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How and why the City Mouse came to the country

 

    "The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to

change; the realist adjusts the sails.” - William Arthur Ward

 

**Please note that this blog is written in a simple, easy to understand style because I'm interested in introducing ideas to people.  Each blog post has hyperlinks to more detailed and accurate information.  This blog can be personal at times and expresses my opinion alone; it has purposely been designed to be commercially free.**

In the end it was family that brought us home to Western Pennsylvania.  Both my parents, as well as my long time girlfriend's parents, were aging and it was becoming more apparent to both of us that we were needed in Western PA.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic had made working from home a reality and my job, working for a major insurance company, seemed safe to do from anywhere.   

My company agreed to transfer me from Tampa, where we had been living for roughly 20 years, to an office in Cleveland; with the understanding that I may, one day, have to report there five days a week. 

However as the Pandemic dragged on, the company started talking about having people work from home on a full time basis or coming into the office only two or three times a quarter if that.  For now and into to foreseeable future however, I could continue to work from home.

The stars had aligned for me to move back to Western Pennsylvania for the last and final time.    In order to find a home that was affordable to us, move in ready and checked most of the boxes that we wanted checked...that meant moving away from the city and into the country.

Sue, my wife, grew up in the country.  I grew up in the suburbs but had spent nearly all of my adult life as a city dweller.  At one time I didn't even have a car because everything was easily accessible by bus or within walking distance of where I lived. 

Much like the City Mouse in Aesop's famous tale I had grown accustomed to a certain way of life, and wondered if I could adapt to the "simpler" ways of country life.

When I decided to start this blog, we had been in the house for a month and already I worried about costs and other issues, but I also marveled at how many stars were in the night sky on a cool night.

I was able to sit on my porch and watch a family of deer nibble on my grass at the edge of the yard.  My bird feeders were an explosion of color and noise.  I loved the quiet that country living provides.

It didn't hurt that I always had an intellectual interest in alternative energy and permaculture, and now finally I had a chance to actually explore those interests.

I wanted to plant a garden and learn to cook; which is something that I always had an interest in, but never fully explored.   Due to some health reasons, my diet needed to change and I needed to exercise more. What better way to do it than growing what you eat?

To be completely honest, our moving back to Western Pennsylvania was spurned on by climate change as well.  We had lived in Florida for roughly 20 years, and during that time the weather kept getting hotter.   In fact, each of the last 10 years had set records in the state.   If we were going to go, now would be the time since it was likely to get much, much worse.

So, it was the country life for me.  This blog came about because I wanted to share my adventures.  From the very beginning I wanted it to be commercial free.  

I was planning on staying away from politics and anything "controversial" in the beginning, but now I find that I can’t escape the politics of environmentalism or global warming.

The choices we make as a society affect everyone.  The choices we make as individuals, affect everyone.

This blog then is basically whatever I feel like writing about and I do try to update it roughly every 7 days or so.   It's to help others avoid the mistakes I'm making, or maybe getting a free hint or tip too.  Feel free to read it, share it, comment and give advice.

God knows I'll need it.

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Honoring the past - Thinking more about "invasive" plant species.

 Recently I've been giving some thought to invasive species.  I had received both positive and negative feedback on the blog post concerning kudzu and recently I came across a very well hidden, and very small, wild cherry tree while doing some yard work.  Since it's against the house it would have to be removed since the root systems could damage my foundation.   A buddy of mine at work was asking if I was going to transfer it, his logic being that it was a fruiting tree that would not only attract a variety of pollinator's but that the deer would eat the bark and cherries, keeping them away from the garden (which Sue and I swore we were not going to do this year).  It occurred to me that I was going to have to do a slightly better job of identification, since black cherries are native to America , where as other types of cherries are not.  Being able to make a precise identification would be helpful.   I used to be able to identify all these tre...
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A sense of time in place - traveling in Central PA

One of the first items that Sue and I bought as a couple all those years ago was a grandfather clock.  We used to snuggle under the blanket and listen to the chimes on the hour, the sound filling our house with a warmth and resonance.   That clock is nothing special, being simple in its design and technology.  It's accurate because of the beauty of physics and math...and is a lost art form in its own right. I thought a lot about time and place as we traveled this week.  I thought a lot about place.   Sue and I finally took a brief vacation recently.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, every plan we had made to get away earlier in the year came to naught.  My father became ill and ended up in the hospital which we decided to stay home "just in case."  He ended up in the hospital at least three times this past year, and I decided to spend what time I could with him. Family, after all, is what brought us back to Pennsylvania. We had p...
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Maybe we need to rethink invasive species???

Hi. As the writer of the post and feel that I need to clarify something. I do not advocate the planting of invasive species. The point that I'm trying to make, and clearly didn't, is that perhaps we should be thinking about an invasive species in a different light. Apples, figs and other crops are clearly non native to America and Europe but are widely cultivated because they have use to humans as a food source, animal feed, etc. Kudzu is an edible plant and although it is clearly harmful can it be used someway by humans? It's a food source, it's been used as a cloth and is showing some use as a building material. All I'm trying to do is to create discussion on how we can use invasive plants in new ways.   It's mid April here in Western Pennsylvania and so far it's been warm and wet.  The buzz of lawnmowers fill the air as I gallivant through my back yard collecting dandelions to make some tea and bread with them.  I had always known that they w...
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