- Talk to your neighbours/people on the road. We're not going to kill you, and in some cases it could save your life, keep you from getting robbed, or just be good if you have any general questions about things and how they work. Introduce yourself, talk a bit. Out here, if anything happens, it's going to take a bit of time before an emergency service arrives in response. When our neighbours started renting the house to the west of us, they introduced themselves, chatted a bit, and eventually, after a couple months we had all agreed to keep our eyes open for suspicious activities, strange vehicles, etc at each other's houses.
- DO NOT act like you are better than your neighbours because they're JUST farmers, so they must be country bumpkins, and dirt poor. Why would you act like that with anyone? (Unless they REALLY deserve it, but usually, most people don't.) Also, without farmers, what would you eat? I once had a substitute teacher when I was in high school, it was still kind of early in the year, probably end of October, beginning of November. She usually taught at a city school, she was a city girl, she really didn't know anything about farm area (to the extent of "It took me FOREVER to get here from ____!! I thought the drive would never end!" Um, okay, that's a 15 minute drive. 15 minutes. If THAT is a long drive I hope you never have to drive all the way across the city from here.) Now then, add the time of year together with a school in a farming community and the fact this is Ontario, Canada. Yes almost a third to half the class is missing. To us students, the answer was simple. Harvesting. To the teacher, it made no sense. "Don't their parents care about their education?! Why would they keep them home?! Don't they want their children to have an education?! To succeed?!" Um... because once they're done here the majority of them will be earning their livings as a farmer...? As for how long they'll be out of school, if the weather holds, 3 or 4 days. A week tops. If it rains, they'll be back until the weather's good again. Also... why would you assume they lack an education? Why would being a farmer not be succeeding? She didn't have any answers to that, and she very quickly got back on track with the work our teacher had left.
- If you don't like the rural area, why did you move here? If you didn't like the city, maybe you should have tried one of the suburbs between the north edge of the city, and here. Still out of the main city (you can't take a bus from there unless you walk the 5-10 minutes down the hill to the mall to catch one) yet not quite into the country to require you to drive everywhere.
- No matter how much literature your real estate agent gives you, it will NEVER cover everything you need to know about living out here.
- Yes, you pay a small fee for (basically unlimited - the city has a limit of 4 bags per week) garbage and recycling pick up in your land taxes. Apparently you thought this was a great deal, and didn't bother to read the rest of the pamphlet. They will not take your garbage unless you put a garbage tag on it. These can be bought at the convenience store in Ballymote for something like $1.75 each. Also, you smell smoke, you see everyone burning their leaves, no one else has leaves in bags down at the road that haven't been picked up on garbage day... mainly because we don't have yard waste disposal, for rather obvious reasons - You now live on an acre or more of land, covered with trees that lose their leaves... you getting the picture yet? Compost it, burn it, or leave it alone. Those are your choices.
- If anything is left at your driveway on garbage day, it could be that you put your stuff out too late, or something is wrong with it. This usually happens with recycling. DO NOT leave it at the road to get blown into the road, hit by cars, spread everywhere by animals etc etc. Take it back to your house, fix it, put it out next week.
- On this road, your garbage goes on the SOUTH side. If you look around, yours is the only garbage on the north side. The problem as to why your garbage is not getting picked up is rather obvious, isn't it?
- Stop freaking out about power outages. They happen. Espeically in this area. Particularly in bad weather. It will come back on eventually, it takes the hydro crews a little bit of time to locate the problem and get a team out here. If it bothers you that much - buy a generator.
- Stop whining about a lack of cable, and cable based internet. We do not have cable out here. Get satellite or shut the fuck up. No, living here does NOT mean "dial-up only." I should know. We've had high speed/DSL for a while now. The trick is finding a supplier that offers service in our area. There's about 6 that I know of for sure. Ask your neighbours, they would know.
- In the winter, I WILL laugh at you (not to your face though) when I see you out shovelling your very long laneway. Mainly because yours is one of the few laneways not cleared. Why don't you just arrange to have the farmer down the road plow your laneway like he does everyone else's? I know people have told you about him before. It's not all that expensive (he only charges about $10 to $15 per time, if even), and doesn't need to be done all that often unless the weather is horrible.
- Yes our road is only half plowed. This is apparently called a "traffic lane" or some such. It means the road is clear enough for one vehicle to drive on the whole clear area, or for two vehicles to pass on the road, with at least 2 tires in the clear area. And by two tires I do not mean the 2 front tires of your car will be in the clear while you force me into the ditch. Fuck you. Move over.
- The township will plow the road completely when they have time. I remember it wasn't long ago when this road didn't get plowed AT ALL.
- The people parking their cars at the road end of their very long driveways are not stupid. They are not snowed in. However, I notice you are.
- Yes, snow is blowing into your yard from across the road. You live across the road from an open field, what did you expect?
- Keep. YOUR. Goddamn. Dog. OFF. MY. Property. You live like six houses down. That's almost 1/4 of a mile or more. Your dog had to cross both bridges and then some to get to my house. And then he shits all over my yard. My neighbours' dog is better behaved than that! And there's no fence around part of our property between theirs and ours. That dog only comes over if one of his owners comes over. And even then he doesn't shit in our yard. Next time I see your "precious purebred supposedly impressivly pedigreed hunting dog that you don't hunt" with in my yard, I'm calling animal control. Enjoy your fines and expenses for breaking the by-law. Side note: I don't really mind letting your dog run loose, SO LONG AS it will come when called, and doesn't wander too far from home. Even my neighbours' cats only wander around the few houses in our section of the road. They don't cause a lot of problems, and they help control the pest issue. But some people let their animals run wild, causing damage, injuries etc. I don't want to go knocking door to door going "Do you own a dog matching this description? You do? I'm very sorry to tell you I hit it."
- It's farm country, it's going to smell like animal poop occassionally, get used to it. And yes, there will be farm equipment using the road - learn to share the road.
- You live in an area without municipal water or sewage systems. This means you have a well, and you have a septic tank. I suggest you learn about these - where they are, what they do, how they work, and who to call when something goes wrong. Asking your neighbours also helps because they may be able to tell you quite a bit, even about your own property.
Thus ends a semi-pointless to the majority of people that will read it rant. No one said my blog had to have a purpose :p
Above: Random photo looking up my road at sunset Yes, I'm aware there's snow lol.
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