Reflections of a rural refugee
By Brian Ochsner baochsner@aol.com
I just got back into town Tuesday night, after spending an additional two days in the western Kansas community where I grew up, due to the blizzard. It was pretty good – two more days of home-cooked food, catching up on rest, and additional exercise on spur-of-the-moment cattle drives. It was also a good opportunity to clear my head and reflect on the differences between rural and big city living.
The biggest differences I notice are the slower pace of life, and more down-to-earth, people with common sense. That’s the biggest reason I was so ready for Thanksgiving this year. I had talked with too many people in Denver with little to no common sense and an equally low work ethic or willingness to help. That’s one advantage of dealing with cattle instead of people, as in the following scene from last weekend:
During one of the cattle drives, I got a little frustrated with one of the cows that didn’t want to go with the rest of the herd. As a result, I used my dad’s V-10 Dodge pickup to give her some “encouragement” to join her friends. Didn’t hurt the cow at all, though it did break the grill on the front of the Dodge.
Before you animal-rights people fire off nasty emails to me, let’s see you try and run cattle for several hours over several miles and not have the same reaction. I’m usually a patient person, and I don’t hit other people – I’d only do this to cattle. It was frustrating at times, but being outdoors in the fresh air with less-than-cooperative cattle was a nice change of pace.
However, small town life isn’t totally idyllic. Retail businesses such as the dress shop, menswear store, and the local lumberyard have closed up. A few farmers in my hometown have sold out because of the recent drought, plus massive increases in the cost of fuel and fertilizer. Buying newer, more expensive equipment didn’t help either.
It’s a melancholy reminder that changing business trends affect everyone in urban and rural areas. You have to be an excellent business manager and pay attention to these unyielding trends – or ignore them at your own peril. I’ve thought about moving back to Kansas for a slower, saner pace of life. However, the dwindling and aging rural population makes me wonder what life will be like – and how many folks will be around in these towns – in the next 10-20 years.
Even with these downsides, I highly recommend vacationing or spending time in a rural area. There aren’t a lot of things to do, which isn’t bad. It gives you time to relax, reflect on things, and get some perspective on life that you won’t get running helter-skelter from one appointment to another.
In my humble opinion, that’s what more Americans need more than ever. Give it a try.
The author can be reached at John@BackBoneAmerica.net
Agreed! Hence why we go camping in the mountains. Buena Vista only has 2,000 people living there, but it’s so quiet where we camped, about 5 miles outside of town, it seemed as if we were the only ones there! and one night, we were!
by Mike | Wednesday, Nov 30, 2005 | 9:22 pmEnjoyed the article. Everything mentioned is how it is out here. I don’t know a person who, when working cattle doesn’t go berserk- they don’t have to stay there, but at some point they will completely loose their minds. I watched a good friend, mellow, stable, unflappable pick up a calf and throw it back into the herd and then carry on like nothing had happened. My dear wife, who gives me hell everytime we work cattle for becoming a crazy man, has from time to time become the queen of nasty while trying to cut out a calf or cow- the children and I just watch, look at each other and let it go, let it go, let it….
It may look like a laid-back, idyllic, relaxed existence in the towns and on the farms, but, we have a great capacity to hide our concerns, feelings, fears and worries. A lot of deaths in the country are really suicides, country people seem to have a convincing ability to kill themselves. When your back is to the wall and the banker is calling, you feel like a duck, placid and unruffled above water, but paddling like hell underneath. If you can talk with concern and understanding to a farmer, even the big and “rich” are worried- now, you have to know enough to know what to discount and what to interprete in the right way, because nobody can out-”poorboy” a farmer unless it is another farmer. A farmer buys retail, sells wholesale and pays the freight both ways!
The ninth year of a seven year drought starts to get rough. Rebuilding your cattle herd for the 3rd time in 12 years starts to get discouraging. When you hear yourself telling your children that they should investigate college careers in computer science, or game theory, or medicine, or (God have mercy) becoming a lawyer, it yanks you into the reality of the situation that agriculture has matured and a mature industry is not pretty.
I sell beef direct to the consumer and notice that my urban customers wish for 35 acres and a horse on the outskirts of the Front Range. They are tired of the press and pressure of the urban, commuter, high-stress life and would love to live a different style. However, not too far from the necessities of modern life and the mall.
A customer brought his son out to shoot prairie dogs and experience farm life. We went way out on a pasture by foot and pursued the vermin. The cows of course, came up to see what was about. The man and son looked worried, but agreed that if the farmer wasn’t worried, they wouldn’t worry about the cattle hurting us. I hope they were able to see and feel the unfettered expanse of grassland and sky that was around them. I sure did!! And I hope they went out a night and looked at the stars above them. It can be intoxicating!
Even the occassional blizzard is an event to be “enjoyed”. A good blizzard will beat a cold North wind blowing dirt and not much more, known to us as “a cow shrinker and calf killer”, delivering not hope but a loss.
This is my humble opinion. Ron
by Ronald Rehfeld | Friday, Dec 2, 2005 | 6:06 pm