Remote Living, Part 11: Utilities and Remote Kids

And the questions march on . . .

Any utilities?

Water (more on that below), electricity, high-speed Internet. That's it. No garbage pick-up or sewage.

Do you have a well? 

Our almost-ghost-village has a well, put in in the 1980s I think. It supplies three houses and the post office. We pay a very low flat fee monthly and have no restrictions on use.

We have good and plentiful groundwater here, which is the reason the town was built here. Before the village well, everyone had their own wells, and/or used windmills to pump water up. The two neighbors who don't use the community well still use their own wells.

Our water association (which is a funny name for something with four members) is run by our neighbors. The husband of the pair is very handy and takes care of the maintenance, and the wife does the paperwork and finance part of it.

Since we've lived here, we've never been without water for more than half a day. (Knock on LOTS OF WOOD.) 

But, if we need to, we can always haul water from our neighbor's stock tank*. 

The tank is also a favorite place for our kids to visit when there's no livestock in the pasture, because the tank has many goldfish in it. Water supply and aquarium in one. (That white fence in the background is our house.)

It's in the pasture across the road from our house, and there's a gate right there that opens so you can drive a vehicle to the tank. It's supplied by a windmill, so power loss doesn't affect it. We've only had to use it once, but it's nice to know it's there and we can get water if we really need it.

Do the kids like living in the middle of nowhere?

In the interest of accurate reporting, I posed this question to the kids in question. (Cubby wasn't there when I asked this question.)

Poppy: Yes.

Jack: Yeah.

Calvin: Yeah. It's better than the other places we lived. (Editor's note: Neither of which were exactly bustling urban centers.)

Of course, they haven't really known anything different, since they've lived rural their entire lives. But whenever we visit family in more populous areas, they all remark on the traffic and noise and seem relieved to get home.

They don't really understand how unusual it is here.

I mean, how many other kids do you know who regularly ride a horse to the post office?

This may change as they get older, and I think there will probably be some culture shock when they move elsewhere as young adults. But for now, they're happy.

* Another example of how our good relationships with our neighbors is key to living here.