Living In A Rural Town vs On The Farm

This episode is inspired by our family's significant move from our beloved farm near Moonie to the lively border town of Goondiwindi, and my reflections on living in a rural town compared to life on the farm. After spending decades mainly on the land and out of town, this transition brought its share of revelations, and I'm eager to share the highs and lows.

When we decided in 2022 to live in town during the school terms of 2023, it meant embracing a new chapter. Goondiwindi became our home base, offering immediate access to amenities that were previously the cause of extensive planning and travel from our farm 130km away. The ease of simply being able to pick up a fresh loaf of bread, grab a coffee, or pick up groceries felt like a luxury. This convenience has been a significant pro of town life—the time saved from driving alone was a game-changer.

And then we made the move to living in town full time during 2024. We became "townies!"

One of my favourite aspects of residing in town has been the community connection. Living closer to others means there's more opportunity for spontaneous coffee meet-ups and being part of events that enrich our social circle. 

However, town living isn’t without its downsides. The bustling environment can sometimes feel constrictive, especially after enjoying the expansive freedom of farm life. Several challenges in our family arose from feeling “caged in” due to smaller living spaces and constant noise.

As I reflect on this past year of living in town, I've also acknowledged some lifestyle changes. It’s been challenging to juggle the faster-paced conveniences of town life while longing for the hands-on, active lifestyle that the farm provided. 

I hope this reflection resonates with you, especially if you're contemplating a similar transition or just curious about the rural versus town dynamic. Our experiences, though personal, might offer insight or comfort as you navigate your own journey. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Benita: Hi there, and welcome back to another episode of me plus motherhood. Whether you're listening to this episode at the time of its release on the 18th of December, or at some point after, even during the school holidays period. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for choosing to listen to this episode. And the reason I'm recording this episode is because right now it's the 27th of November.

[00:00:46] We are four days away from moving, relocating from Queensland down to the border town. of Echuca. The border an area of Echuca Moama. And I've been doing some reflecting on what it's been like to live in town this year and in 2023. We lived between town and our farm, so we've had this kind of staggered progression from moving from being on the farm full time to being there kind of half the time.

[00:01:22] And then in 2024 living in town full time as a family. And I thought I would share what that has been like for us as a family, the pros and the cons, what I've loved and what I've not loved so much.

[00:01:37] , just with the thought that perhaps it might help you if you've ever considered a change. Maybe you've just been curious if you've been following me on socials over the last few years and wondering what it's like maybe there's something in this for you. So here we go. To give you a little bit of backstory, we lived on a farm, near Moonee in Southern [00:02:00] Queensland on the Western Downs from June, 2015 to December, 2023.

[00:02:07] the farm is about. 30 kilometers west of Moonee and 130 kilometers from Goondiwindi, 145 kilometers from Dolby, about 100 kilometers from Tara. If that helps you to know where that is, but our main town that we used as our service provider, as our sort of main regional center was Goondiwindi. So we've always thought of Gundy as kind of our main town, as the step up from Moonee, which is only a.

[00:02:36] small community of about 100 people. There's a beautiful school there. There's a sports clubs and tennis courts. There's a post office. There's the Moonee crossroads famous pub. You might've driven past there at some stage or dropped in for a beer or a sandwich or a steak. So that's where we called home. Prior to our move to the farm, we actually lived in Goondiwindi for two years here in town. while we were looking for a property that we wanted to buy in this area, we had moved back up from the West Wyalong area. And our intention was to buy a block with my parents.

[00:03:14] those two years we were looking for what the place where it was that we were going to buy. And we were We also, in those two years welcomed our first son into the world and my husband was working as a chemical rep. I was doing some of my business, but also, enjoying motherhood.

[00:03:33] when we moved to the farm. In June, 2015, I was one day pregnant with our twin boys. And the reason I know that is because, I had had an embryo transfer in Sydney the day before we actually arrived at the farm. Most of our actual gear, our furniture and our belongings were already there, but we, needed to get ourselves [00:04:00] there.

[00:04:00] And so we had the embryo transfer in Sydney on the Saturday. And we began living at the farm on the Sunday. So I actually, technically I wasn't actually pregnant yet because the embryo hadn't implanted. but that's how I, I found out after that I was pregnant. And so it's quite incredible to think that I was carrying them, the day we moved to the farm.

[00:04:23] So we farmed there from 2015 through to the end of 2023. we had our own business, but we also managed the property that we owned with my parents and we also sort of were operating in conjunction with my parents and siblings as part of a family business.

