The grocery store is far away, DoorDash doesn’t come here, and apparently the cows don’t care about the weather. I still wouldn’t trade it.
I love living on a ranch. I really do. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
But I’m also not going to pretend that rural life is convenient. There are some definite downsides to living in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes I think people who live in town have no idea how good they have it.
So, in the interest of full disclosure, here are ten of the downsides of rural ranch life.
1. The school bus ride is practically a road trip. My kids don’t hop on the bus and arrive at school ten minutes later. They get on early and make a tour of rural Oneida County before eventually arriving at school. By the time they get home, I sometimes feel like I should have packed them a pillow and a travel journal.
2. The grocery store is not around the corner. We don’t “run to the store.” There is no such thing. If I’m making dinner and discover I’m missing an ingredient, I have two choices: improvise or accept that dinner is going to be different than I planned. The grocery store is far enough away that forgetting a gallon of milk can turn into a full-blown expedition. Take that back, grandma is just across the driveway, so maybe I have a grocery store after all.
3. There isn’t a gas station on every corner. When you live in town, the gas gauge can get pretty low before you start thinking about filling up. Out here, you pay attention or you pay up in the most humiliating call of shame for help. There isn’t always a gas station conveniently located five minutes from wherever you happen to be. Running out of gas isn’t a minor inconvenience. It’s a really bad day.
4. DoorDash doesn’t come here. Neither does Uber Eats. Neither does pizza delivery.
Neither does grocery delivery. If we want something, we generally have to go get it ourselves. Apparently, “leave it on the porch” isn’t a universally available service.
5. Every errand requires planning. You can’t just decide you’re going to town for one thing. Because if you’re driving that far, you might as well get the other thing you need. And while you’re there, you should probably stop at the other store. And if you’re already there, you might as well pick up the kids’ stuff for tomorrow. A five-minute errand can turn into half a day.
6. Your kids can’t just walk to practice. The fist fight for practice times on the court or field leave your little league player with practices at the most inconvenient times. Oh, its no ones fault, it just stinks. And while you should be cooking dinner, hitting that meeting, or just getting the other babies taken care of, you are driving the long ride that you only wish you could make them walk. You just wouldn’t see them until tomorrow.
7. Half of date night is just spent driving to the date. He finally wants to take you out on the town, you get all dressed up and then sit in the truck for hours to get to that hot date. In the meantime, the romance has lost its sizzle as you rehashed the weekend schedule, argued about the kids, and had a heated discussion over who let the breachy cow through sorting earlier in the day. Good thing a hearty dinner and sweet dessert are just to fix the night, until the drive home, that is.
8. Winter makes everything harder. Winter living isn’t for the faint of heart. A trip to town that is already inconvenient can become a real adventure when the roads are covered in snow and ice. And unlike people who can simply decide not to leave the house because the weather is bad, ranchers still have livestock that need to be fed. The cows don’t care what the weather forecast says.
9. You have to, sorry, GET to fix things yourself. When you’re far away from town, you can’t always call someone and expect them to show up in twenty minutes. Or even the same day. You may have to wait a month for the appliance store to finally tell you that instead of sending a repairman to fix your washer, they will just reimburse you for a new one. It’s just not convenient. With a rancher that fixes pipe and electrical issues on the ranch, there’s no need to call an experienced, blue collar fix it man that can guarantee a repair. But you might have to wait to get on his schedule after the cows are taken care of. Which is never. But hey, you saved on the bill, so it all works out in the end.
10. The wildlife isn’t always as charming as it sounds. People love the idea of seeing wildlife when they live in the country. And I’ll admit, there is something pretty cool about looking out the window and seeing a deer in the field or watching a bald eagle circle overhead.
But rural wildlife isn’t always a Hallmark movie. The deer you thought were beautiful five minutes ago can eat your garden. Mice are considerably less adorable when they move into your house. Skunks have no respect for personal property. Snakes have a remarkable ability to appear exactly where you don’t want them. Then there are the coyotes, who seem to have a personal vendetta against anything you might want to keep alive.
But rural wildlife isn’t always a Hallmark movie. The deer you thought were beautiful five minutes ago can eat your garden. Mice are considerably less adorable when they move into your house. Skunks have no respect for personal property. Snakes have a remarkable ability to appear exactly where you don’t want them. Then there are the coyotes, who seem to have a personal vendetta against anything you might want to keep alive.
Living in the country means you get the beautiful wildlife and the wildlife that makes you grab a broom and start yelling.
But here’s the thing. For nearly every one of these inconveniences, there is something on the other side that makes me wonder why I would ever want to trade it. Yes, the grocery store is far away. But so are the crowds. Yes, my kids spend a long time on the school bus.
But they also spend their afternoons outside, with room to roam and a ranch full of things to learn.
Yes, we have to drive for almost everything. But when we drive home, we’re coming home to a place where our kids can work, play, ride horses, chase calves, build forts, and learn what it means to be responsible for something other than themselves.
I may wish for DoorDash but I’ll take freezer full of beef. Rural life comes with a list of inconveniences. A pretty long list, actually. But for nearly every hard thing about living here, there is something even better on the other side.
And for us, not a single one of those inconveniences is worth giving up what we have.
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