pros and cons of rural living

[kerr]

Ha!,HA! IM glad "KILLER" returned safely.
I sent 6 er7 dogs down behind the pond dam with the afterburners on a while back and my best friend was leading the pack! Dang knot head was on the porch by morning.

 

[Boondox]

Vermont is getting its share of sub-divisions as well. To Vermonters, they look really crowded all packed into a valley (usually on prime farm land!) and pretty much one house looking like the next. But to the folks from the big cities who buy them, the lot sizes seem huge compared to what they had "back home." And the bottom line is I'd rather have flatlanders crowded into sub-divisions than to have new homes and roads and power lines scattered over every single hill in the state.

One of the things I really like about my rural life -- aside from some of the very good observations already mentioned by others -- is the envy of the tourists who wander past and admire our lifestyle. Last fall a couple of very old (80+) Japanese women wandered down the road. We struck up a conversation in their broken English and my halting Japanese...wasn't too long before I had them driving that big L3010 around the meadow with HUGE grins on their faces! I'm sure they'll share that tale with their relatives back home for as long as they live. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

The other type of tourist we like are the folks here on vacation who had to leave their dogs behind. They see our five goldens and just fall to their knees with arms held wide soaking up all the attention they can. We call this "getting a dog fix."

Pete

 

[benewton]

Concur with putting them into subdivisions, but the problem is that they bring along their kids, they get to vote, and those of us who like the rural life quickly get outnumbered.

VT has got to know of the NH education problems, but, VT being essentially socialist, I doubt that they think that our Masshole problem is of any concern, although, considering that they get to absorb the New Yorkers, perhaps they do have the greater problem.

Around here, they tend to move into either condominiums or developments with "protective covenants", miles from anyplace with the things that they consider important and unable to do anything of any importance to their families. Go figure...

As for me, I'd like to be north of our "notches", and may yet get there if the property values continue to "rise". Since the taxes continue to rise, and will get worse with the first new school, of three we've got to expect, it's about time to bail out.

So it goes in the world of those who pay the bills....

 

[Boondox]

Just to set the record straight on the Vermont socialist save the whales along with everything else theme...you'll find rural Vermont quite conservative for the most part, but with an independent streak if they feel an outsider is telling them what to do. However, since most of the flatlanders who move up here settle in the Burlington area, and over half the population of the entire state lives there now, as Burlington votes so goes the state. So the future of our beautiful state is now in the hands of folks who think a cookie cutter house on a quarter acre lot is the cat's meow.

Pete

 

[benewton]

We have more or less the same problem with the "flatlanders", though in our case it's the "Massholes", and for about the same reasons.

Why, or perhaps how come, they can move in, concentrate, and vote the rest of the reasonable universe out?

If you have a solution, I'm listening....

 

[Boondox]

In the old days, Vermont law was "One village, one vote." So the tiny town of Eden had the same pull as the city of Burlington. But that was eventually ruled unconstitutional, and control passed from rural to urban centers. It was the beginning of the end.

 

[Spencer]

One con is that I never had a need for all these tractor attachments because I did not have a tractor.

Another con is all this WATER! I can't wait for things to dry out so I can get some of my prjects done. I never had standing water when I lived in the city.

 

[benewton]

I guess I could use a bit less water, but then, I've got plenty of inside work to do, and the wood can wait a bit longer without any problems...

Too, there goes the drought in the lakes region of NH!