[00:04:41] in 2022, We made the decision that the boys and I would start living in town during the school terms in 2023. , early 2023. We started to rent a house in town that, the boys, as in our four children who were, The youngest was just beginning prep, which is the first official year of school here in Queensland.

[00:05:07] and , our twins were in grade two and our eldest was in grade four. so we, began to live in town during the week and then we would go home to the farm most weekends. so we sort of got a taste of what that kind of half in and half out was like.

[00:05:23] And then at the end of 2023, we made the decision that we would, exit. The situation we were in there on the farm, and we fully left the farm on Christmas Eve, 2023. and so this year we have been permanently in town. So I , it's been a bit of a. It's been interesting to experience the spectrum of what it's like.

[00:05:49] I've lived most of my life out of town. There's only been a few periods of time. The first two years we were living in Gundy when we moved here. These two years and I think during my [00:06:00] university years were the only times I've lived in town. so mostly I've been an out of town on the, on a farm sort of girl and that's been my natural habitat I would, I suppose.

[00:06:10] SoIf you're not familiar with Goondiwindi, it's a rural town on the McIntyre River, right on the border between Queensland and New South Wales. And it's a town of about 6, it's an amazing country town, Goondiwindi. Amazing thriving community. We have a Coles and a Foodworks here that might help you to give you a sense of the size.

[00:06:31] amazing event. There's a cinema here and great services in terms of doctors, there's dental, people travel from a bit of a way to come to Gundy because of the services here, as well as all your normal rural suppliers.

[00:06:46] what I've loved and the pros I've experienced of moving to town and what that's been like, the first the ease of things. When people have asked me, particularly in the early days, what's it like to live in here compared to living where we were on the farm? The first thing that I always say is it's just, it just feels so easy.

[00:07:09] And I remember last year In the first few months, it was such a novelty. It, I just couldn't get over it. Like this just feels so easy. There's not so much driving because where we were on our property, we were an hour and 20 minutes to town. So town days were big days When the kids started school, we'd leave home once we got them on the bus or to school. And then you're sort of racing to do all your things in town. Appointments or meetings, groceries, jobs, all those sorts of things in a very defined time frame. either to get home to get the kids off the bus or to get them from school.

[00:07:47] Or if you had arranged someone to get home just at a reasonable hour, if someone was getting the kids off the bus, just as long as you were back in time to then unload a million groceries and cook dinner and do baths and all those [00:08:00] things that when your kids are little, you want to do in a reasonable, timely fashion.

[00:08:04] So town days, they're like this thing branded in my memory of particularly when our boys were tiny. They were almost like military precision executed days. And anyone listening who is still doing this will just be smiling because you will know exactly what I'm talking about.

[00:08:22] And you, some of you probably live in further from town than what we lived. So no town days I've got at the top of my list as one of the pros, because I've not missed them at all. To be honest, I have loved the convenience of being able to duck down and get a fresh loaf of bread, being able to go and get a coffee.

[00:08:45] it's still a novelty for me to be able to get a real coffee. The conveniences of things like groceries being delivered and being able to get takeaway.

[00:08:55] those are the obvious ones that it just makes life easier. Only having to drive four minutes to my children's school and you know, a few minutes to appointments, it just makes life so much easier than the trip in factoring the driving in all the time. I think not being on a farm, there's not as many variables of the weather and things going on on the farm that can sometimes impact on other things going on in your life.

[00:09:23] Whereas what I've found living in town, it's been quite straightforward that I can make more appointments things just flow more easily. I actually asked my children this afternoon before I recorded this about what they thought as well. And one of my boys said, Oh, you know, KFC has been good mum.

[00:09:41] Goondiwindi's only had KFC for about a month, but, apparently that is also one of the benefits. Feeling more connected to people has been a pro. So being able to see more people to feel, more. connected in person, being able to catch up with [00:10:00] people for a coffee with more ease with friends, being able to go to more events more easily.

[00:10:06] And also just keeping in mind that while we were living on the farm, our children were little, we were in the baby and the early toddler, like little kid stage. So, Just I guess for context, well, as I'm recording this, that things felt harder to do at that time. Whereas while we've been here, they're starting to, you know, they're like five and above.

[00:10:27] So things have been easier to get to. Soone of my boys said, feeling like part of a bigger community. And I guess, town and going to a bigger school gives you a sense of more community. The beautiful little school the boys went to at Moonee was around 20 children when we were there.

[00:10:46] So it was a small school. And so I guess your world is quite small in a,community like that, where, You're going to school with the same children, you're socializing with the same children. probably most of the time you're on the farm with just as a family.

