City Slickers?

You're just a state away from where I'm probably going, chewie.

Yeah. Houses are usually either reasonably sized townhouses or giant McMansions. Most people here are living way beyond their means, and the price of everything is too high.

By the way, I drive a Subaru Forrester, but only as a hand-me-down from my dad, since I can't afford my own car, don't even have a job. I liked driving a Corolla much better for commuting to school purposes. Would never drive a Cadillac.

Not necessarily, I just got home from the foothills of N.C. Went to a wedding. I don't think I ever met a more clannish, rude group of people. The parents of the bride didn't even speak to anyone in the wedding party, except to their daughter. They like the groom, so that wasn't the problem.

I was told that they were shy and a little backward, give me a break. Nobody was flaunting anything over them. I believe if an outsider moved into that community it would not matter what they did or didn't do, they would never be accepted.

Lord have mercy,you folks with all them countryfied ways keep telling them "How Twos" and" What not to Do's"to all thim city folks, you gunna have all ovum out cher in the contree. Whats so bad is everybodys gunna be going around waving at everybody and ain't nobody gunna be ducking when they hear gun shots, cause its gota be Mr Smith a shooting them blackbirds in his corn.Everybodies gunna be acting all polite and nice and taking down them posted signs till afterwhile ain't noboy gunna know whos from the city and who ain't. How we gunna know whos one of us and who ain't? Mess around and shoot somebody fer tresspassing and come to find out they WAS on their own land and they was Kin ,cause so and so's oldest daughter moved to the city right after highschool,got married and moved back to mama and papa,s farm,and bought that city slikin husban with her.But to tell the truth,I was gunna let him get by this time, but when I hollard at him and told him he was tresspassing, he had the nerve to show me his middle finger.So I shot him.Found out later he was just waving,after his wife(kin,who had been gone so long she had for gotten about that finger thing) told me and admitted not remembering to tell him about that finger, was a no, no when waving.Now back to you all.See what all this getting along and waving can do? Shoot,If we get along all that good and never disagree,that ain't no fun. If I gotta live like that, Im a moving to the CITY LOL, Seriously you folks have brought up most of the reasons City and Country folks don't get along. Hopefully we all can find common ground,even though both sides may have to except some things we don't understand in order to make this "get along thing' work, and if we can pull that off,this world will be a better place to live for us all, and all that follow us. Eddie

some of you need to step back and read the hate thats spewing from your mouths, or is that fingers?

ill just say this,
not all slickers are bad just like not all country folk are good

I think it probably has a lot to do with the area. My wife and I are the newbies at our neck of the woods. We just have 15 acres, but we're fortunate. 90 % of the folks around here are very neighborly. Our place is on a hill and cars, trucks, and tractors go by all day...and slow. We always initiate a wave, and most (but not all) wave back. My wife and I work hard at our place and see us working 80% of daylight hours, and I think that has earned us a measure of respect. My wife and I are always friendly and she makes cookies for some of the neighbors, and I've lent a hand when people have needed some muscle for a job they're doing. There is one predominant last name in our area, in fact the road we built on has been given that name as well. We fell in good graces with that family. so maybe that's too why we've been accepted. I suspect that if we had fallen out of favor with them early on, our experience wouldn't have been so positive.

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"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow the fields of those who don't."-Thomas Jefferson

I'm pretty sure Eddie's post was humor.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

I think part of the problem of city folk moving to the country is that many move there for the country but then try to make it just like the place they left. That riles up many long time residents who understand that bulls beller, horses whinny, dogs bark, tractors go slow down the road and chicken houses SMELL..lol

I've been on the same patch now for 23 years, my road is five miles long and since moving here I've seen so many other folks move here that immediately wanted the country to be like the suburbs..

flying down this RESIDENTIAL road at 60 mph, honking their horns at the tractors that USED to go from one field to another by way of the road, etc. Now those tractors are gone, I am thinking on selling out and moving too..

just too many folks and it isn't country anymore. I have the last "large" tract of land on this road..and let me tell you, I have tried to hold out but since the announcement last week of a "planned community" I am thinking it is time to sell. Having 15,000 people move in two miles down the road isn't my idea of country and that is what is planned starting in the spring.

I am tired of chasing other folk's dogs off my place, tired of picking up trash, tired of the traffic, noise and honking. Can't drive seven miles to work anymore without it taking 40 minutes, and can't ride my horse down the side of the road without fear for my life. It's just not worth it, but I know if I sell, my place will become a subdivision.

I just hope I can get enough money out it to move further away from town, pay cash for a place and live there till I die..but I'll have to move 20-30 miles out to have "country" again. I feel like there really isn't any more country left where I live, just one subdivision right after another.

So yep, I reckon there's a bit of resentment from long time residents, but then again, it's not the city folks fault that the long timers sold out so they could move in and bring their city ways with them now is it?

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Be yourself - no one can tell you that you're doing it wrong!

