Posted on 04/26/2008 8:41:28 PM PDT by 5tealth
The modernized America we know today is largely dominated by suburbs, the perfect mix of city and ranch, commonly on the outskirts of cities. Its not the stacked to Timbuktu apartments like in New York, Kansas City, and Chicago, but its not the "home on the range" sort of thing. We know the modern suburb as nicely assorted houses, separated by lush, thick, dark green lawns, that are neatly cut every weekend. We know them with the smell of barbeque every Sunday after the residents have come home from Church. Its these modern American paradises that house the factory-workers, the office workers, and the firemen. Policemen, doctors, and all of the other professions kids dream of being while they're in kindergarten and pre-school. Behind these excellently spaced houses owned individually by the owner, are squares of perfectly assorted segments of land that comes with the housing, commonly known as "the backyard". Next to the housing unit in the "backyard" is a nicely squared, nicely placed wooden or concrete patio, complete with chalk left out by the kids with a hop-scotch playing field drawn, and a common circular grill which is commonly used by the father of a family, as I mentioned every Sunday after Church.
The lawn is a precisely cut piece of work, that gives the housing unit (front yard, home, and backyard) a farm-like feel, because it gives the father (and sons sometimes) of the typical suburban family something to do on Sundays while all the stores around their paradise are closed. The main crop of this farm is grass, which comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Complete with all-natural weeds that give the residents something to get worried over. The common kinds of grass on their lawns are Mixtures. The other kind is Blends. HowStuffWorks writes, "Mixtures are combinations of different types of grass. The various species all have different strengths and weaknesses, so collectively they hold up to just about anything. Blends are combinations of different varieties of the same type of grass. Blends are not as adaptable as mixtures, but they are generally more attractive because of their uniformity." Its these facts that the residents of the suburban paradise have to keep in mind while selecting their grass seed about every year.
The grill is located in the backyard usually on the patio. It gives the father some way to cook while the mother kicks him out of the kitchen. Or a reason to invite all of his other suburban friends over to have whats called a "Barbeque". Barbeque is the type of food they usually produce from this ritual, along with hotdogs and some hamburgers. The grill is usually spherical and opens up around the middle, revealing a floor with metal bars at about the middle of the sphere. Under which you put charcoal to cook the food. Some grills are cyndrical but work in the same common way.
This all things we commonly expect about the Suburb. But many things have changed since the '50s when this would have been taking place. For one thing, stores are all open on Sundays, so barbeques don't really take place. And the teenage punky emo kid who listens to all sorts of loud music and is out drinking and driving at the same time. The common lawn is left unattended a lot, and grows out of proportion. A communistic "Home Owners Association" has formed in almost every modern suburb community, and tries to control it's residents with unlawful power and driven by it's great corruption, it usually succeeds in doing so. Commonly in 21 century suburbs of today, BB Guns are prohibited outside houses. That means kids resort to rap and sagging their pants down and turn their hats sideways and play basketball. JUST LOOK OUTSIDE! Almost every house that has a kid inside of it has a basketball goal outside. Theres nothing wrong with basketball, its just the kinds of people who support it now. Rappers, gangsters, and the regular homie that comes from the "ghetto", or the neglected suburb developed in the late '60s.
Face it guys, the suburb needs some serious revival medicine. It used to be a paradise, and now its a hell.
“It’s” is the contraction, “It is.”
“Its” is the possessive, “belonging to it.”
Welcome to FR, where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the grammar police are Everywhere!
Looks like you moved to the wrong neighborhood. So did I. But when the real estate market improves a little, I’m going to move—away from places where there are homeowners’ associations. What’s your solution?
BTW, there’s a downside to not having homeowners’ associations, especially in areas where a lot of people from different national, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups live together. People have way different ideas about what constitutes proper home maintenance, and without some kind of governance you find yourself living in your well-maintained house next door to a guy who is running an excavating business and another guy who is breeding pigs. The value of your house then becomes zero. I recognize this as a risk I’m taking when I move away from the homeowners’ association.
my solution is to buy some land, but I’m really not the richest person in the world either. just maybe 3 or 4 acres to get septic and get away from the neighbors.
You may well find that with three to four acres, some of the same problems obtain. As I noted earlier, when you move to a area where houses are on three to four acres, nothing prevents the guy next door to you from parking thirty-seven rusting trucks on his property or tuning motorcycles at 7 on a Sunday morning. Believe me, three acres is not enough to separate you from annoying neighbors. Even 25 acres may not be enough.
And if you think there are no social problems in the country, think again. There is definitely crime: most rural people will tell you in outrage that they do have to lock their doors and leave a big dog on the premises, to avoid having their houses and tack rooms burglarized. There may be no gangs in the country, but country kids do just as many drugs and drink almost as much as suburban kids. It's the parenting and the nature of modern schools, not the location. When I proposed moving to the sticks to get my kids away from bad influences in the suburbs, I was dismayed to find that there were drug and alcohol problems in schools way out in the country.
