Country Living

GoodByeCityLife began in 1998 as a labor of love. The internet was young and we were the first website on the topic of country living. Our intent has never been to win awards or gain a massive amount of subscribers but only to chronicle our own adventures. Through this we also paid attention to personal transitions in attitude, lifestyle, and health as well as worldwide awareness and conservation efforts.

Trust me, it was no easy feat to go from the downtown big-city hustle to a secluded and simple farm life.

We began as a 33 year old mother and her 3 year old daughter, 17 acres, an aging vehicle, no family income and no friends or relatives for hundreds of miles. Although that may sound a challenge too great for some, somehow we flourished and grew. I learned to earn my income online while home schooling my daughter, together we learned to raise chickens for eggs and meat, to keep goats for milk, to garden and to preserve our produce for the long and cold winters.

Having been comfortable for many years in the city - buying everything I needed, contracting service companies to fix any issues - I had to learn to make the items we needed and to fix house and farm necessities on my own. All that with a tiny charge growing at my side. She grew up seeing a few tears of frustration falling down my cheeks, but we made it. Indeed we did.

At first country living was just a personal choice. I wanted to give my daughter the best of both worlds. Country living was a touch of reality mixed in with fresh air and a strong value system. And I reasoned that I could teach her the 'finer' aspects of life (societal culture and multi-culturism) in weekend jaunts to the city and lengthy trips overseas.

Not long after we moved, personal choice seemed more of a necessity to healthy than anything. As the doors were swung wide on feed lot practices, pesticides and hormone residue in our food supply, GMOs, and fractured food additives. How could I feed her growing body on the foodstuffs available at the grocery store?

If this is all new to you I urge you to watch Food, Inc. a documentary on commercially grown food that we are expected to serve our family night after night. Watch it as a family and don't stop there.

Then, if you're so inclined, read my book The Joy of Keeping Farm Animals: The Ultimate Guide to Raising Your Own Food (available on Amazon for less than $11, in select Target department stores, in many Country living mail order catalogs, or through your local bookstore) to learn how to raise your own food. Mother Earth News also picked it up to sell in their store.

Want to really be pro-active? Get gardening to grow healthy organic vegetables. Bake your own breads and make your own sauces, pickles, jam and salsas. You'll find plenty of information on doing all of this on GoodByeCityLIfe.

I've met a lot of souls over the years online who yearn to move to the country. Through emails and phone calls we discuss the challenges and shifts in thinking required to make the move. I still stand firm that there is no other life quite like farm life for emotional peace and physical well-being, for raising great children, for reducing your carbon footprint on our earth, and for a truer existence. By this I mean to take full responsibility for your life and family, to raise your own food, to consider every action and decision you make and to know that with every year you grow stronger as a human and as a family.

Grow your own food. Raise your own farm animals. Construct your own buildings. School your own children. There is no question now that the governments have failed us. Large corporations have scooped up and stolen our money. Feedlot livestock and poultry are making us sick. And schools fall very short of educating our young while keeping them safe.

Rural healthcare may differ slightly from healthcare and health insurance for urban areas. The population of doctors in the country and the disparity in income from their urban counterparts are just among the challenges one faces when acquiring family health insurance or receiving the Medicare.

I hope to see you soon - whether on the website, in my email, or buying up the cute log home on 100 acres beside me because you too love country living.