dream a little dream [appalachain mountains]

[werecat]

being that it's too blessed hot to be doing anything outside yet again and bored, I was playing around on the mother earth news land for sale site. I found a couple of places for sale that would be lovely to purchase when the gods choose to dump a butt load of money in my lap. As I looked at the pretty pictures on the ads, here and here, I remembered HUD telling me that the difference between a Yankee and a Dang Yankee is a Yankee comes to visit and a Dang Yankee moves in. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what it's like living in the mountains. I looked up some of the history and found out that the Appalachain Mountains were originally settled mostly by English/Welsh, Irish, Scottish and German miners so I figure I have the ethnic background covered since I am a mix of all of those, but are the people welcoming of newcomers? Gimme the dirt, what's it like?

[RozieDozie]

Werecat, I love the Appalachian mountains; we live as close to them now as we could afford....

I'm bumping this up so the lucky people who really live there can respond.

[FourDeuce]

I live in the Ozarks(what we call mountains around here), and I remember hearing the same thing about the people here back before I moved here. Been here about 20 years now. I've found the people here are fairly open to new people as long as the new people don't try to "fix" the place. You know what "fixing" means. It means making it just like the last place they lived.

[SusanaRachel]

Come visit. Take a look around. Stay a while. Sit on the porch and listen to some music. See if you can get a signal for your cell phone. See if you can get more than one station on your car radio. Find out what you can live with and without.

My genes are 100% Appalachian, but I have not always lived here. My parents left before I was born. We always came home at least twice a year, and we were always taught that the mountains were home. It had always been my dream to come back home, so here I am.

Personally, I think there would be some difficulties only if someone were to move here and suddenly start wanting to change things to be more like 'the way we do things up north'.

Here's an idea for you to mull over. Do a little google research on different areas of Appalachia, which covers a lot of territory. Do a google search for some specific areas and the communities within. If you think you might like a particular area, check out the websites of some local realtors.

I'm assuming you want to farm or at least garden. Flat land might be the problem in that case. Depends on how much land you need, of course.

I would love to see more people who have a true appreciation for the mountains, and a desire to live simply. Ya'll come!

[SusanaRachel]

Morning view

[werecat]

I really like the living simply thing for the most part. I have a cell for emergencies and in case mum and daddy need me, but I'm thinking a cb in my vehicle and a base at the home should do just as well... I would like to have satellite for TV and Internet. Land line phone or maybe a magicjack if I can get the internet. if I'm dreaming, then I'm dreaming big and shooting for solar panels and wind turbines, but why would anyone want to make the new place just like the old place? there is a reason I want to get away from here. I have no desire what so ever to take "here" with me.

[springfever]

It's funny, I have been here for 14 years and was highly upset when 2 Ca. transplants came in and started trying to change the way we were doing some things. They wanted to do it like they did in the city and I said, well, you can try but all you're going to do is make some people really mad. (smile)

[FourDeuce]

"but why would anyone want to make the new place just like the old place?"

Why? Because they move to the new place thinking they are so superior to all the people in the new place and they know how to do everything better than the people who live "in the boonies". You might be surprised at how many people move to the country with that attitude. Years ago I saw a court case from England where somebody moved to the country right next to a farm, then sued the farmer because his animals smelled bad.

[springfever]

I wouldn't mind if the changes were constructive or good for the community,but not change just because thats the way "they did it where they lived". Also the attitude that we are a bunch of illiterate, ignorant and just plain dumb country bumpkins doesn't sit well with me. In the restaurants in town , you can hear them talking about the "locals"
and how backward they are. really? Well, why would you want to live here then?