Rural life

There is a romantic view of rural life that is held mostly by people who don't live in the country. Its one of a bucolic setting, calm, quiet, with gentle animals from the film set of some Disney production.

Let me dispel a few myths. Yes, it can have elements of all of the above, but often it is laced with all the problems that go along with urban life, on a different scale.

Lets start with an essential - water. Simple, you just turn on a tap right? Well, yes, more or less. Our water is from a well. Beautiful, clean, sweet water. This is pumped electrically, so if there is a power interruption, there isn't any water. Then there is the fact that animals consume large amounts of water, especially horses and poultry, especially ducks and geese. In the late spring and summer its not a major problem as a hose can be run from the house to the barn, but winter brings a set of challenges - and builds muscle as you lug buckets of water from house to barn. Yes eventually a water source will be in the barn, for now - its summer ease or winter hauling.

Of course then there's the field. When there are crops in the field and its a dry spell in July or August, an irrigation system needs to be set up. In an acre field, you can't slip out with a watering or stand with a hose for hours. Also watering with a hose would severely put a strain on the house pump to the well. So its irrigation from the pond where water is fed from the pond at the edge of the property by a generator and pump through some 500 odd feet of pipeline to the fields and a form of sprinklers.

Perhaps rural life is one of the things that helped me decide on this sketch from the Weekend Drawing Event at Wet Canvas. Done in my Moleskine sketchbook 8 x 5 with with a Micron pen in black ink. Now, how much water would this bunch need....??

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