When Boo and I started to date (which only occurred once he got his driver’s license and could twist his mother’s car keys out of her hand) I remember marveling at how different our lives really were.

I grew up in the city. I thought nothing of being able to walk a few blocks in any direction and being able to buy a slushee or a chocolate bar.

Houses were meant to be only a few feet apart. That’s what fences were for. So you could peer through them and see what your neighbour was up to and pray you wouldn’t find the fat dude who lived next door sprawled out on a beach towel, naked as the day he was born soaking up the sunshine.

To me, life was about sidewalks and parks and bicycle rides into the river valley. If I was bored I’d hop a bus to the nearest mall and go see a movie or troll the food court looking for some cute boys to make goo goo eyes over.

Boo, on the other hand, lived not far from where we live now. His nearest neighbour was a few kilometers away and the only fat dude sunbathing close to him was the bull out in the south pasture.

While I peered into the neighbour’s window every time I did dishes, Boo saw fields and cows and nature every time he looked through a plate of glass. Buying a chocolate bar had to be a well planned excursion, not something he could do on a whim.

 
 

 

The city I grew up in. 

Boo saw more deer on a daily basis than he did people.

At first it was a novelty to me, this foreign way of life, mixed with a bit of culture shock. I had a hard time understanding that if one wants pizza while living out in the country they either have to resign themselves to cold, chewy cheese pulled from the softened cardboard box that was soaked from grease after sitting in a box on the long car ride home. That, or one had to make it themselves.

I didn’t even know pizza could be made from scratch.

When Boo and I got knocked up unexpectedly started our family, I was living in an apartment in the city while working to save money for university. Boo was living on the family farm, working his cattle and farming for his uncle. We had to make a decision where we would raise our fledgling family.

City or country?

Since Boo’s head just about popped off and exploded into a million pieces every time he had to come into the city and fight for a parking spot, it was transparent I would need to pack up and move out to the where the cows and the deer play.

It didn’t take me long to adjust to my new found way of life. I hit a few rough patches at first.

(Read: I was like a crack addict jonesing for a fix. Just substitute the crack for a Big Mac.)

Yes, there was the night I forgot to close the screen door and a bat came swooping into our living room. I may have abandoned my two month old child in her bassinet as grabbed the cordless phone and ran screaming out of my house. I may have yelled at Boo (who was down the road at the neigbours house,) that I was being attacked by blood sucking ghouls.

I may have sat inside the barn on top of a hay bale, curled into a ball while my husband and Cowboy laughed their arses off and chased the bat out of my house, while making jokes about how I tossed my daughter to the wolves bats to save my own sorry arse.

What can I say? I panicked.

I have since learned bats are friendly disease riddled creatures who are just looking for a few mosquitos to eat and aren’t really interested in sucking my blood until I am nothing but a lifeless shell, withered and dried up.

I no longer blink an eye when my husband runs for his shotgun to shoot coyotes. Or beaver. Or anything else that seems to move out here.

I no longer think it’s strange that most trucks have gun racks mounted somewhere on them.

I no longer wonder why my husband insists I carry a chainsaw in the back of my car, after having had to use it more times than I can count to remove a tree that has fallen on a back road so my car can pass.

Nothing says fun like blowing up beaver dams to make sure the cattle have access to water. Where else would I be able to play with dynamite?

 
 

 

The view from my front deck on a foggy morning. 

I love the country. I love the solitude and peace. I love the sound of the trees swaying to the music of the wind or the birds whistling near my window.

I love the friendly community and how everybody knows everybody. It’s a gossip loving girl’s dream come true.

I really love the country hair and fashion sensibilities displayed by man and woman alike. What can I say? I always feel so fashion forward. So pretty.

 
 

 

 

I have never regretted the decision to raise my children out in the wilds of Alberta. (Mainly because I can’t imagine being able to yell at them to get their naked arses out of the swimming pool and into the house while standing on my city stoop. It just wouldn’t have the same ring to it.)

Country living has brought a sense of peace into my life, a peace much needed after the passing of my son. I have the solitude I crave and the close knit community I need.

It also has G-Spot Welders and the odd hillbilly to amuse myself with.

Life is good out here in rural Alberta.

And it just keeps getting better.

As demonstrated when I ran into town the other day to pick up my kids from school. I found this truck parked outside the local liquor store. (I may have stopped there on the way to the school to buy some evening fortification. Maybe.)

 
 

 

Snapped with my cell phone.  

How I love living out in the country.

Gotta love these country boys. They really know how to make a girl smile.