1) International Harvester tractors don't go over 5 miles an hour, but that doesn't stop farmers from driving them down the main roads, blocking up traffic for miles.
2) Cars that slide off the road in inclement winter weather stay parked in roadside ditches until spring comes.
3) Barns are more important than houses, sporting concrete floors, heating, air conditioning, and electricity while the family of 7 live in a trailer the size of my bathroom.
4) Farm animals smell really, really bad. God help you if you're downwind on a hot day.
5) People don't have street addresses. They refer to their homes' locations by their name: "I live up at Brown's Farm. I'm Farmer Brown." If you ask for their street address, their eyes spin around like they're having a grand mal seizure.
6) Teeth? Yeah, those are optional.
7) Being a farmer doesn't mean you eat right. Most farmer's kids live on a diet of Mountain Dew, Chocodiles, and Cheese Doodles. I've seen their grocery carts.
8) Nascar is God. And Dale JR. is the second coming.
9) Bathing, like teeth, is optional.
10) If you're watching a movie and there's a beautiful, Victorian-style farmhouse with a wrap-around porch and the barn is a stroll through a green meadow while fluffy white sheep and glossy black and white cows frolic, it's a set.
Here's the perfect example of a "set" farm:
Here's the perfect example of a "real" farm:
Can you tell the difference? You can? Excellent! You're one step closer to living in the country.
Now, just a minute! I happen to LOVE it up here- and you make it ALL sound bad! Not so! You left out the part about neighbors helping each other without being asked. In Jersey they would step over your inert body and be annoyed that you were blocking the way. Just a joking generalization, of course. Just like your description of where we live is a joking generalization. Well, that is except for the Nascar-and teeth-and the barns-and the trailers-But I digress.
ReplyDeleteI think that I am concerned that everyone will think we live somewhere horrible, which we don't. It is beautiful up here in the Endless Mountains, only 40 minutes away from Finger Lake Wine country. It is more accurate to say that you are a bona-fide 'city girl' who is just so darned out of place up here that you are very unhappy, and can't wait to move back to suburbia (shudder). Something I will never do.
Perhaps my contribution to the blog is to write NICE things about where we live!
Terry (Amy's Mom. 6 acres and a barn)
I live on 1/10 (one-tenth) of an acre. We have a swingset, trampoline, picnic table, a Little Tikes castle and a patch of grass the size of a beach blanket. While the Nascar would get on my nerves, I would definitely enjoy the wide-open space. My kids would enjoy not bathing, eating cheese doodles and hanging out with Aunt Amy. :)
ReplyDeleteCara that 1/10th sounds reallllly good right about now.Let me fill in a few things that my wife forgot.
ReplyDelete11.Everyone in civilization HAS cell phone service NOT here in MOFN,PA!!!!
12.If we wanna order pizza for dinner I have to drive 45 minutes to pick it up.Also ppl up here think good pizza consists of pizza off a roller not a pizza oven.
I'm sure there are more that I am leaving out also,but I'm sure you all get the idea.I long for the day that I have to sit in traffic or can get to the beach in a reasonable time from NOT have to take vacation days off from work and make a 5-6 hr. trek.
Erick
Being in South Jersey I have the best of both worlds. We have almost 4 acres with our animals, and Wawa, Pizza etc right down the road. I do love NASCAR and no Dale Jr. is NOT king LOL.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though. We just got back form visiting my parents in VA, and while i LOVE the seclusion, I do miss the convenience when we are down there.