RURAL PROFILES
There are more reasons for people moving to the country than there are cobs in a cornfield. And while lessons learned vary from family to family, commonalities such as a love of nature and a fondness for old-fashioned self-reliance course through them all. We talked to four families about their transitions to rural living. THE NATURE LOVERS
Lee-Anne and Tony Smith and family, Richmond area
Call it space with benefits. When Lee-Anne and Tony Smith left Kanata in 2005 for a cozy custom bungalow on a three-acre subdivision lot outside of Richmond, it was because they wanted elbow room to raise a family and have a dog.
They’re doing both: aspiring gymnast daughter Adia is now six, Energizer bunny Xavier is four, and Maverick is an enthusiastic Labrador/German shepherd mix. But the couple discovered other delights of country life.
Nature’s a big one, says Lee-Anne, 34 and an at-home mom. “Especially with little kids, there’s a world of adventure: we’re talking frogs, insects, hide-and-go-seek in the trees, otters and beavers in the pond near where we go to get our mail.”
Tony, a 39-year-old high-tech test engineer, enjoys the selfsufficiency of rural life, as in fixing that busted eavestrough himself. Such self-reliance is a necessity when services and stores are not near to hand.
He also likes the small-town flavour of Richmond, a short drive away. “We feel the Richmond fair and parade are our fair and our parade,” he says, echoing the feelings of almost anyone who lives rurally.
And while children can have a long bus ride to school, Lee-Anne is quick to point out the benefits of rural travel. “When we’re driving, we see all the farms, the animals, the foals in the spring. And there’s no rush-hour traffic on a country road. It’s always relaxing.”
“As an architect, I love cities, but I don’t like living in them. I need to recharge my batteries, and there’s no way I can do that in a city,” he says.
Many others have made the move over the years, and the city of Ottawa, where roughly 80 percent of the land is classified rural, offers ample opportunity to do so, whether it’s in a village, an estate lot, or a charming turn-of-the-century house on an acreage.
Of course, it’s not all good all the time in the boonies. Septic systems can plug up — a messy, costly affair. That peaceful farm next door may erupt into late-night clamour and bright lights at harvest time. A coffee shop is never within walking distance.
But for most of us who have done it, hopping the rural fence ranks as one of our smartest moves ever.
ALONE (AND TOGETHER) TIME
Country dwellers aren’t anti-social. The lads chewing over the week’s events at the feed store prove that. But one of our prized possessions is the rejuvenating option of privacy.
“You have to be comfortable being alone or with your partner or family, because you’re not next door to a shopping mall or theatre,” says Liz Briggs. She and her husband, Robin, have lived on a 100-acre farm outside Navan since the 1970s.
Except for areas bordering housing developments, ruralites’ treasured seclusion seems secure. According to the City of Ottawa, between mid-2005 and mid-2015, our rural population grew by roughly 11 percent, from 84,510 to 94,006. The non-rural area grew at a similar rate in that period, going from 775,195 to 863,142. Despite growth, fewer than 10 percent of the city’s residents live in Ottawa’s expansive countryside. As well, serious government efforts are being made here and elsewhere to limit urban sprawl, and rural population growth in Ontario generally is at a near standstill, according to a recent Rural Institute Canada report.
When, as a newcomer, you do want to partake in the community, start by supporting it, says Robin Briggs. He and Liz did that by joining groups such as the local fair board when they landed in Navan.
That community will be older than suburban ones, with some families tracing their roots back a century or more. You’ll always be “from away” — but tread gently and you’ll be both accepted and supported in good times and bad and in ways that may surprise and touch you.
Rural communities, despite a propensity to vote Conservative, are also less homogeneous than suburban ones, where middle-class incomes and backgrounds predominate. The chance to mix with folks you might otherwise never know, to see the world through their lens, is one of the great joys of rural life.
SENSE AND RHYTHM
A heron soaring overhead, the howl of coyotes, a crunchy roadside apple, the sweet smell of freshly mown hay, grubbing around in a big vegetable patch: rural dwellers aren’t necessarily more attuned to their five senses than their urban counterparts, but the attunement is to different and more spiritually nourishing stimuli.
Even the pungent smell of manure is invigorating — once you get used to it. Spread in the fall, it reminds you that you’re in a setting where the rhythms of life and the change of seasons seem more closely aligned with your true self.
For Michelle Lattimore, those rhythms include food. She bought a home, which she shares with her parents, husband, and two stepchildren, near Dunrobin in 2007. She wouldn’t trade it for the world, in part because of the vegetable garden, which would chew up the better part of many suburban backyards.
“It feeds us and a lot of our friends,” she says. “We pickle and preserve so much that we only have to buy produce for maybe a third of the year. We’re still eating tomato sauce from 2014!” She buys her eggs and meat from local producers. For Lattimore, eating sustainably accords with a greater consciousness about how to live well that she has learned in the countryside.
“It’s the thinking and preparedness of living here. You can’t just run to the store when you need something,” adding that what begins as always having to plan ahead, eventually becomes part of life.
WHERE YOUR BUCKS GO
Growing your own, along with eating out less frequently because it’s inconvenient, can help your bottom line. A 2011 study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that urban households spend 28 per cent more on food than rural ones.
That helps mitigate the sometimes greater costs of rural living, including transportation (public transit? — Rare to nonexistent), home heating (few residences have natural gas), and electricity (rural Hydro One customers pay roughly 30 percent more for power than do Ottawa Hydro users).
On the other hand, resale houses cost at least 15 percent less than urban ones, according to David Sugarman with Coldwell Banker Rhodes & Company.
Cheaper land means new custom and production houses are also lower priced. Tartan Homes’ Bryson model, for example, costs $404,900 at Russell Trails just outside the city limits; the Amherst, a similar model, runs $478,900 in Ottawa’s suburban Findlay Creek. That’s a difference of $74,000.