In The Rural Setting......

In the rural setting:
1. You get to share your space with a multitude of God's creatures- rodents, insects, deer, snakes.........good grief! where do all these critters come from? And the bad thing about it is, even if they are cute and fuzzy, most of the time they are destructive. The deer will eat anything, including the baby fruit trees that you paid $150.00 for, and paid your son-in-law $100.00 to plant for you. The rodents dig up your flower bulbs and eat them; the insects chomp down on your vegetable plants until there is nothing left but skeletons of what used to be; rabbits eat your vegetables as well; and good grief, what the worms and raccoons will do to your corn patch! It's enough to make you want to cry! ( or get mad; or get even; or declare WAR!) We bought three six-foot-high dog pens to encircle our garden with; this has worked pretty good about keeping the animals out. The deer don't like to jump inside an enclosed space; also, there is not a good landing-place inside the fence, because we have raised beds; two concrete blocks high.
Lizards, toads, and snakes, however, are very good to have around. Toads and lizards eat insects, and snakes eat mice. Also, ladybugs and praying mantis eat aphids! Yay! Bats are also wonderful to have around, they eat mosquitoes.
2. You might have a lot more lawn to cut when you live in the country, but you get lots more grass-clippings and leaves for your compost pile. I got out there today and cut grass, and then raked up all the clippings, and got LOTS of material for composting. I'll bet all the neighbors thought I was nuts; you can drive down the road, you can see the yards that have just been cut; that the grass has gotten so large that it has gone to seed. And when the grass is finally cut, there is huge clumps that have been spitten out by the lawn mower. ( I want to get my rake and go get all of that free mulch). Anyway, most everyone in MY neighborhood just leaves the grass where it falls........the yard is too big to do all that raking, don't you know. Me, though, I get out there and rake up all them precious greens, and dream of all that precious black that will eventually grow my next ford-hook lima beans. ( see previous post on composting).
3. You can have a bigger garden when you live in the country. The one I planted this year wasn't big enough. We put in three, 30-foot raised beds; we planted corn in the middle of two of them. The corn took up too much room, so when I plant again, I will put the corn in a separate area, (and hope they don't get ravaged too awfully bad by raccoons). I'm telling you what, though. That was some of the best ( and sweetest) corn that I have ever eaten. The ears didn't get as large as I thought they should be, but they made up for it in taste. ( We didn't plant the corn the way it is supposed to be planted; we planted just two rows. You are supposed to plant more than two rows, at least four or six, so that the corn can help pollinate each other. It doesn't matter how long the rows are, in other words, plant it in a square-shape instead of rectangle or row-shaped. ) That way, they have a better chance to help pollinate each other. I think my corn did not have enough corn around it to get good pollination; hence, the smaller ears. BTW, something interesting about corn; each of the silks goes to a kernel inside the corn husk. Each silk has to be pollinated to form a kernel of corn. If you have an ear of corn with bare spots on the cob, that means that the silks didn't get completely pollinated. Interesting, huh?
4. It is quieter out in the country. There are not as many people all around you; if you don't live in an apartment or in a trailer park, that is. I live in an area that has people all around; but we are currently building a house on 6.75 acres, which is where my garden is located. The place where I am now is very noisy; I can hear my closest neighbors talk when they are out in their yards. And unfortunately, I can hear their music as well. I had my garden up here until this year, and I would take my music outside to listen to while I was working, but it had to compete with the neighbors music as well. And the neighbors in the back are prone to have large gatherings. Frequently. And loudly. And, the language is not exactly g-rated. Goodness, I can't wait to move!
5. It is darker out in the country. And that is not always a good thing; especially when you are building a house, and people keep coming onto your property and stealing things. We put up a fence, and installed a gate ( with padlocks), and STILL they got in and stole my little tiller. My husband bought me a Little Mantis tiller, because I have back problems, and this tiller weighs less that 20 pounds. He paid $450.00 for that little tiller, and I had only had it for 2 years, and someone UNLOCKED the doggone gate and stole my tiller, ( along with an air compressor of my husband's) . It's too hot to stay there at night to guard the place; no electricity or plumbing yet. I sure mourn the loss of my tiller, though.
Well, there are lots more good things, and bad things about living in the country, but I'll have to ruminate on them later; most of the Locust Fork population is asleep but me, and I wouldn't want to rock the boat. Good night!
P.S. May God continually bless the man who invented the riding lawn mower!