Country Girl Convert: Part 3

***Disclaimer***

This post was set to auto publish on July 22, but for some reason it didn't :(


I can't say that this last installment of Rachel's story is the conclusion because her journey did not end with these words. Like all of us, Rachel is living a life that is in constant  progress.

Marcheta *ever onward

 

Country Girl Convert: From the city to the country one day at a time Part 3

And the air – the air was crisp and sweet every morning, not like the smog-filled dusty air we tried to breath in the city.

My husband built a desk for me by a window so I could write each evening after supper. I was able to finish my first novel in nine months.

We sat outside listening to the evening noises, swatting the few mosquitoes that made it past the yard spray and rejoiced at the absence of arguing neighbors, bright lights and sirens.

We thanked God for good neighbors who helped us, accepted us for who we were, gave us lots of free advice from years of country experience and knew our names instead of neighbors who ignored us, avoided us and told us in no uncertain terms that we had too many children.

No one complained about the dead car in our driveway. No one called the cops because of a fight in the upstairs apartment. No rental manager gave us a letter saying baby number three was not an option at this establishment – only two kids per apartment. No gang kids knifed our tires or broke into our cars. No rebellious teens walked past our house smoking dope, yelling obscenities.

I wanted out of the city to escape the noise, the crime, the danger. But I realize now, looking back on 20 years of country living I traded even-up for incessant tree frogs, raccoons and poison ivy. But that's fine by me. Tree frogs sing for a season. Sirens are year-round.

Now, on lonely nights when I can't sleep, I open a window in the living room and sleep on the couch, glancing at the picture window watching for a moth, listening to the semi trucks going by on the highway and remembering the good times at my grandmother's house.

Dreams are hard work. But they are worth it.

Bio

Rachel H.T. Mendell lives in Morrow County, Ohio. The family raises rabbits, chickens and cats, puts in a large garden each year and plants lots of trees. Rachel can be reached by emailing mendell.rachel7@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this article you can see others like it on her blog Domestic Mobility (http://www.domesticmobility.blogspot.com) and her website Rachel H.T. Mendell (http://www.rachelhtmendell.com).

 

Country Girl Convert: Part 2

Today guest blogger Rachel Mendell continues her story of how she and her family adjusted to country life after years of urban existence.

Marcheta *learning a thing or two :)



Country Girl Convert: From the city to the country one day at a time. Part 2

“Let's get chickens!” suggested my husband one day. I was less than excited. I was exhausted. Chickens would be one more thing on a long list of duties I couldn't keep up with. He talked of his dreams as well, “running a few head” of cows, pigs, “maybe even goats.” All I could think of was the stench of the dead raccoon deposited by a high-velocity truck right next to our mail box and imagined living with similar smells for the rest of my life.

And the garden... Gardens to me were nicely tilled forever patches to plant seeds in every year. Our reality was six to ten inches of solid sod to cut through before a vegetable bed could even be ready to prepare.

Yes, I was immature. Yes, I had been starry eyed.

Then one day I sat and had a long heart to heart with myself. This was my dream. Yes, the dream had been unrealistic, but I sure didn't want to move back to town or give up on making something of the property we had worked so hard to buy.

So I wrote. I scribbled the 10 levels of wind velocity I charted in my head – from lovely warm breeze suitable for laundry hanging (1) to icy-cold-rip-the-neighbor's-tree-down-and-throw-it-in-our-driveway wind (10).  I found inspiration in the orb spiders that created little parachutes to travel to places unknown. I pondered the pros and cons of our naturally really hard water versus mechanically produced soft water.

And I worked. I dug holes for trees – one hole for every four that Dave dug. I planted pines, oaks and apple trees. I cut weeds. I went for long walks around the property gathering specimens and using library books to identify strange and wonderful grasses and flowers. We put in a garden that did okay.

And when things got tough I thought about my high school days dodging drug dealers and prostitutes on my way home from school in inner city Phoenix. If I could do that, I sure could run off the dogs from who-knows-where that came to see what we were up to. If I could stand up to a drug pusher and say “no,” I sure could brandish my broom and scare away curious critters.

