Rural VS City living

CA_Bgrwldr

Well-known member
Messages
168
Good Post Points
50
Location
Grass Valley, CA
Welder
Hobarts
Rural on acreage as well. Not as remote now as when growing up, I have have neighbors I can see, but not close enough to be an issue wih noise.
 

poncho62

Well-known member
Messages
83
Good Post Points
61
Location
Ontario, Canada
Rural on 1 1/2 acres. It's in a tiny hamlet, no store or anything. About 4 miles to town. I grew up and spent most of my life in a medium sized town 1/2 hr from Canada's largest city.....I much prefer rural.
 

Yomax4

Well-known member
Messages
169
Good Post Points
52
Location
MN.
25 miles from the nearest stop light. Several small towns but no stop lights. 40 acres hooked up to 1240 acres of stare forest. closest neighbor is 1.6 miles away. Been here 14 years and came from big city cul de sac. Can't stand the city.
 

California

Well-known member
Messages
383
Good Post Points
147
Location
Sonoma County
'Ranch' is an 11 acre apple orchard. This area north of San Francisco was rural when my grandparents first moved there 80 years ago, now its transforming into mostly vineyards. Many of the real farmers have sold to wealthy SF city weekenders. We live at the ranch half the time, more when possible, and ignore the city people who bought around us for the country 'ambiance' that our orchard provides as their view. This old mature orchard is like living in a forest and we can ignore the evolution surrounding us.

Alternately, in bad weather etc we're at our home in a city 100 miles east of there. I'm hoping to buy an EV this year for our constant shuttling back and forth. I prefer to be at the ranch while my wife won't abandon all her connections in the city. Still married after 40+ years, sometimes you have to work out a compromise.

So I guess you can say we live in both worlds.
 

coupman35

Active member
Messages
26
Good Post Points
9
Location
Canada Ontario
Welder
225 older lincon and Lincon Mig
SMALL TOWN IN NORTHEN ONTARIO I HAVE ABOUT A ACRE .5 MINUTE FROM TOWN LOVE IT . WILL NEVER MOVE TO A BIG CITY JUST GO FOR SHOPPING .
 

PILOON

Well-known member
Messages
177
Good Post Points
54
Location
North of Montreal
Welder
Hobart 200 stick
I have the best of both worlds.
Live 1 hour north of Montreal in Laurentien foothills on a small lake that is spring fed and at the head of the watershed.
The lake water is so pure that most use it in lieu of wells.
Moose, deer, geese and assorted other wildlife like lynx and wild turkeys etc.
We are surrounded by gov't 'state land' that will remain green space forever.
Best yet it was opened up to cottagers on a lease to own back in the '50's when I came here.
LOL, Wallmart's 1/2 hr either direction plus a Cosco 1/2 hr to the south.
Most dub it as 'Paradise'.
Can U beat that?
 

Craig

Member
Messages
15
Good Post Points
15
Location
The Last County of Washington
Welder
Lincoln 210 tig/stic and 140c mig, Ox-gas, and a plasma torch
I grew up in a big city...

Married & bought a brand new 'starter home' way out in the desert suburbs, in a massive housing tract of little cookie-cutter homes. I never realized I was in a 'yard-keeping war' with the entire neighborhood! One day I mow the lawn in an East/West direction and then next time I mow in a North/South direction. No big deal, right? Well, one time I mow the yard in a diagonal direction... You'd think I brought on the Apocalypse! I finish up, put away the tools, and come inside to hear the phone ringing. I answer, it is a neighbor calling, wants to know if I hired a yard service?

I tell him, 'No' and they reply asking why my lawn is cut in a diagonal pattern?

Being young and trying to keep on a good relation with my neighbors I explain myself, 'I just felt like cutting it that way today', (Nowadays I'd have just started off telling him where to stuff it!) The guy flips-out and insists only a "Professional" should cut a lawn in a diagonal pattern! I hung up the phone on him.

The next time I mowed the lawn, I dropped the cut height on the right as low as it can go and raised the left to high as it can go. Then I started my cut in the center of my front lawn and made a spiral cut all the way out. After I put up the tools and come inside I see this crank on the sidewalk taking photos of my lawn, (this was pre-digital camera days)!

Next thing I know I get a letter form the HOA telling me I am under "Investigation" for being in violation of HOA rules and am invited to the next meeting to hear the charges and prepare my retort. I blew them off and never heard another word about it.

That above is just one example - I've lost count of them all.

Jump ahead -

Nowadays I live on 60+ acres and only hear my neighbors if they happen to be target shooting or hunting. I can mow in all the crop circles I care to and nobody has a problem with any of it. I can never go back to living wall-to-wall again.
 

Bearskinner

Well-known member
Messages
270
Good Post Points
85
Location
N. Idaho
Welder
Miller
So far everyone lives rurally. I know I will never live in city limits. I can’t see any of my neighbors, we’re in the Forrest so no one can see in either. I like it that way. Until you drive down the driveway a few hundred feet, it’s thick, you can’t see buildings, then it opens up to a few acres of park like area, with the house and shops.
In 20 minutes I can get to a Costco, Home Depot, North 40, McDonalds, etc. that’s convenient, but I don’t go to town much. It’s heaven on earth out on the ranch. We have deer, Moose, turkeys, coyotes, quail etc every day.
 

