I spend a lot of time writing about the trials and tribulations of building our house, but I haven’t really talked too much about some of the more intangible benefits that come from living out in the country.  Even though, we are only about a 45 minute drive from Ottawa, we are in quite a rural location.  Considering that from our old house in Toronto, if we drove for 45 minutes on the 401, we wouldn’t even really be out of the city and surrounding townships in that time.  So we are quite pleased to be able to enjoy the rural lifestyle, and still not be too far away from a major city.

There are some great things about living the rural lifestyle.  The silence, for one.  It is so nice to be outside and all you hear are birds singing, and the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves.  There are a lot of wetlands around here, and on quiet nights in the spring, the sound of the frogs singing is almost overwhelming.

That’s the other good thing about being out of a major city centre – at night there is a lot less light pollution, and the stars you can see are quite an incredible sight!

We also get a number of visitors which pass through from time to time.  We used to have quite a lot of wild turkeys which would pass through, but I haven’t seen too many since the last hunting season.  There are also some deer that visit our apple trees in the night, but we have so far not been lucky enough to see them in person.  We also often see foxes, there used to be a pair that would play in a meadow just down the road from us, it was nice to see them having fun!

Today though, on our way back from town, we found this little fella relaxing in our driveway.  One thing I know for sure – it’s important to be able to distinguish a garden turtle from a snapping turtle – and this guy was s snapping turtle (you can tell by the way his shell has pointy bits on it around his tail / rear area.)

A good sized snapping turtle like this guy has got to be respected, if you get your fingers anywhere near him you’re liable to lose one!  I just held our local newspaper folded up in the picture for reference, I wasn’t poking at him or anything  🙂

Anyway, those are just a few of the reasons we love living out here.  The city life does have it’s benefits, but it’s really hard to beat the simple beauty of nature.  Hopefully this sheds a little light on why we embarked on this somewhat crazy journey to begin with!