And I realized one day that we were winning back the land. A little bit at a time I could see civilization forming. We carved a front and back lawn out of a five-plus acre weed patch. We built a fire ring for roasting hamburgers and marshmallows. The boys were building tree forts in the old trees by themselves. The girls were dressing barbies in leaves and flowers. My children learned respect for the hunters who asked permission to track deer through our back lot in the fall. We shared the wonder of new bird song, new flowers every spring, new bugs, snakes, frogs … and even a weasel. I found wild black raspberries, dew berries, blackberries and elderberries – free food if I could brave the creatures who were willing to share with me.

 

Bio

Rachel H.T. Mendell lives in Morrow County, Ohio. The family raises rabbits, chickens and cats, puts in a large garden each year and plants lots of trees. Rachel can be reached by emailing mendell.rachel7@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this article you can see others like it on her blog Domestic Mobility (http://www.domesticmobility.blogspot.com) and her website Rachel H.T. Mendell (http://www.rachelhtmendell.com).

 

Country Girl Convert

For the next few days I will be sharing the story of the power of determination. This is guest blogger Rachel's account of the journey her family took from city life to country life. And, as most journey's start, it all began with a dream.

 

A BIG dream!

 

I know that you'll enjoy reading Rachel's story as much as I did :)

 

Marcheta *lover of Big Dreams

 

 

 

CountryCountry Girl Convert: From the city to the country one day at a time

By Rachel H.T. Mendell

When I was a little girl growing up in the small town of Kimberly, Wisconsin, I used to love visiting my grandmother in the country a few miles from Waupaca. She lived right on the highway so it was easy to find. She enjoyed on 40 acres of meadow and woods so there was plenty to do. She kept a garden path mowed for us to walk to the scattered apple trees and the line of plum bushes without having to battle high weeds. There was a little slope next to her screened in porch that we would sled down in the summer using flattened cardboard boxes. I wanted to live there forever and cried when we had to go home.

Inside my grandmother's house was a mysterious collection of books, art supplies, old furniture, moth-balled closets and musty basement. It was a glorious place to visit and I looked forward to my one week alone with her each summer. I got to sleep on the cozy living room couch. On warm nights she kept the porch door open so I could listen to the tree frogs, night birds and the occasional passing semi. Somehow hearing those trucks going by comforted me. Sometimes, when I was afraid of the dark, she would leave the lamp by the large front window lit. And that produced even more wonders, including a large mint Luna Moth resting on the glass trying to get to the light.

When my family moved to Phoenix I mourned the end of my Gramma's House Days. I loved the desert and still do, but I missed the green everywhere and the snow and the seasons.

When Dave and I got married, we both dreamed of living in the country. I wanted to live in a house like my grandmother's. He wanted to live on a farm like his uncle's.

Then, in 1997, we realized our dream. There we were, atop a hill, drinking well water and having bonfires every night.

The honeymoon lasted a week – tops. The reality of country living hit me hard, so hard that I began to regret my dream, so hard that I complained about my new house. Poison ivy plagued me and the children. Dave was gone 10-12 hours every day because he still worked in Columbus. The dead groundhog began to stink – we figured it was killed when the construction men back-filled over the foundation. The push mower was too heavy for me to mow more than 20 minutes at a time so the yard was composed of tall weeds. Then there was the cleaning, cooking, tick inspection, thorns from the hawthorn bushes embedded in balls, evil bugs like yellow jackets, long shopping trips, library trips for overdue fines … a million trips “to town” to get what I needed. And mud. So. Much. Mud.

This was hard. Really hard.

Bio

Rachel H.T. Mendell lives in Morrow County, Ohio. The family raises rabbits, chickens and cats, puts in a large garden each year and plants lots of trees. Rachel can be reached by emailing mendell.rachel7@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this article you can see others like it on her blog Domestic Mobility (http://www.domesticmobility.blogspot.com) and her website Rachel H.T. Mendell (http://www.rachelhtmendell.com).