[00:11:01] And that's a beautiful way of life. . I think it's just enriched our lives, being more connected to more people. That comes with its downsides as well, which I'll get to in the cons, um,being able to more easily access help for me has been a positive in terms of the ease of being able Finding a cleaner, getting help with housekeeping when I've needed it and being able to go to the corner store and have them prepare some meals if I need it that has been easier than when you have a smaller pool of people to, draw on in a less populated area.

[00:11:44] The internet connection and the mobile service in town and less power outages has been a pro particularly because We run businesses from a home office. I run my coaching business and we're also our farm business. our boys said [00:12:00] the same thing that having a stable internet connection because we're on the NBN network here it really has been fantastic.

[00:12:06] I could name on one hand, the number of glitches there's been compared to being on the mobile broadband network. That has been really nice and definitely better mobile service compared to needing a mobile booster at the farm.

[00:12:21] And we encountered power outages, particularly during summer, very common on the farm, and we just don't get as many of them here. So that's, I guess that's a nice, again, life's just a little bit easier and simpler. Access to more opportunities and being able to make appointments for the kids and I, or and Adam, but we've spent more time in town than he has, has been really great.

[00:12:45] I've enjoyed giving our boys the opportunity to do all sorts of different things. So when we were at the farm, they were doing things obviously on the farm and what the school offered, but we were limiting it to, you know, one sport between them all, which at the time was soccer. Again, they were a little bit littler.

[00:13:02] so we would come to town for soccer on a Saturday, but to be running in for multiple different things was just not an option. it's been amazing to be able to do all sorts of things like swimming lessons, tennis lessons, art classes, and, cross fit and scouts. And, I have done singing lessons this year, which I've done some podcast episodes on. that's been amazing.

[00:13:26] And being able to do, make regular appointments, like to get a massage or to get my toenails painted or little things like that, that on the farm, again, particularly when the boys were little was like very sporadic. You might be able to do that every now and then. Whereas in town, it's just easy to make the appointment and you know, you're going to get there.

[00:13:47] I touched on this a little bit earlier, but I think broadening our horizons has been a good thing and. living life a different way. So as a family, learning how to adapt to living in town [00:14:00] and being able to do things like cross the street and learning how to have neighbors so close by, learning that we have to lock the car and lock the house and be respectful in a different way.

[00:14:15] And I think just. Experiencing a different way of life that perhaps at some stage will be beneficial for our children as well, that they've experienced this way of life as well as a farm way of life that is, helpful to them just as a life experience. So those are some of the things that I have loved about living in town.

[00:14:40] Some of the cons and things that I've not enjoyed so much and that I won't miss because we are As I said earlier, about to move and we're going to be living initially in a rental about 15 minutes from town on about five acres. So that's a temporary thing for us and we will be looking to get back on the land in our own right at some time in the near future.

[00:15:06] Things I've not enjoyed is feeling caged in and where we have lived in town in Goondiwindi for these last two years was really never meant to be a permanent thing. So we've rented a house here that is, a good solid four bedroom, two bathroom brick home really has adequate space and a decent ish backyard.

[00:15:33] Much bigger than some people would have, but probably smallish by some standards. And we didn't ever move much play equipment here. The boys trampoline and their cubby and a lot of their more permanent fixtures were And we didn't have a chook pen here. we didn't even have a vegetable garden because we just kept not knowing if we were going to stay here and it was never meant to be a permanent place.

[00:15:58] So it was [00:16:00] pretty basic. boys would say we didn't have a lot to do and there wasn't much space. And now that they're big, they're big kids, It has felt like the walls are closing in a little bit, especially as this year has gone on. I've also felt like I have had my blinkers on a little bit, particularly this year, maybe in this last six months as well, because we're not doing the drive in and out of town or kind of keeping a regional view on things or an, an area view on things, cause I'm just not out and about as much.

[00:16:36] I feel like I've kind of become a bit more in a bubble and feeling that I've lost a bit of perspective, a bit of knowledge of my surroundings and what's happening in the area compared to being on farm and in a farming area and doing a lot of driving here, there and everywhere.

[00:16:52] You kind of, I've just felt like I'm a bit, maybe a bit more ignorant to what's going on perhaps. I haven't enjoyed, and this is probably something I knew before we moved to town that I knew would just be something we'd have to live with, which is hearing dogs barking, hearing people, you're next door neighbors.

