T.T.: Forced Self-Reliance

One of Poppy's favorite books is Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Town. There are two pages on which we always must pause.

The first is the "Busy Housekeepers" page. She points to each picture and says who in our house does each task. One or two of these things are done by the children or by A., but for the most part, I do all these things.

I do consider myself a bit more competent with a vacuum than that pig, however.

The second page is the "Fixer-Upers" page*, which shows various workmen (workanimals?) fixing all the things that have gone wrong on and in a house. Poppy goes through these and points to all the things A. has done. Which is almost all of them.

He's never fixed our television, but that's mostly because we don't have one.

One thing that both of these pages have in common is that they show things we do ourselves. We don't hire people to do these things for us. And that, I have come to realize over the years, is a key component of rural living.

In fact, the more rural a person is, the more that person should expect to have to know or learn. 

There are two reasons for this. One is that there just aren't very many--if any--professionals to hire. Where we live now, the nearest plumber, for example, is at least 60 miles away. That is not an easy house call.

Which leads to the second reason: If we did decide to hire someone to do something, they would charge A LOT. They have to, if they're taking half a day and many miles to unclog a sink. It's just not economically feasible to hire tasks out.

And so we do it ourselves. Whatever it is.

Some of the things we have learned over the years are small.

Making pizza, for example. Which is the only way to have pizza here where the nearest pizza place is 90 miles away.

And some things are bigger.

Shearing sheep is definitely a big task, but necessary.

If I were asked to give one piece of general advice to anyone who is considering making a move to a more-rural place, it would be to accept the fact that most things you want done are going to be done by you. 

It's DIY by default, and it's not a bad thing. But it is a thing that people should know about. So now you do.

* I only just now realized as I was writing this that this spelling is weird. I would spell it "Fixer Uppers," with two p's. "Upers" looks to me like it should be pronounced "Oopers." And now this is going to bug me forevermore whenever I read this book. Boo.