The city and the country both have much to offer. Personally, I have always favored rural living, and for nearly all my life, I have resided on an acreage either on the edge of town or in the country proper. My wife and I currently own a little more than three acres on a dead-end road. On the property is an old, remodeled farmhouse and a large rusty shed, in a quiet unassuming little valley, ranged with ridges of coulees that are half-wild, half-agricultural. In the summer, the hills flush with green verdure. In the winter, they are stripped to the austere beauty of black, bare tree trunks against glinting snow. We consider ourselves blessed to be here.
Of course, a country life isn’t the right fit for everyone, and it has downsides. It can be harder to get to know people, and you have to be prepared to drive a good deal. Disposing of trash and clearing your driveway of snow are recurring inconveniences. But for my family, at least, the rewards far outweigh the drawbacks. Here are five benefits bestowed on us (and many others) thanks to life in the country.
1. I Produce Some of My Own Food
The country provides a much better opportunity than the city for producing your own food, at least if you want to go beyond a small suburban garden or a pot of tomatoes on your apartment balcony, though those are both valuable. The country affords the necessary room and lack of city ordinances to raise animals and large-scale crops. Some cities allow residents to keep chickens (which explains why I’ve seen chickens running madly in circles in the middle of a traffic light intersection in a nearby town), but if you try to raise a year’s supply of beef in your urban backyard, there will be questions.Growing your own food, whether plant or animal, brings with it a wealth of advantages. We’ve produced our own milk and some butter, as well as tomatoes, onions, and a huge amount of apples. We’ve used an old-fashioned, hand-powered cider press to turn the apples into cider. All of this has gotten us outside more often and in closer contact with the natural world.
Although I have much to learn about producing food, I feel that these activities connect us with our past (most people throughout history were farmers) and with the natural, biological, and ecological systems that give us life and sustain us. After all, they form the bedrock of human culture, community, and economics. Agricultural writer Wendell Berry observed, “We come from the earth and return to it, and so we live in agriculture as we live in flesh. While we live our bodies are moving particles of the earth, joined inextricably both to the soil and to the bodies of other living creatures.”
An awareness of our dependency on plant and animal life, as well as the vicissitudes of seasons and weather, keeps us grounded. My wife and I produce only a fraction of the food we consume, so garden catastrophes are not life-threatening for us, but they do remind us how much we depend on forces outside of our control. If a failed carrot crop can happen in our garden, it can happen in the commercial fields that provide the food at the grocery store, too. Such reminders keep us humble and grateful.
2. I Learn New Skills
I have never been (and am still not) very “handy,” and I admire men like my grandfather who seem to know how to do just about everything. They can solve any practical problem, from mechanics to carpentry to stonework to gardening to hunting. Living in the country has forced me to improve my practical skill sets forward, however. Last summer, I learned about fencing when we added another acre of pasture for our milk cow. Becoming more capable as a man and provider, and building something you can see and touch—like a fence or a wall—provides a satisfaction that’s it’s hard to get any other way. Carla Emery writes in “The Encyclopedia of Country Living,” “I think there can be a satisfaction in doing your own thing, in learning new skills, in producing from scratch. I also think the ability to act independently is personally empowering and can be a survival factor in a crisis.”Philosopher and homesteader John Cuddeback suggests that keeping a garden teaches a work ethic, a skill and habit anyone can benefit from in any state of life. He says that our land must be cared for, served, even, though we are richly repaid for our efforts. Quoting the ancient philosopher Xenophon, he adds that the land “does people favors in proportion to how well they serve it.” Cuddeback comments, “How remarkable! It’s as though the land has been designed to draw out of us a good disposition. . .The land asks to be cared for—he even uses the word ‘served.’ And the land will show us—again if we have eyes to see—when we are working it well.”
3. I Experience More Natural Beauty
As I write these words, I look out upon a scene of rolling hills, like great waves that were frozen in time, eternally still. Strips of farmland run partway up the slopes, where they meet the treeline that clothes the upper slopes and crests of the hills. Each season has a distinct beauty: In early spring, the landscape is brown and khaki, almost bronze in the morning sun, but a touch of green hums beneath the brown, a promise of future flourishing. I hear the wild, lonesome, yet peaceful blowing of a strong, sweet spring wind, carrying life—that is, the pollen that will yield new plant growth.
Living in the country, I’m surrounded by such sights—not to mention the rich smells, the birdsongs, the touch of grass and leaf. I mentioned above that country living generally requires a lot of driving, since stores, work, and schools are likely far away. This can be a nuisance, but often it’s a joy for me because I love to see the beautiful landscapes that sweep past my car windows. This encounter with beauty has a healthful, formative effect on the mind and the heart. On the physical level, spending time in nature has been tied to stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure, reduced stress, improved mood and sleep, and increased energy levels.
4. I Can Create a Great Environment for Children
Children benefit from all of the rural advantages mentioned earlier, but there are further child-specific benefits to country life. A piece of land in the country offers children room to explore; a call to adventure. In my own experience, the woods behind my parents’ house stood for the unknown, the wild. Forays into the forest sparked my imagination and provided me with that raw contact with reality and the natural world that so many children today lack.Apart from exploring the wilderness, a little homestead teaches children and teens about discipline, the importance of which I’ve written on before. In addition, observing the life cycles of plants and animals instructs children about the realities of life, death, and birth. My wife grew up on a dairy farm, and despite its difficulties, she frequently talks about how grateful she is for that experience. Through daily milking and chores, she learned about the importance of hard work and discipline, while bonding with her siblings and parents in pursuit of a common goal. One factor in our decision to live in the country is to provide a similar experience for our own children.
5. I Stay Safer
While misconduct can happen in any location, crime occurs less often in rural settings, according to USA Facts.org. In 2021, violent crimes occurred in urban areas at a rate of 24.5 victims per 1,000 people. The rural rate was less than half that, at 11.1 victims per 1,000 people. Similarly, the rate of burglary and theft in urban areas was 157.5 per 1000 and only 57.7 per 1000 in rural areas. That being said, the more isolated nature of country living has encouraged me to set up security cameras and notices. I’ve also made an effort to get to know the people in my valley, which builds trust and a sense of community. In my experience, country people are friendly and welcoming.Throughout human history, most people have lived a rural life, often out of necessity. If you take into account all the centuries of civilization, the common human life was passed in a rural setting, engaged in traditional agricultural practice. Only in the modern, post-industrial age, with cities exploding in size, has it become unusual to live on a farm.
Most people in the ancient world through modern times were engaged in agricultural work. In America, in 1790, 90 percent of people lived and worked on farms. In 1920, that figure was still about 40 percent . (Today, it’s only 2 percent.) The rhythms of the seasons, the petrichor of the soil, the lowing of the cattle by the river—it’s all in our blood. Thousands of years of it. The modern urban life is certainly easier and in many ways better than the labor-intensive existence of most of our forebears, but the transition hasn’t come without some costs.
Living in the country allowed me to recover some of the things I lost due to urbanization. I am continually grateful to own a small piece of this beautiful country and to have the means to provide for some of my family’s needs with my own two hands.
