The Country Life

Being a transplant from the city to the country has many battles and life is not always as pleasant and peaceful as I may make it out to be. One of the hardest situations that I have not been able to grow acustom to is the intense weather conditions that we are always being over loaded with.

One of the first months that I had moved out here, I recall driving home into the country during a very intense lightning show. I remember how hard the rain was beating down on the highway and every time I saw the lightning crack through the sky down to the ground and hear the beating of the thunder I wanted to crawl under my steering wheel in fetal position and rock myself back and forth. Out here nothing is in the way between you and the thunderstorm, tornado, blizzard, whatever. There's no buildings to block the wind gusts or houses upon houses all stacked up in a line like a mighty fortress against the weather conditions to make you feel safe. In the country you are exposed and vulnerable to whatever mother nature has in store for you and you better make yourself prepared. 

City people cannot seem to make this connection no matter how much I try to explain to them how dangerous and frightening it can be. I remember one time it was snowing sideways and I couldn't get out of my driveway due to a 3 foot drift and my friend from Ft.Wayne had said, "Well, can you try and make it..it's not that bad here" 

 Just when you feel as though you have all of your game plans in order for every scenario, then something crazy like a "Gustnado" appears out of nowhere and rips off a few roofs and levels a few buildings here and there. This last summer we had a "Derecho" or "Land Hurricane" that also came out of nowhere which twisted and threw two Oak Trees that we had on our property that were well over a hundred years old and split apart a third tree. 

I remember the first year I had lived here I came home one day to a smoking hundred year old Oak Tree that lightning had stuck. I'll never forget the weird sensation that the ground gave my feet. It was as if there was still electricity flowing through it. I wouldn't believe how powerful it was to pierce a tree and pull pieces off that were ten feet in length and throw them across the road.

So why do we live here? Why do we put up with all of the crazy weather out here in the country? Because we'd rather live nowhere else. The country life makes up for it all!