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Aspirations of a rural life
The Thinker and I have long held aspirations of a rural life. While we live in a smallish town, we have visions of a hobby farm with a big garden, horses, chooks, a few cows and not being able to look into our neighbours windows (or them into ours). Every time I watch Relocation, Relocation I jump onto the real estate websites scouring the country for a suitable property in our price range.
Then I start to think of all the reasons we can’t do it.
I need to be near my specialist
The Thinker needs to be within commuting distance
I don’t like the idea of the kids catching a school bus
Or are they just excuses for not taking a leap of faith? Perhaps we’re afraid of change or afraid of failing at a new life. Imagine leaving our comfortable, secure existence for something unknown! When I really press myself, I’m not sure I want to give up all the conveniences of living quite close to a regional centre.
Living in the country seems idyllic in so many ways. I grew up spending all my days on horses and would love our kids to have the opportunity to do the same. They could run around in fresh air till their little lungs are about to burst. The Thinker would love to be a pseudo farmer. The life just seems more pure and real.
Whether our concerns are real or imagined, the reality is our biggest stumbling block is earning a living in the country. We are both firm in the belief that I should be a stay at home mum. The Thinker is an IT business analyst which isn’t a highly called for profession in the country. I’m sure we could relocate without a mortgage, especially if we went real country. But with distance the concerns become a little more real. And we would still have many remaining expenses - schooling, food, transport, property and car maintenance.
So I am looking for solutions or confirmations of my concerns.
I’m following Mark and Rosalba’s journey in Strawbale House as well as Rural Aspirations with great interest.
I would love to hear from readers that have made the big move to the country. Tell me about your initial fears - were they founded? What were your successes? Failures? How did you make it work?
There are always fors and againsts for any change.
My fears were:
snakes - yep, we have them. So far they haven’t killed me though so it’s all good.
lack of shops - yah for internet shopping!!!
I didn’t like the idea of my children going on a school bus either but they are so well cared for and for the most part they really enjoy it.
What I REALLY love though is the lifestyle for the kids. We have so much more space than the cities offer. And it somehow feels safer and more removed from some of the fears the city has (like violence, crime and so on).
Lightenings last blog post..I. HATE. HOMEWORK
June 5th, 2008 at 2:30 pmoh do it! do it!
You know there may be a way to move more rural but still have all those things you listed… we moved to ten acres which is lovely and rural but close enough to two smaller towns and also to Melbourne so that we have everything we need. The Baldy boy is still able to commute to a job in the northern suburbs (it is a lot further in kms but takes about the same amount of time as it did when we were living inner city), we are close enough for me to take the girls into the city for various appointments - but they will probably catch a bus to high school (i’ll drive them to primary school) but for us it is a small price to pay.
We made this move on a bit of a whim and I can assure you it is the best thing we have ever done! We have so many dreams and plans and ideas, no money of course to do any of them but there is so much potential in this place that it is inspiring!!
Thanks for the blog links - I can see myself enjoying both of those reads immensely!
kates last blog post..A Recipe for Sleep…
June 5th, 2008 at 2:36 pmYes, Lightening. The feeling of safety is something that really appeals to me too.
Kate, I think it’s time for some serious research into what we want and what we can afford. I’m sure we could get the two to meet somewhere!
You’ve both inspired me to think a little more seriously about it. I’ll have a chat with The Thinker about it over the weekend and see what we come up with.
June 7th, 2008 at 4:34 pmWhen we bought our land a few years back we didn’t really know what to expect. We basically fell in love with the view and the space.
We then organised a BBQ on Australia Day one year where we met most of our future neighbours and it is just amazing how nice they all are. We have become friends with 3 out of our 5 neighbours almost instantaneously and often end up having morning tea, afternoon tea or dinner with one neighbouring family or other when we stay in the shed for a long weekend.
Also, one of our neighbours is the local school bus driver and he is a really nice guy and from what we have heard he gets along really well with the kids.
Marks last blog post..100% Renewable Energy Used to Write This Article
June 12th, 2008 at 2:30 pm