Our Haxtun Life Blog: Just South of Town

Our Haxtun Life

Just South of Town

Okay, so my mother wanted me to clarify that I don't actually live in Haxtun. So that is my first topic on rural living: Claiming a town as home doesn't always mean that you live in it.

The picture in the blog's banner is our place, in case I haven't pointed it out before. We actually live several miles south of Haxtun, outside the town limits. So why do we claim Haxtun? Because we live closer to it than any other town. Besides, the post office decided that Haxtun is the city we put on our home address.

So we are truly country folks.

There are some downsides: we can't vote for the town mayor (and other town issues), we don't get weekly trash pick-up, I can't just walk to the store, and we don't have paved roads leading to our house (they're gravel).

There are some huge upsides though. There's the lack of city noise, of course. At the moment, I have a window open and all I hear are meadowlarks. We have no shortage of wildlife, which can be both good and bad. Deer are cool to see, but they tend to eat plants that you might rather they not. There's a lack of city lights as well, and I've never seen the milky way as clearly as I do looking up from our own drive-way! In fact, if you think that the night sky is just as beautiful no matter where you stand (which I used to think), I invite you to come out to the high plains at the next new moon and I'll introduce you to billions of stars you've never seen before!

Another upside is that our nearest neighbors are a half-mile away and you better believe we know all of them! Heck, we go to church with most of them. When we say neighbors, we include everyone living within a ten-mile radius of us. I really found that confusing when I first moved here because Roy called more families "neighbors" than I could see houses for from our place! We also know just about everyone who drives by our place because so few people do. It's a small event when someone does drive by and I could count the cars on one hand at the end of the day (and tell you the make and model of each one!). If I went into an office building in town full of people I didn't know, I could tell you who lives in town and who lives in the country because the country-folk will turn their head every time they hear a car passing by and the town folk won't.

You may have noticed that I call our home a "place". My Dad used to talk about his parent's homeplace and I just thought that was the farm terminology for the place you live - and it sorta is, but it's so much more, hence "place". For instance, we have 12 acres (think 12 football fields) with several outbuildings (buildings other than our house). Below is a picture of our new storage shed and some or our vehicles. Roy's parents (who are one of our neighbors) have an active farm operation, so among all their buildings are a barn and a hen-house (although neither are currently in use, except by the farm cats hunting mice). Someone's "place" also brings to my mind the image of multiple vehicles (car, pick-up, atv) and farm equipment. A variety of jobs get done around here, so a variety of vehicles and equipment are needed! I need to get you all some photos of the type of equipment I'm talking about and then I'll let Roy explain it all. We'll save that for another day though.