your rural lifestyle dream

[LostSlough]

So a bunch of people have mentioned wanting to move to the country/the woods/whatever with their girlfriends/wives and a ton of animals on the intro thread.

I am curious about deets but I don't want to derail that thread, so I figured I'd start this one. Where do you want to live? What would you do out there? What animals do you want to rescue?

I'd love to move out to the California Delta. I live nearby and I love it so much. I'd love to live in one of the little towns like Walnut Grove or Isleton or Locke, but I need to have a boat so I can head into Sacramento when I start getting antsy. I grew up out in the country and I like it most of the time but I do like to go thrifting or eat out or go to the theater sometimes.

I'd probably keep freelance writing or open some sort of Etsy shop (although all I can make is knit scarves and badly shaped, weirdly colored candles, so probably not). I'd also have a vegetable and herb garden and a herd of cats, and maybe some Easter egger chickens or pigeons or something.

What about you guys?

[Anandrine]

YES I'M SO INTO THIS THREAD!!

we live in boston so realistically the easiest thing to do would be to get land in western mass, which is beautiful, or maybe nearby in new hampshire. i don't want to be TOO far from a city, like, i should be close enough to do an emergency lush store run in a single day, lol. but 2 hours or so outside boston would get us into western mass. i would love to have a cute little cottage-style home on a few acres.

i know my wife would like to grow some of our own vegetables. we've talked about rescuing and being an actual rescue/sanctuary takes a lot of legal work but i think we could offer to be a foster home partner for existing sanctuaries! i really, really, reeeaaallllyyy love cows and would want to foster some of them, but also whoever else needs us! pigs, chickens, lambs, goats, it's all good

look at this lil guy currently at the farm sanctuary, i'd die from cute


for supporting ourselves, i dream of my perfume business getting big enough to be a reasonable income, and then i could supplement with some design projects and maybe seasonal work somewhere nearby, and my wife could do art commissions.

the dream.

[kuunaan]

My dream is to retire to a small island in the Archipelago Sea. That's where I spent my summers growing up. Considering the short growing season, not to mention the bedrock, farming's not a reasonable option, but a small garden could be nice. For the foreseeable future, though, I see myself living in a city, although in Finland it is not out of ordinary to have your own summerhouse or cottage even if you're not filthy rich, so balancing the two might not be impossible after all.

Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä are my rural lifestyle icons: an artist living with her artist partner and their cats on a remote island! What more could you want?



//edit: made the pics smaller

[nodeos]

if i was to live a life completely according to my own whims, i would probably pack it up to the saguaro desert, open some sort of womens & girls education center with a greenhouse for gardening, desert education, and rescue reptiles! or maybe have a lil farm in maine and rescue cows and sheep and turkeys from farms, kind of like VINE sanctuary if anyone knows them. either way i want LOTS of big dogs and cats.

realistically, i cant see myself walking away from my political work or community here in boston. i think i would want to move out to one of the lil rural suburbs in metro west/ northwest. have enough land to have a big garden with woods and walking trails close by. i would want a hammock and a outdoor reading nook and be a foster mom to rescued animals.

[Deleted]

I'm quite humble when it comes to this. I already live in a very rural area (a small city with lots of green), so I'd only need to find a house that's affordable (good houses cost like 250k-500k€) somewhere further into the woods than I am now. I'd love to have a garden where I can grow some vegetables. I don't care for lawn, I can have my private minifarm. I want to get married, of course, but same-sex marriage is still not legal in Germany, and I'm nowhere near having a girlfriend. Ideally, we'd have one or two dogs.

This is all so far away, though. It kinda makes me sad thinking about it.

[lindy]

the Girl Scout summer camp I attended as a child/ also worked for one summer in the northwoods had a high lesbian staff quotient and was basically the closest I've come to my ideal living/working environment.

[acadie]

There are too many disasters here to make living here forever a possibility, so I want to go to either Appalachia (similar in ideas re: foodways and oral tradition ) or the francophone areas of Vermont. I'd probably still teach school, but have some animals such as chickens or goats. Definitely goats! Some of my family has farms out here, but they were dairy farmers. It's a lot more difficult now than it was before and not as steady since industrial dairy came in :/ sad since local dairy is way better than the big guys.

I've always dreamed of being the witch at the end of the road like in the children's stories, with gardens full of food and flowers and beehives.

It won't be for another three to four years at least, but I keep looking for areas that need teachers and also have some possibility for farms.

[madecrooked]

i already live in a rural area (the only city in the county has a pop of 13k - tho maybe more when school is in session? there are two colleges there). i really like it here, actually, bc it is v rural, but some of the downsides to rural living are mitigated by the nearby city being a college town, by the village i live just outside of being a huge tourist destination (tho that has its own downsides) and also having been carefully curated by wealthy benefactors in the olden days (we have a rly good hospital for this reason), and by being 1-1.5 hrs from 2 cities and only 4 hours from THE city. so, my ideal would be to get our own house around here, something with a decent chunk of land.

i don't have much interest in farming, though! maybe it's because my dad was a farmer until he gave it up when i was ~2 - it's in my blood to pass on it haha. i WOULD like a garden, nice rows of veggies and some pretty flowers. a good place for bonfires. a fenced-in portion so my dog doesn't have to be on leash all the time. and otherwise... tori and i have had lots of dreams. chickens? maybe. dog kennels & i'm a dog trainer? maybe.

obviously tori will be making crazy $$$ from being a famous author. who knows what i will be doing! dreams/ideas: dog trainer? doing research at the hospital? rural mental health stuff? opening a girls' sports camp to compete with the boys' sports camp in town? founding the county's gay resource center? running a gay bookstore slash coffee shop? i'm directionless and luv to daydream basically i just want a nice house where i can't see my neighbors to raise my future kids and garden and play with my dog(s) and visit with family. #wholesome