I'm a Little Scared

It is just one week until I move to the Pony Farm. I'll be leaving behind the amenities (however environmentally disastrous) of the city and trading them for the (perhaps romanticized) glories of the country life. Have I really thought this through?

It's a funny question: I've wanted to do this all my life, been thinking about it for over two decades, how could I be anything other than totally stoked?

Well, right now I am drinking a cup of coffee. The store where I bought the beans is just three blocks away. (It's a "Trader Joe's" which is a chain of really incredible grocery stores that stock great organic food. Something nice to have three blocks away.)

I ground the beans fresh in an electric grinder and cooked them in an electric coffee maker that also keeps the pot warm. I'm on a computer plugged into the wall, using a router and cable modem, plugged into the wall, to write this blog post over a high speed internet connection, which is also plugged into the wall.

Now there is electricity available at the farm, and internet too, but the juice comes from solar panels and a micro-hydro turbine and is stored in batteries in a shed, and the internet comes through a satellite uplink and has definite bandwidth (and lag) limits.

I actually want to live within these resource limits, at least I think I do, but I haven't actually done it yet and I find myself not without some degree of trepidation.

Of course, I have only to consider the millions (billions! *shudder*) who live without the luxuries I'll have on the farm:

• Fresh water (from a spring!)
• Healthy food (organic and just picked)
• Clean air (rural setting just inland from the Pacific Ocean)
• Internet (however limited)
• Nearby to all the amenities of modern civilization: Hospitals, Universities, Libraries, Museums, Theaters and Arts thingys, heck, even malls.
• Distant from all the crappy bits of modern civilization.
• Ponies!
• Self-determination (i.e. on both a personal and community level our civilization, at least around here, supports a responsible and self-determined life.)

So basically, when I think of it that way I realize that it's not so bad and I should stop "playing the world's smallest violin just for me" over it and be happy and excited.

But I will miss my roommate's DVD collection. ;)