Winter's almost over

And I'm glad of that. This year has been short and brutal, and my body is just too old to take that much walking uphill, period. I know, exercise is good to keep the body young, but mine has too much damage from bad genetics, and it isn't as good for me as for others. Thankfully, my kids missed out on the bad genes, but for me, with my heart condition, this kind of thing bites.

But country living does have it's terrific aspects. Neighbors close enough to be neighbors but far enough that they are not right on top of you. You have all the privacy you want and need. Plenty of room for a garden and orchard and a ton of wildlife around you to nature-watch. Warm weather brings open windows, fresh breezes, and the sounds of tree frogs and crickets at night to soothe you to sleep. Cold weather brings out the heavy blankets to put on the bed for comfy, cozy sleep then that makes you not want to get up. Spring brings starting the garden, leaves poking from tree branches to begin the process of greening up for the year, songbirds singing up a storm, and so much more. The changing of the seasons really brings home the many reasons to live in the country.

The only real problem is the citiots. Those are the folks who come from the city to live in the country and expect it to be just like the city, only with more trees. There's one property at the top of our mountain that's been sold about four times in just under three years. Why? The biggest complaint I hear is the mountain road in the winter. Just because they have 4x4, but it's not plowed five minutes after the snow quits, and never gets salted or sanded (it's a dead-end road with nowhere for the salt truck to turn around), and it's a steep road, and the top is three miles uphill ... well, gosh, you'd think folks had moved to purgatory! If it's not the snow and ice getting to them, it's the mud making it hard for a 4x4 to get up and down. Or the fact that the mailboxes are at the bottom of the road, rather than having it at LEAST delivered to the end of their drive. Or that trash doesn't get picked up by a truck every week and has to either be hauled to the landfill (and paid for to drop it off) or burned. Phone service is difficult to get (we almost all have cell phones up here, not landline, as everything is long-distance via landline). Internet and TV have to be satellite in order to get decent service. Grocery stores and gas stations are anywhere from 10-30 miles away. And so on. All the things us country folk take for granted as being something we have to deal with as minor inconveniences, in exchange for being able to have other things that are more important to us, are what the citiots complain about.

Yes, country living and homesteading is rough, and a lot of work, but it's worth it. I have so much fun at it. Every little thing I can do is nice. Mind, having emergency services more accessible would be nice, but I do love the country overall. Now it's time for a quick nap before I have to hike down to the car (ouch, my arthritis!!) and head in to work. I need to have energy for that and to work on the webstore when I get home. Gonna be another long day, but thankfully, this looks like the last week of winter weather around here! I'm glad of that, because I'm tired of being tired all the time. (I sleep better with windows open and night critters making racket than in the quiet of winter, haha.)