this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Eh, my friend actually did that. I assumed that she had some sort of awful family she was running from, but actually they're nice and she visits them on holidays. She just wanted to be in the big city so much that she was willing to rent a single room in a bad neighborhood and constantly look for odd jobs rather than live out in the countryside with her parents.
I understand the draw. It's boring in the country for most young people. At least there's always something to do or something to see in the city.
I was a city kid that ended up in the country, and it's like a different world. It took me years to slow down to country pace. Now that I'm older I enjoy it, but it took a lot of getting used to. There's things I miss about the city but I prefer being out here where I never have to lock things up for fear of it getting stolen, cleaner air, and all the other issues city life brings.
The biggest issue I have out here is keeping the deer out of my garden.
Put in some big T-posts around the border, like 10 ft ones, one on each of the four corners. Once they're pounded in, string up some fairy lights around 9 ft off the ground and then another set around 6 ft off the ground. Assuming you have a ~4 ft fence with chicken wire for squirrels, this light configuration will keep them out--even if you don't keep the lights on overnight, since deer hate jumping into stuff they don't see ahead of time.
With this configuration, our garden has been deer-free in an area that has a ton of them. I see around 20 unique deer literally every day on my property, and I've never seen any of them in my garden, nor have I found any deer-eaten veggies.
I may try that. Some people down the road put a 8 foot chicken wire fence around theirs to keep them out, but I kind of wanted to avoid looking like a prison yard.
A tip I got from an orchard owner is to use human hair clippings. They just got them from a barber shop and stuffed them in cans attached to the trees. Aparently the smell helps keep the deer away.
Also cat or dog urine can help keep them away. If you have an indoor cat then you can "mark" the area with used cat litter and that should keep them out. You can also just buy straight up bobcat urine online for that purpose. I'm not sure if it works any better than regular cat or dog pee, but it is available.
I've tried the hair clippings and these guys don't seem to care. I'm a hairy guy, so maybe I smell too much like a sasquatch?
Haven't tried the cat thing tho... there's strays that live out back but I'm not sure if they do their business there so I may give that a try.
I'm a bit late, but try out a motion-activated sprinkler. That and inedible/smelly plants surrounding your garden. Works like a charm for my parents.
Another issue is that LBGT people often have to flee hostile rural towns for a city where they can be free to live. We're currently in the middle of a refuge crisis as trans people flee red States for mostly cities (small towns in blue states can be scary too) in places like Minnesota.
It's a sense of adventure and wanting to try new things. I grew up in a very small town, lived in a couple large cities (not Chicago, but you would get robbed every once in awhile and hear some gun shots). I currently live in a medium size city a few states from where I grew up and it's depressing to me than going home and seeing the people who have never even tried anything else.
I mean I can imagine the dating prospects are really terrible in the countryside, noone talked about that yet.
Dodging accidental incest is basically the most popular sport where I grew up.
Joking aside, where I grew up there were certain "clans" as we only somewhat jokingly refered to them. Basically large interconnected family units that were usually dominated by a single central family with smaller branch off families on the periphery. Dating someone within your clan wasn't necissarily off limits because that person may not actually be related to you, but if you were in the same clan then you knew your families were very closely linked and you have to be careful. If you wanted to be safe though then you just date someone from outside your clan. Basically if you mention the last name of that central family and they don't recognize it, then you're usually good; if they do recognize it then you need to do some more digging.
If it's not built after 2000, then the only reason it is bad is because people think it is.