The Enrichment of Rural Life

Was looking at a recent post on Life on a Colorado Farm, the one where she asks for help in identifying a bird at her feeder, then viewed the comments.  The LCF writer lives on a butte in Colorado, so she sees a lot of weather, and nice views.  In this she's a lot like my mother, who lived near the top of a hill in upstate New York, and enjoyed the views looking west over the hills. 

When mom married she moved to the valley, which she regretted. Her life on the hill was  back in the early 1900's so there's a great difference in life experiences.  A few of them:

• LCF has a camera with which she takes many great pictures.  Mom had a similar enjoyment of natural phenomena, the clouds, the snow, the seasons, etc. but had no way to record it.
• LCF has the Internet and a blog.  Mom had a lonely life on the hill--they had a watering trough by the gravel road which passed between house and barn and she was eager to visit with the few passersby who would stop to water their horses.  During my childhood she was equally eager to visit with the people who came to buy our cracked eggs.  But I'm sure she would have much enjoyed the companionship available through a blog and blogroll and sharing with people with similar circumstances and backgrounds.

The Rural Blog does a good job at reporting on rural life, which often has greater problems than nonrural life (i.e. drugs, access to healthcare, economy, etc. etc.). One thing we need to remember is the isolation of rural life in the not too-remote past, and the changes made by modern technology.