I have heard many say there do not feel accepted, when they have moved into our community,

I think part of it is simply that they are not life time residents, and believe me not all the "locals" accept each other, tolerate possibly but accept NO, there are many sub groups, by the high school class you graduated from, or the church you go to, or if you have the money to drive a Cadillac or a Chevy, there are many classes and groups,
but part of it is that many times there is a lot of blood relitives, and many of familys related by marrage,

there is also the Idea we have been here since Granddad homesteaded this home place, so any family who moves in is a newbe, and land and history is can be a big part, of how people view things, (my daughter and her husband have this view diffrnece, as to him a house or peice of land is jsut a property to buy or to sell and to do with as one wants with out regard to it history, to my daughter she wants permency stability and "home"),

to some one who was raised in a community it is HOME, it DADS home it was grandpa home, he built the house in 1896 and dad was born in this room, this is where aunt Beulah was killed by the run away team, and so on and so forth, it is a legacy, it is who they are it what they do it is there life, not just a passing moment in time, to live for a few years and move on,

I think in one way the easy way to almost explain it is it is nearly a religion to many county people there way of life and there land. and others understand it in the community, and those out side of it do not.

There is a reverence for the land the open spaces and the history, it is a memorial to the memory of the lives and work of those before you, You can recite the stories of the blizzards of years past and how they made it through the depression, and when electricity, and the telephone came in, and when the state paved the hi way, when the bank was held up in town, there is more there then living and working the land there is reverence and understanding, and it will take the new comer a life time to become part of that,


see if I buy my neighbors ground, I keep that alive, as more than likely they are shirt tail relatives, and it is in the family, or even if it was a neighbor and not related, I know him and worked with him he did my chores on vacation and and mine his, I watched out for him and he for me, I knew his dad and more than likely went to the same school, possibly the same church, and same groups, his kids and mine were in FFA or 4H together or I was with his kids,

it is just that people from the out side (to the locals just do not get it),

and with each new comer and each farm stead that was sold off or plot of ground that has been sub divide, by some one kids who sold the land off when they inherit it. (that money was more important than the land). A piece of that is chipped away, and destroyed, (simply said the changes they make are improvements, and changes you make are CHANGE, and destroying a way of life,). (and when last week there was 160 acres there and now there 8 new hobby farms and green horns moving in that will burn the place down or have it blowing away in a few years, and will build on it and make it unusable for future agriculture uses, just large yards. and when you get tired of it you will sell and move off, or if one can subdivide it again and make it worst.

I also think that when a farmer is forced to sell or has no other options, or his kids sell it off, many of the neighbors feel betrayed, (expecialy if they do not or can not buy the land) and some of that hostility can be transfered to the new owners,

You are right,except for the last part. Eddie

You really should master wave etiquette before going 'country'.

The wrong wave can be just as bad as the no wave.

There's the one finger off the steering wheel wave, the whole hand on the wheel wave... don't do both hands off the wheel wave...

There's the head nod...

and dozens of more...

"Not" waving is just rude. Even if I don't know someone, I still wave. And if they wave, I wave back...

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

This is exactly what I would write about my suburban neighborhood. Country/City- makes no difference. I think everyone is looking for that sense of belonging to the small town nostagia where everyone knows everyone and we all have "Remember that time..." stories. That is why we are hunting for a little place out in the hills. I don't want street lights or a "McMansion" (a favorite term on this board used for anyone from the city wanting to move to the country). I just want to teach my kids the old ways and I don't have the amount of space to do those things here. Why does it always seem like there are people on here that are like "sorry- we are no longer taking applications for new residents." A little disappointing to me.

I understand what people are saying about destroying a way of life. Land is split up to make small patches for the city people, and they put a house on those 10 acres or something. But just imagine if developers slapped 100 houses on an acre like they do here just to turn a profit because land is so expensive. A house per ten acres is better than 100 per acre where everybody has a ten-by-ten foot yard space.
As for chasing dogs off property, I imagine that does get annoying. I'm so sick of house pets, though; when I move away from hope I probably won't have one for the rest of my life.

But I also agree with mezzogirl. People move to the suburbs all the time and few people complain. It seems like a double standard to me.

Believe it or not, life in the suburburbs has changed a lot since people started building them in the mid to late 1800s.

But this is the mind-set that I WANT in my neighbors. You (and Cam and others) WANT to teach the kids to work the land, to care and respect for animals and each other, to get away from the TV and wander down a quiet country lane, to get EXCITED because "hey mom, does that look like a bear print to you," to collect lightning bugs in a jar and set them free, to get as used to baaing in the middle of the night as they might be used to sirens now.

The ones I referred to in MY post (for example) are the ones who come out to "get away from it all" and then surround themselves with the same stuff they wanted to get away from!! The ones who think because they live in a multimillion dollar house and don't have mud on their perfect expensive cars, that they are better than me; and these are the people who drive down a quiet road and think NOTHING of throwing a coke can out the window. (ok, the beer bottles might belong to that guy down the end of my lane, but I digress).

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Becky

We have recently acquired a new kind of "city slickers." They are the kind who belive that just because they own the land they can do anything with it.

One of them was building a new home and decided his 2 acre front yard was too low. So he used his construction company to dump dirt on it. All day long for weeks, dump trucks ran up and down the road. Then the neighbours on either side worried that the change of level was affecting their septic beds. They called the town to see if he had a permit. He didn't, so there is a stop construction order on his house, a $50,000 fine and an order to remove the dirt.

