Maggie Shayne--Country Living

Ahh, life in rural America. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love my new house in the middle of nowhere, I love it more every day, and I’ve lived in the country long enough to be able to deal with the down sides to rural life. The benefits far outweigh them. My back lawn, for example, hosts a small herd of bunnies, a deer now and then, a flock of wild turkeys, and yesterday, a gorgeous pheasant picked his way across the grass. Down side? Well, it’s a big lawn. Huge, actually. I bought a riding mower, and it took me well over two hours, maybe close to three, to mow the entire thing. And since it was a warm weekend, I discovered one other down side—wasps. I’ve spotted ten hives on the house and the outbuildings. When mowing I couldn’t get too close to those outbuildings without risking an all out attack, and I still haven’t been able to trim the hedge near the front door. But that’s not a huge problem. I hate to kill anything, but in this case, it’s the wasps or me, so they have to go. I was going to call an exterminator, but the temperatures have changed drastically from very warm to very cold, and the wasps have huddled in their nests. I figure I’ll have all winter to figure out how to deal with them. Maybe I can scrape the nests off, and take them far, far away, leaving them undamaged and the wasps alive. Just as long as they don’t wake up during the process. (Suggestions are welcome!) While they’re sleeping, I’ll get that hedge trimmed!

I love my road. It’s winding, rarely traveled, lined with trees that are exploding with color right now, and it twists and turns past a gorgeous pond that looks like something you’d see on the travel channel. I rode my bike five miles on that road the other day, using the odometer to clock it so I’ll know how far I’m running when I do that instead. Down side to the winding road? Not much of one. It’s washboard rough, but only in places. Most of it’s pretty smooth. I’m sure it’ll present a challenge in the winter, but I have yet to meet a road I can’t handle through sleet, snow, slush or ice, so I’m not concerned about that. I thought I had discovered a major downside when it took me a week to find someone to pick up the garbage. Everyone I called said they wouldn’t come “way the heck up there.” But I finally found a company whose ad in the tiny town shopper lists my road by name as one of the places they serve. I phoned them and they’ll begin next Tuesday.

I love my climate and geography. The hills and lakes and forests, and the vibrant changing colors that make me glad to be alive at this time of year. I love the changing seasons—possibly because I get bored easily. Down side? The snow in the winter, I suppose, if you can call it a down side. It’s beautiful, and it makes me laugh like a child. But it also needs to be managed. Plowed, shoveled, cleared off the roof. I hadn’t thought much about that yet, until, after a weekend in the 70’s, I saw snow flurries in the forecast by week’s end. Yikes. So I did some research, asked some opinions, and ordered myself a snow thrower. Better to be ready for the snow before it gets here. I have a snow shovel on the back deck, and I’m going to need to buy a very long ladder, so I can keep the roof clear if necessary.

Other jobs I plan to tackle this week: getting the oil changed in my car, making a date with the mechanic to get my snow tires put on and my brakes checked out, putting the gas grill into one of the outbuildings and rolling up the garden hose, moving the few remaining boxes from my old house to here, buying a few key pieces of furniture that can’t wait, hanging new curtains in the bedrooms, babysitting my daughter’s great dane, writing 60 pages, and working out 4 days out of 7. Longer term plans I intend to put into motion include building a two car garage, and having the long neglected little pond, currently overgrown with brush and filled with limbs and weeds, scooped out, deepened and cleaned up. I intend to get estimates on both those jobs before snow flies, and maybe even get one or the other of them done. I think the garage is probably most important.

I’m on a kind of a power trip at the moment. As each new challenge comes along, I weigh my options, make a decision, and deal with it in the way I decide is best. It’s empowering to be a woman in total charge of her own life, and to realize that I can handle anything that comes up. Maybe that seems obvious to others, but I’m honestly on my own for the first time in my entire life, and all of this is new to me. And I’m loving every minute of it. Every decision I make, every job I tackle, every issue I handle, makes me stand a little straighter and hold my head a little higher. It makes me feel strong, capable, self-sufficient, emancipated, and amazing. And it makes me realize what an awesome gift it is to be born female. I love being a woman!

Maggie