And nothing prevents the suburbs from coming to you! When we built our house nearly twenty years ago, it was out in the country. Now the suburbs have come up to surround it.
Because of ethanol, farm prices are not falling precipitously in many areas, so it's really not easy to find a good piece of property with good neighbors. You have to exercise extreme caution in buying rural or semi-rural land.
But good luck to us both.
P.S.: a three-acre lot does not put you in the country. If everybody has three-acre lots, you’re just in the suburbs or exurbs.
good points, but it will give me a lot of freedoms I do not have in this suburb.
I cannot shoot anything, not even a BB gun. This rule I think is retarded.
You can burn. Trash, brush, or just a campfire, you can burn.
Bigger lawns, I’m a grass-man. ;)
Please bear in mind that even a 22 rim-fire has a warning on it of a range of 1 1/2 miles. 640 acres is only one mile square...good luck with your endeavors.
I’m talking about a BB Gun, I can’t fire a .22 in my garage, or my backyard!
This is communist. I want some land.
Well, do be careful and investigate thoroughly before you buy. Much of what you hope to do depends on where you’re living. You can probably burn things because your neighbors won’t mind and won’t call the cops, but you’d have to be pretty careful about shooting on your own land—three acres is not anywhere near as big as you seem to think. I know if I were playing around with my 9, three acres would be NOWHERE NEAR enough land to stop a round from going through my neighbor’s living room. Let’s not even discuss rifles. Three acres is still the ‘burbs. If you want privacy you are going to need at least three times that much land.
If you have animals, you will also have to take care to study the issue of manure disposal. This is a big and often expensive problem.
Before you buy, also have a separate inspection of your well and septic system. Check out the drainage situation as well. And have the soil analyzed to make sure you can grow stuff on it without having to do a major soil-renovation project. Some people buy wooded land and find that they can’t just cut trees down and have horse pasture or a vegetable garden.
One of the great advantages of living out in the sticks is that you will have freedom to get off the grid a little bit—chopping your own wood for a stove instead of paying the utilities to heat your house, perhaps generating some of your own electricity, and of course you won’t have to pay a community association fee, a water bill, or a sewerage bill. If you can show that you are seriously engaged in an agricultural enterprise, many states will give you a break on your property taxes, too. But sometimes the time and expense involved in commuting a longer distance to work and shopping negates the tax breaks.
I’m issuing you these warnings because I know many, many, many people move to “the country” because they think they would like country life. But once they get there, they learn that it’s not at all what they thought, and after a year or so they’re really unhappy.
Best wishes and good luck! Country living can be immensely rewarding if you’re temperamentally suited to it.
yeah not nessesarily shooting, probably just plink or something with a BB gun, particularly birds. I love birds.
but something I’d like to do is raise chickens in a shed or something. you think I could do that with 3.2 acres?
Wow, having chickens on 3 acres would be great. We used to have chickens and there is nothing like getting your own eggs in the morning. They are really not much trouble and you can grow fond of them. The neighbors just have to learn to deal with the noise and usually put up with it if you give them gifts of eggs.
Have you thought about getting some guinea fowl to keep down the insects, too?
You could also have llamas or alpacas. I have never done that and would love to. They don’t need as much spaces as horses or cows. You could have a goat, which is excellent for keeping down the weeds. Or a few sheep.
the neighbors of the place we’d go have llamas. they’re mean though.
Sorry, not exactly seeing the connection here. Or the problem.
BTW, like ‘em or not, HOA’s are voluntary and private. Government is not. If you want Blue Laws and strict code enforcement regarding lawns, etc., you’re gonna have to call on that mega-HOA, your local government.
Wanna try again?
it is a problem that stores are open on Sundays because that decreases the moral values of most citizens because they can go do stuff on Sundays instead of do regular American suburban things.
This country is falling down, and its people like you who bring it down even further - people who don’t see the problem with stores being open on Sundays. Sunday is for Church. Early Service, Sunday School, Late Service, and Evening Service.
If stores would close on Sundays, people would go to church more.
Well, subversion is my middle name.
So, I’ll put it to you unequivocally: Do you favor reinstatement of Blue Laws? A simple yes or no will do.
Meantime, I’ll be looking in my Bible for the commandment to “keep Sunday for ‘regular American suburban things.’” Must have missed it the first time.
By the way, been thinking about converting to Judaism or Seventh Day Adventism. Okay with you if I shop on Sunday and go to service and barbeque on Saturday instead? Wouldn’t want to be subversive, now.
Carolyn
BBQ is chopped pork. Grilling is what you do on the grill.
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