[00:17:11] And we've been in a beautiful street in a beautiful area of town while we've lived in town. I couldn't say anything better about our, our street and the people in it, but it's just in general, in a town setting, you can't really do much about it. And that fear, particularly that fear of us making too much noise, and just living with that feeling of like, Oh my gosh, can people hear us when the boys scream or they're fighting or if I'm yelling.

[00:17:36] the number of times I have had to say to the boys, we live in town boys, we live in town when you've got four boys who've grown up on a farm and we've had to have no concept of noise. that's been tricky. I think we've gotten better, but still I shake my head sometimes.

[00:17:51] when I asked the boys what they didn't like about town, they, all of them said the noises, the car noises, the truck noises, which is interesting because they had not really said that to me [00:18:00] very much. So that's obviously something that's bothered them that I wasn't really aware of. probably ties in a little bit the lack, a lack of space for us and our pets.

[00:18:09] Again, it probably relates a little bit to our circumstances and the size of this home and the size of our backyard. Certainly there's people, would be people in town who have beautiful big homes and backyards. we've lacked living space here and an outdoor space. Obviously there's plenty of space if you want to go for a drive and find it, or you want to get on your You know, sometimes it's fine to just go on your bike or your scooter and go and find space somewhere else.

[00:18:32] But I probably mean just like in our immediate surroundings. Also, I am someone who likes to go for a walk or a run and not see anyone, or not hear anything and just be in complete space. That's always been one of my greatest joys ever since I was a teenager, ever since I was a kid going for a walk or getting on my horse or the motorbike or something and just escaping out into the space and the quiet was always my getaway and Maybe my coping strategy and a really great pleasure for me.

[00:19:03] So I have missed that immensely. We live near the golf course here and I've been able to go for walks on the golf course, but still there's people on mowers and there's people playing golf and there's people around. so you kind of never feel like you get that complete. feeling of space, unless you were to drive somewhere or, run out of town or something.

[00:19:23] I do feel as though I've become less efficient and less organized living in town, I never thought I would be that person that would go to the grocery shop more than once a week, because at Moonee, you know, we would do a shop every 10 days or every two weeks and you would just make things last in between that time or you would have backup whereas in town you sort of, even though I didn't mean for it to happen, started to get that mentality of like, well, I don't need to worry about having it on hand because I can just go and get it.

[00:19:52] But also. Probably feel like I just waste time a little bit, or I don't need to be as organized. So I'm not as [00:20:00] organized even with making appointments and things like, whereas I used to have them all in the same day and it would be very time efficient.

[00:20:06] Now they might be spread throughout the week, for example, and. I'm spending time when I don't really need to, going backwards and forwards from home. For example, it has been nice being able to just duck down the street. That is still a novelty. but I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've probably wasted time as a result of it, but we haven't had as much driving as well.

[00:20:30] I've missed the farm way of life and doing, just doing farm things, checking cattle. feeding animals, driving the truck, hooning around on motorbikes, just being on the farm. I have really missed that and our boys have too, even though between the four of them, there's varying degrees of interest in farming itself.

[00:20:56] And I'll be very curious to know when we get back on a farm, how that has developed or changed. It's just that feeling of there's always something happening, you know, down at the cattle yards or, you know, Harvesting, or we're planting, or we've got to take to add lunch, or there's a job to do, or we're doing some new project, you know, just being outside more.

[00:21:17] I feel like we've been more sedentary since we've lived in town. I'm keen for the boys to have more exposure to doing, you know, those practical kind of hands on farm sort of things again. Again, there's no pressure on them as to, to be farmers or to, it doesn't matter if they're not involved in ag, but just that way of life.

[00:21:39] Of being on the land. You naturally generally are more active and outdoors. And we used to do things a lot more as a family, I think, than we do now. And I will definitely not miss worrying about having our house broken into, although farm and rural theft [00:22:00] is also a thing. certainly the crime in Goondiwindi has been concerning and something that's been on my mind

[00:22:06] a great deal since we've lived in town. Thankfully, we've not been broken into, but that has been something that has been very worrying for me and played on my mind a lot. the way I have dealt with it is just to take all the precautions. And quite literally, I will often just say a prayer before bed and go, Please just keep us safe and all I can do is have faith that we will be okay because I cannot control this situation.

[00:22:36] could go on and on, but I'm going to leave it there and trust that there's something in there for you that might be of interest. I'm always happy to answer questions. if you'd like to ask anything, send me a message. I'm very happy to respond to you.

[00:22:49] Have a wonderful Christmas because this will be coming out just before Chrissy. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. Bye. May you stay safe, happy and healthy and have a blessed time. And I'm sending you lots of love. Thank you. 

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