the home owner tomorrow night.

We definitely have no qualms about lack of cable, we haven't had by choice in over three years now, we just grab movies if we need something to watch. But then again, if we have no access to the internet, that would be a problem, I'm not quite that primitive, it's happened before - it was not pretty

But I'm sure we can rig up some kind of internet signal, the 'main' rd is only a 6 minute drive from the house, so we aren't quite that far from civilization, although again, grocery and gas is a fair bit further. Apparently the farmer at the end of the lane gets paid to plow out the lane for everyone else, but I think we're going to look into a tractor with add on options so that we can plow ourselves out of our driveway as well as hopefully the lane if need be, since DH frequently has to leave at 5am for work, we certainly don't expect that to be someone else's first priority in the morning. We're pricing generators, I don't know if I'm looking at the wrong ones, but most of them say 3-6hrs of power... what if the power is off for days?? We'll definitely ask to see a hydro bill, I figure since we're saving several hundred dollars in gas each month as well as a few hundred in rent (it astounds me that our house current rents for more than this way better house with a nice property...) that if the utilities end up being quite a bit more than here, we'll be no worse off. It'll just hurt filling that oil tank! I'm hoping the home owner can give us some idea on how long a tank might last if we're supplementing with the woodstove since I'm home during the day. We've heard anything from $500 a year to $500 a month. I also wonder if just buying e veryone electric blankets for the winter and shutting the heat off for the night would be usefull or counteractive. I think a lot of this will be trial and error and hopefully finding out groove!

Atleast the home owner has said they aren't showing the property to anyone else until after we see it tomorrow and decide if we want it or not, which is so awesome because so many times we've been hyped to see a house and find out the day before our viewing that it was rented out already, miraculously. I have a good feeling this time

so here's hoping!! We definitely don't have a lot of land with the house, the house itself only comes with one acre, but the owners own over 100 acres behind the house, so we'll see where that leaves us for livestock. We know the chickens are coming with us

and hopefully they'll have some chicks from their hatch in a couple weeks too! Woohoo!

I hope there's a local hang out, like the feed store/coffee shop/etc... to get to meet the locals, I think that would be great. And we definitely wont be missing any kind of night life, we have almost 5 kids, we don't have a night life anymore

and definitely don't miss it, plus I think we'll be able to find enough to do to keep ourselves amused. The home owner has already said the kitchen needs a makeover, so I think that'll be our winter project and in the spring/summer we'll be all kinds of crazy busy to worry about going anywhere

 

[chixie]

Generator.... I dont know how it is there but here a generator is a must....

 

[StupidBird]

As far as strange people stopping by, I've been waiting for someone to talk to during the day. *sigh* Had more random people in my yard or knocking at my door in the real city than here in the suburb in the middle of fields.

Isolation would be a big hurdle for me living out in the real countryside. Pregnant, sick, no car and "let's live waaaaaay out in the middle of no where" with no money and no clue didn't work to well.

I'm much better now. But I did learn I have to belong to something that meets regular. Boy scouts. Church. Volunteer day at the hospital. Saturday night bonfire (this one is working well - invite everyone to stop by if the weather is good - chairs, fire, drinks)

Or, become addicted to the internet.

 

[babymakes6]

Quote:
Excellent advice from everyone!

I can tell just by reading that this thread was written by "country folks!"
The 3-6 hours on a generator means that is how long it will run between fill-ups.

Remember, you need it when the power is out, so it has to run on fuel.

 

[zzGypsy]

Quote:
you also need to check power rating - a generator won't run your whole house unless it's really really big. figure out what you NEED to run - frigde, freezer, computer or tv, phone charger, a couple of lamps, power to the pellet stove... and talk with the folks there about how big a generator you need for that.

oh, and you DO need to know how to run it in your system. you can't just hook it up to your house while you're still on the power lines - it's going to feed your neighbors power too, and it's dangerous for anyone working on the power lines. so you need to either have a switchover or plug your devices into it separately from te house. in our case, that's complicated because the pellet stove is wired directly into the house, so it can't be run separately. we have to have a house switchover. and then we have to know which breakers to shut off so we don't run anything beyond what we need.

 

[chicmom]

I moved from the city to the country 10 years ago. Things to expect are, in the springtime, you can smell the scent of wild roses.....Or sometimes, you smell the scent of fresh manure.

Seeing turkeys run across the road on your way to work in the morning, or deer, or the occasional fox.

Hearing cows moo in the distance.

In the fall, you might hear gunshots from neighbors hunting or practicing with their rifles.

I do have a septic tank, which I never had before, and you do have to have it "sucked out and stirred up" about every five years or so.

We're all electric but we did install a wood burning stove downstairs in the man cave. When it gets colder, we use that and it can really warm up the whole house, upstairs and downstairs!

Often, in the colder months, you will smell your neighbor's smoke from their chimneys if they burn wood indoors.....I kind of find that to be a nice smell. I like that.

Good neighbor ediquette would be, for me, not letting your dogs run loose. They can destroy a whole flock of chickens in a heart beat. So if your dog doesn't stay home, in your yard, fence him in or tie him.

Also, don't blast your stereo, or whoop and holler......I guess it's the same way in the city.......And look out for your neighbor in the country.....Watch out for anything irregular.......We only have two neighbors, and we keep an eye out for eachother.....

In the country, your grass doesn't have to be perfect without any weeds.....If it's green, and we want it to become a yard or lawn, then we mow it. It looks nice and neat. Folks are not so particular in the country.......

Try not to have piles of rusty junk or broken down cars or machinery laying around......That just looks bad....Unless you can sort of hide it "out back".

That's about all I can think of.....

I edited this because I said the word "well" instead of "septic tank"....Don't suck out your well.......

Sorry Folks!