Since I posted yesterday, I’ve learned that not only were we not able to have a tower installed to get internet at the farm, but not even dial up is an option.  The laptops are too new, and incompatible with it! Meanwhile, today is our last day with our internet and cable package at my end, too.  This afternoon, someone from our provider is coming over to pick up their equipment.  Any online activities from then on will be done through the data plans on our phones.

Which leads me to the things we will be giving up, in our decision to move from city to farm.  All of these, and more, we took into consideration when we made our decision to move.

The most obvious is the convenience not only of city living, but downtown living.  There are many things we can simply walk to, and cities come with variety and choice for things as simple as getting groceries.  The nearest convenience store and gas station that’s open 24 hours is just a few blocks away.  At the farm, there is a grocery store/post office/gas station/liquor store that’s “in town”, about 3 miles away (technically, it’s not a town, but a hamlet).  Anything more than that, we need to go to neighbouring towns.  One is a 15 minute drive away, the other a 20 minute drive away.  The City is an hour’s drive.  We’ve lived “in town” before moving to where we are now, but back then, we were all able bodied, and that makes a difference.

Square footage.  And bathrooms. Currently we are in a 5 bedroom townhouse on three floors.  We also have 2 1/2 bathrooms.  Our daughters had the third floor to themselves.  We are going to 4 bedrooms (sort of) on 2 floors, and 1 bathroom.  One of my brothers was going to install a second bathroom for us, but that was back when we were going to be moving out in the spring.  Granted, the farm does have 2 unfinished basements (our daughters have been referring to them as “murder basements”. LOL), but my husband and I aren’t going to be using them much.  He is the one on disability, but I’m pretty broken myself, and stairs are not our friend.  So he and I will be using the main floor almost exclusively.  Which is a plus, because in the townhouse, with bedrooms on the second and third floors, the pain of doing stairs kept my husband from getting out much.

One of the bonuses with the extra bedrooms in the townhouse is that I was able to set up my office and craft room in one of them.  And I was able to use the spare bedroom to sleep in.  Anyone with a back injury would recognise how much it affects one’s ability to sleep.  There is only so long you can lie down, sit down or stand, with a constant need to shift positions to alleviate pain.  Separate rooms was the only way we could both get sleep.  At this point, I’m actually not sure how we’re going to work that out once we’re all at the farm.  It would be cool to sleep in the same room as my husband again. LOL I have no idea how I’m going to work out replacing my office and crafting space, though.  I need space enough for the backdrops and lighting I use to take photos for my craft blog.

Medical.  This is a big one for my husband.  He’s had an entire team of medical specialists trying to help him.  There is his general practitioner, of course – we’re all going to have to find a new doctor.  Then there is access to physiotherapy (closest to the farm is in a neighbouring town).  He was seeing a pain specialist at a pain clinic, plus a team of three other specialists at the pain clinic.  Granted, he only saw them about once a year, but he’s still going to have to find some sort of equivalent in The City, and things can be very different between provinces.  There is also an exercise specialist he was seeing, plus a couple other specialists.  Altogether, he was seeing about 9 different people on a regular or semi-regular basis, all of whom we will need to replace.  They would pretty much all only be available in The City, which means long drives and very long days to see them.

Then there is access to pharmacies.  In a city, it’s been an easy matter for him to call in refills at any time, and I’d be able to pick them up quite conveniently.  At the farm, the nearest pharmacies are in neighbouring towns.  Chances are, if he’s going to have to go to The City for medical care, anyhow, we’d be getting prescriptions there, too.  Getting refills is going to need a lot more planning.  And he can’t even renew his prescriptions until he finds a new general practitioner.  He stocked up as much as he could before the flight out.  Taking all that through airport security was certainly interesting.

Some of the things we’re going to be giving up are positives, though.  As I write this, I am being reminded of one of them.

Noise.

Oh, the constant noise.  We’ll be giving up the sounds of constant traffic.  The south side of our townhouse overlooks a major route to a bridge.  Buses, emergency vehicles, and the crunch of accidents on that curve that people keep speeding around. Then there’s the noise of drunk people shouting at all hours, and even neighbours banging on the walls.  I don’t hold that against them; we expect noise from families with young children.  But it’ll be nice to not have other people living on either side of our walls.  The street we’re on is just a block long, but it’s also astonishingly busy at all hours.

The demographics of the area means frequent visits from the police, ambulances and fire trucks.  Lots of transients use our street as a short cut into the valley.  There are a couple of areas around our buildings where camps show up, get taken down, then come back again in a constant cycle.  There is a hill along one side, and a while back, the police did a major sweep through it and discovered people were digging into the hill.  They were pulling out generators and even weapons while cleaning that mess up.

We’ll also be giving up the smells of cigarette smoke and other smoke of a medicinal nature.  We have a lot of neighbours with prescriptions for marijuana, but I’m pretty sure that’s not where the clouds wafting into our open windows is coming from.  We are rarely able to open our windows in the summer and leave them open for long.  Between the noise and the smoke, it quickly becomes unbearable.

Stress.

This was the big one.  The past few years have been constant levels of stress.  Much of it has to do with issues in the co-op we’re living in, that have gotten absolutely insane.  A lot, I simply won’t get into here, but it has been bad enough to affect my own health, and has added to my husband’s pain levels.  Stress = pain.  This was one area where my family put their foot down and told me I needed to make a change, because they were seeing how much it all was affecting me.  Not that there won’t be any stress at the farm – there certainly will be.  But it will be of a completely different nature, and will not involve so many people messing with our lives out of pure evil and spite.

There are a lot of trade offs we had to consider.  These are just a few of them.