A Babe in the Woods

Just look at this adorable newborn, all snug in its grassy nest, trying to figure out what life is like on the "outside". :)


Jim came across it when he was mowing an open area by the woods.  The baby was in tall grass beside a tree. I guess the mother thought it was a great hiding spot. How could she know that it was a danger zone; that the humans who lived on the property occasionally mowed around the woods to help keep ticks, etc, at bay?

I am thankful that Jim saw our baby fawn in time to avoid catastrophe!


Lawn mowers aside, this baby had a rough first day. Although its nest was in the shade during the morning, by late afternoon the sun was beating down on him. But maybe the baby enjoyed the heat, what do I know?

I staked out with my camera in one of Jim's truck (which was parked within camera range of the "nest") that evening to see if the mother would come be with her baby, or move it to another location (which is what they do, put the baby in tall grass in hopes of hiding it from predators during the day and the tending to them at night).

Soon after I was set up in the truck, it began to rain. :(

It was twilight, and no mother to be found. The temps dropped quite a bit, the rain became more intense, and it started lightning. Surely the mother would come protect her baby, I thought.


But.... she didn't.

I wanted to set up the EZ up awning that we use for our farmers market stand over the baby for shelter, but I knew better than to interfere.

When it got good and dark, I gave up watching for "mom", snuck out of the truck and made a dash for the warmth and dryness of my home, feeling sad about the baby deer's predicament.

The next morning the baby was still there. Did the mom come during the night? I have no way of knowing. It was Memorial Day and we left to spend time with our kids in Columbus.

When we got home, the baby deer had been moved. An imprint of the baby's body was all there was left in the tall grass to document that new life was there for a while.


I felt happy that I was able to see such a young deer, and even more happy that the mom did her job.

Jim told me not to worry about baby deer. Their fur coats shelter them from the weather, and their moms know what is best to keep them safe.

The World of Nature has many lessons for us. The textbook is free, all we need are our eyes and ears. :)

Marcheta *loving the wonderful Memorial Day memory

Solar Snow

"Unusual weather we're having, ain't it?" ...the Cowardly Lion

The weather this winter has been one crazy ride, for sure! Flipping from mid 70's to low 30's and then back again, all within a few days, has most of us wondering, what season is it, really? This year winter felt more like Autumn, with a few Summer and a few Winter days tossed in just for fun.



And the past few days have been extra interesting. It is very cold again and snowing extremely hard for short bursts while the sun is out in full glory. Seems like Old Sol doesn't quite know what season it is, either. It's getting on in years, you know, and I wonder about its mental health. Either that, or it likes to have a few good laughs now and then at Earthling's expense. :0



The other day, while waiting on a train during a trip to a neighboring town, we had a nice bout of what I call "solar snow". I wish that I had my Galaxy EK-CG 110 point and shoot camera with me because it does a wonderful job capturing blue and pink rays from the sun. My Canon 7D...not so much. But it is the camera that I had with me, limiting my options.

*****IMPORTANT******

Never, EVER, look at the sun through the viewfinder of a camera. It will severely damage your eyes, maybe even blind you.

What I did was to aim near where I wanted to shoot, took it away from my face and moved the camera up a bit to get a corner of the sun. I also do not want to damage the camera's sensor, so I was careful to not get the full sun. This seemed the safest way to get what I was going for with the camera I had with me.

With a point and shoot camera, of course, you can frame the sun how you want it using the LCD screen. Again, be mindful of how intense the light is on your camera's sensor. I could have done that with my SLR, too, by switching it to "live view", but these solar snows do not last very long and I had to work fast. After just a few shots the snow had stopped...see how it is?  Very camera shy this winter.

I do like "Solar Snows". They break up the monopoly of the bleak weather we've had this winter by giving us something unusual to marvel at.

Marcheta *I DO believe in Global Warming, I do, I do, I DO believe in Global Warming