So, you want to move to the country. You’re going to pack the kids into the minivan and head for the hills with Fido in tow, humming the theme to Green Acres as you speed away from the mean streets of the city. Not so fast there, greenhorn. If it were that easy everyone would do it. Everyone is doing it, you say? Okay, there has been a dramatic population shift from urban areas into rural areas, and it does seem like everywhere you look these days some glossy, powder-puff magazine is extolling the virtues of simple rural living. The problem is that rural living isn’t all that simple.

In the current issue of Countryside yet another reader laments that their foray into the country was a miserable experience. Resorting to slurs like “red neck,” the writer places the blame for her situation entirely on the people of the rural Kentucky community that she now despises.

I was watching Ocean Adventures on PBS one evening. John Michel Cousteau was interviewing an Amazon fish farmer. He wanted to know how the small farmer felt about the number of urbanites buying property along the famed river and moving in lock, stock and barrel. Through a translator the farmer replied, “When someone from the country moves to the city, they learn everything they need to survive there in a few weeks. When someone from the city moves to the country, it can take them years to learn what they need to survive.” Leave it to a farmer to come right out and say it. Rural life isn’t simple by any stretch of the imagination.

The writer of the article bashing the fine community in Kentucky did just about everything wrong. She moved to an economically depressed area and flaunted money, leading the locals to believe that the newcomers might hire one or two locals to help spruce up the new bed and breakfast. When the newcomers refused to hire anyone, they got a bad reputation. Things deteriorated fast from there.

If you want to move to the country to open a bed and breakfast, or some other niche business, you might want to read “The Greenhorn’s Guide to Homesteading” before you go. Otherwise, you may end up using unflattering slurs to describe your former neighbors and carry a chip on your shoulder for a long time to come.

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