Another neighbour (who doesn't actually live here) decided he could:
-light a fire on a dry August day, burning his neighbour's fencing. $5,000 damage - he paid
- drain his flooded land the next spring by digging a 10 foot deep ditch which carried the water back to neighbour's farm fields. Reported to authourities.
- cut hay on adjacent unfenced land. Neighbours had to put up fences to stop him, even though there has been no problem for over 50 years that the boundary has existed. (When his baler broke down, he asked my husband for help. No way since he had stolen our hay for 2 years.)
- butcher calves and throw the bones and offal over the fence.
- build a barn with no permit or environmental study, even though we have watershed protection laws forbidding it. A stop construction has been issued once the frame went up.
- put up fences and temporary buildings built of salvaged junk along the front of the property that make it look like a backwoods camp. (The properties around him have sold for $750K to 3 million, so this isn't that type of area.)
- In this junkyard he raises mangy bony sheep and calves on land with no running water in the winter. They seem to be gone since the last storm.

The neighbours in this area are friendly, help each other out and have frequent neighbourhood parties to which almost everyone is invited. However people like these 2 cause everyone to be on their guard for anything illegal which they report to the authorities. This is a neighbourhood that is pretty willing to allow anyone to do anything reasonable without reporting it, but some people don't seem to get what is reasonable.

For it is written, "If you act like a flaming butt hole, you will be referred to as a flaming butt hole". This applies no matter where you live.

CamM,

There are buttholes wherever you go....doesn't matter whether they are from the city or the country. And a lot of those "locals" haven't necessarily been there all that long to be putting on airs about how things should be.

For example, our farm belonged to cousins of my wife since Western Reserve times. Passed out of family hands for 9 years and then we bought back part of it. There's only two other families in the area that have been there more than a generation but to hear some of those folks you'd think they were there before the Indians.

I had one fellow tell me how he had permission to hunt our property for as long as he could remember. Well, George (the crossroads are named Toots crossroad) who sold the farm out of family hands (He's 86) still lives down the road and he doesn't recollect ever allowing this guy to hunt the property. The folks that we bought back it from were against hunting period.

People will claim the most outrageous things.

So here's my recommendation if you are concerned. find out where the local eating hole and the local drinking hole are in the areas you are interested in. Spend some time listening to the local gossip. Spending some time at the local farmers exchange is also a good place to pick up the vibes. I'm not recommending the local churches because for the most part folks will sit straight in a pew regardless.

Subscribe to the local paper. Hang out at the county fair or the rib burnoff.

Some communities will be more welcoming than others. Communities aren't a monolith - same thing goes for neighbors. And even if you choose careful, things change.

We have some neighbors that we allow to come and go across our land as they will. We trust them and the feeling is mutual. There's others that we don't because they are lying cheating stealing cusses. They are all ----y and moany about how we are doing them wrong. Tough nuggies.

And dont' forget, there's folks that have moved to the city from the country and then back. I went to a one room schoolhouse when I was young and we were sure happy to get a party line when ma bell got around to stringing our neck of the woods. I went to college, travelled the world a fair bit and now I'm settling down. And I'm not as old as these facts might lead some people to think.

Some of these "country folk" sure look citified from my perspective. They wouldn't know which end of a plow to hitch up to if their life dpended on it. For that matter, a lot of em couldn't (or wouldn't) spend a whole day behind a kicker stacking hay.

So don't get overly concerned about some of the negative opinions expressed here and in other places. If you pull your own freight and play it straight you'll do fine. There will be some that take to you and some that will never. Some will try to help you and some will try to buffalo you. That's just the nature of things.

Mike

I've been here over 15 years, and while they all know our phone number when they need something from my husband or me, they don't know it any other time. Which is actually OK with us, we are loners anyway. I'm perfectly happy being alone here on my farm with my husband, kids and critters. I very rarely need anyone else, and it seems to annoy them. I like my immediate neighbors, we respect each other, and our respective properties. If they need help, they will ask, and vice versa. Which is why when they needed to sell ten acres, they called us. They knew we would not change its use, and they would be just as welcome to ride across it, as we were when they owned it. That is good enough for me!! I'm just as happy to not be invited to every tupperware, kitchen, and underwear parties. I don't spend money on that stuff, and if you go, you are expected to do so.

It did take years to get to this point tho, the first couple of years I lived here were rough, the only time women would talk to me is if they wanted to know how much we paid for the farm, or if I would do babysitting, for free. While I tried to be tactful with my answers, just the fact that I wouldn't come right out with how much we paid, seem to create resentment. But they have moved on to gossiping about the big houses across the road from me, that are selling for upwards of $600,000 each. At least they were last year. Being built by a LOCAL builder. But being sold to 'out of towners'.

I think a lot of the problem comes from resentment. I wish I had a dollar for everytime some one has said to me "We WERE going to buy your place, we were just waiting for the price to go down" accompanied by a frown, or outright hostility. Dude, get over it. You snooze, you take the chance you will lose.