Why I moved to the middle of nowhere

I get asked a lot why I would leave the city life and move “to the middle of nowhere”. My standard answer has become “it’s quiet out here”. But as I sit here drinking my coffee this morning, looking out my sunroom windows at the trees and creek some 60 feet below, I realise there are quite a few reasons I like it here more than the city life. And at the same time, I remember the things that shocked me about living out here. I’m going to try and share a few of the experiences I’ve had living in the country so far, comparing them to city life. Maybe this will give you an idea of what you will be getting yourself into if you’re considering leaving the city lights for the tall trees and open spaces.

The very first thing I ran into here that I wasn’t expecting was water. Like, drinking water. Our property has a well. It was all fine and dandy when we bought the place, then a month later we got a bad water test back. After doing some research I tried a bunch of things. Bleach, chlorine powder/tablets. Flushed the well, everything. I was getting good test then bad test every other week. What I was doing wasn’t working. Time to hire someone. I hired a guy who came and cleaned the well out and that worked for a few weeks. But again, I got a bad test. We had been doing this for months and can’t get it fixed, now what?

When the well drilling truck pulled into the yard my kids were pretty excited. Two big trucks with real neat looking stuff on them. As I watched the pipes get pounded into the ground, my excitement quickly diminished. It turns out each of those pipes costs A LOT of money. We were very fortunate and only had to go down 100 feet for water, but it was a major purchase none the less. Then came the hooking up part. That is also fairly labour intensive, yep, more money. I like to joke with my city friends who complain about there water bills, saying I’ve pre paid mine for the next 10 years. They don’t get it. I’m very happy with the company that did my well and I’ll recommend them to anyone! Just be prepared. Water doesn’t come cheap.

But wait, there’s more! After the new well was all drilled and hooked up I decided to change all the stuff inside the house as well. Meaning a new pressure tank, hot water tank, water softener, iron remover, UV filter and a couple of sediment filters. I likely didn’t need the UV filter with the new well, but I figure if I’m doing it, I may as well do it all, right? I did this all myself, I think they call that sweat equity. Saved some cash, but the equipment still wasn’t cheap. But now, I basically have my own water treatment plant in my basement. That water bill isn’t sounding to bad now is it?

The next thing that came as a pretty big surprise is heating my house. I knew moving here that I couldn’t get natural gas. My house is heated with a propane furnace. Looks like a natural gas furnace just runs on propane. What surprised me was how much propane costs. At the time of this writing my heating bill doubled from when I lived in the city, and had natural gas. It also took awhile to get used to checking my tank every few days to see how much propane I had left, so I can call the propane company to have more delivered. Now its just habit, check the tank every time I walk by on my way back from feeding the chickens.

Speaking of walking. Living out here, my yard is fairly big. When I was in the city my lot was 120x50 feet. A “double lot” in the neighbour hood I was in. I could cut the grass in about 30min and snow blow in about the same. Now, cutting the grass is a 3 hour job. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind cutting the grass. My lawn mower has a cup holder and a seat now. Its great! Trimming around the trees on the other had, I could do without. Snow blowing takes me about an hour. Bigger yard. More work. But I also have a new toy to snow blow with. Don’t mind it at all. I guess what I’m getting at is that living in the country, yard work takes a lot longer. Simply because there is more yard to work. I love it.

Another thing that was a major draw to move here was price. Real estate price. Now, I’m not coming from a market like Toronto. But moving here I got a bigger house, a garage, barn and about 25 of those double lots I was coming from. For about 70% the price (and that’s without the extra land). Property tax is also about a quarter of what it is in the city. You can get a lot more house moving out of the city. But your going to give up all the convenience.

By that I mean, shopping. It’s a half day affair to go grocery shopping now. Or if we need something out of the ordinary, we can’t just run to the store to get it. Granted, we have really good stores in the small town close to us. And they can order the stuff and get it in a couple days. But if you need it now (think an elbow to hook up the water softener) your out of luck. I now have two deep freezers that I fill up every month or two. That way I don’t have to go shopping as often and the kids can eat. Growing kids eat a lot. Like A LOT. Having all this land is great for gardening. In the city I had a garden that was 10x20 feet. Couldn’t possibly grow enough to feed 4 growing kids. Now, I have 60x70 feet of garden! Its awesome. Lots of food. Again, more garden more work.

I guess the overall theme here is country living takes more work. If you’re the type that likes these kind of things, and can give up the convenience of having stores, restaurants, movie theatres, etc. close by and can deal with some unexpected expenses. You will love the country life, home grown food is the best!