Small town, rural life is different from life in a city. That goes without saying. Life on a farm, which typically revolve like satellites around small towns—near them but not of them—is within another category all its own. My sister’s farm supplies its own natural gas from an oil well 200 yards away, so they don’t get a gas bill. A generator can run the whole property indefinitely.
While driving on and around the farm, we don’t wear seatbelts.
On a farm, you might claim the nearest small town as your own, but it’s not part of your address. You don’t live there, you visit. You might go to the church, the grocery store, a restaurant, and then head back to the farm. We ate at a local restaurant called “China: Chinese Restaurant.” The Chinese owner said his name was Patrick, though his English was not good. It’s a very popular restaurant with the locals.
Animals on farms are treated differently too. Farm animals here either produce food, like chickens/eggs, or they are the food, like cows. And sometimes the chickens are food, if they don’t act right.
The dogs here have a function, and for performing that they get food and water, but no one is laying around on the couch with them or spending much time petting them, and they seem to be just fine with that. They aren’t so much companions as coworkers. They sleep outside, and if it gets too cold, they are allowed in the garage, but they tend to bark to be let outside again despite the cold. In the meantime, they pull the heads off skunks, play tug-o-war with their corpses. Roll around on the dead bodies. Stink for days. Raccoons and anything else that tread on their territory and that is below them on the food chain (and which doesn’t have the approval of the local humans) meet the same fate.
The dogs here don’t wear collars.
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