California

Well-known member
Messages
383
Good Post Points
147
Location
Sonoma County
I would never buy anywhere with a HOA.
Our neighbors in town are great. Some are friends that we occasionally share activities with, some are just respected acquaintances. Latest example - wife next door is a full time gardening hobbyist. 10~20 years ago she got our permission to plant a tree at the edge of our yard, to make her landscaping more perfectly symmetrical. Whatever. She paid for the tree and professional planting. It looks good there. Now its roots are threatening to lift her driveway. She wants to contract to have it removed, we offered to pay, we settled at half. All friendly negotiations, no conflict.

At the ranch, similar. We gave a couple of jars of our blackberry jam to the couple of women across the lane, next day we found in the mailbox a bottle of the wine they had grown and bottled. Mutual respect.

Yep deer, turkeys, coyotes, quail here too. Occasionally bobcat, weasel and fox, including one that naps on our deck. Jackrabbits and cottontails but alternating with the predators. And twice we've had peacocks move in with us for months. Friendly so I suspect those were abandoned pets. We never feed a peacock but neighbors have made that mistake. The county dogcatcher lady stopped by and said some neighbors were frightened by the peacock demanding to be fed daily and battering their screens, and they thought he was ours. I said no but I would lecture the peacock sternly next time we saw him.

Hey M.C. This site needs a 'photos of my place' section!
 

Bearskinner

Well-known member
Messages
270
Good Post Points
85
Location
N. Idaho
Welder
Miller
Hey M.C. This site needs a ‘photos of my place’ section!
Start a new thread in something like off topic area. Lots of folks do a great job making their place their idea of perfect, and rightly are proud of all their hard work
 

PILOON

Well-known member
Messages
177
Good Post Points
54
Location
North of Montreal
Welder
Hobart 200 stick
I grew up on a waterfront riverside property but that is now polluted.
I now am on a spring fed 'top of the watershed' lake.
When first married I had a cookie box house in suburbs.
The neighbor would weekly cut, trim feed pamper his lawn like it was gold. BUT made his kids play in the ditch so as not trample the grass.
LOL, I one day tossed a handful of high nitrogen fertilizer in the middle of the front yard.
 

sea2summit

Active member
Messages
33
Good Post Points
15
I move all the time for work, every time I move I tell the agent I want no HOA and the ability to shoot off the back porch before I’ll even look at a house. Had one that didn’t get the message until the second house she took us too didn’t meet those standards and I told her she was fired if she took us to another one.

Anyway, currently 40 minutes from Walmart, 13 miles from a stoplight, 27 acres. As much land as we’ve ever had but it’s awesome.
 

Bearskinner

Well-known member
Messages
270
Good Post Points
85
Location
N. Idaho
Welder
Miller
B78B6DE0-6774-400D-B4CB-23CED6C7558F.jpegIts really nice to have a series of shooting ranges on your property, I ran a road thru an area where the trees were the thinnest, ran a road out 200 yards and built 4 heavy backstops of railroad ties, with 4 feet of soil packed in front.
 

dragoneggs

Member
Messages
12
Good Post Points
1
Location
Seabeck, WA
Born in the city (Seattle), grew up in the suburbs (Bellevue), built a house a bit outside of the suburbs (Redmond)... that is until Microsoft moved in. And now live in a pretty much rural place. 10mi to the nearest gas station and town. Don't think I will move again but do appreciate the wildlife, the view, a piece of land that I can do what I want, and the privacy.
 

tmechanic

Member
Messages
5
Good Post Points
1
I live on 3.3 acres 5 mi. from town, apparently it was in a subdivision, a fact which was not disclosed to 12 of the 15 people living in this tiny subdivision. Everyone showed up at the 1 and only meeting of the HOA, which had no board, or officers, and we were all shown a book that had all of our signatures, but all of the signatures were the same person, who, it turns out, was the developers lawyer. He bought all of the lots from the original developer, who had bought the original 40 acres and then split it into 2 20 acres subdivisions, no one wanted my 3.3 acres with the swamp and existing buildings, so the developer who bought the 20 acres that I was attached to set up an HOA and tried to lump me into it because I'm right between two of his properties. I was not amused, neither were the other 11 people who were never told about the HOA, so we voted 14 to 1 that as soon as the last lot was sold and built the HOA would cease to exist. I enjoy my little 3 acre plot amongst the 1.5 acre cookie cutter houses
 

Gary Fowler

Well-known member
Messages
717
Good Post Points
200
I grew up on a farm that was 20 miles to the nearest small town. I moved to the big city (Houston, Texas) at the age of 24 where I lived of and on (when I wasnt working out of country or out of state)till I retired. Now I live 20 miles to the nearest town but only 4 miles to the first redlight where I find the closest gas station.
I live on 11.29 acres of land and do have neighbors across the road from me, but they are good neighbors and all is quiet. We have folks that come from as far away as Chicago to visit because of the peace and quiet I have, not to mention the view from my back porch. It is so relaxing to sit outside at night and only hear the frogs singing. I even had a couple of friends from Alberta Canada come for a weekend visit. Everyone who comes once, comes back again just to relax and unwind from the hectic city life. A couple of visitors just left today after spending 5 days.
I am isolated enough that I can take a leak just about anywhere on my property without thought of someone seeing me. There are no building codes or permits to deal with. I would never live in a HOA managed community again which is where I moved from to get here.
 
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