I’m getting full all the way to my red neck with all the cryinbg from City-folk Coast readers about how we rural folks use the wilderness. You soft sandle-wearing pansies want to turn the wilds of NS into a giant Point Pleasant Park for dogs and squirrels. Well, guess what? Just because you made your fortune in the big city, read some Thoreau in your first year at Kings, and decided to move out here to a hobby-farm, doesn’t give you the right to criticise those of us that have been here for generations.
That’s right – we hunt, we fish, we cut down trees and we ride off-highway vehicles to get back to those areas. We drink, we smoke and by God I don’t care if you DO hear my chainsaw on a Sunday morning! Why don’t you go stand in front of the city library and eat chips, you smug bastards?!
…and one more thing, come to the country and you’re gonna hear engines and smell the odd bit ‘o pig shit and diesel fuel, so stop whinging…
—baD mR fRosTy
This article appears in Aug 20-26, 2009.
Right on.
You don’t like how we live out here, stay in your concrete asphalt hell hole. Well gotta go, the trails are all nice & muddy & a bunch of us are going out to get dirty.
What are you people talking about?!!
I live in the city and I never thought of rural folks like that!!
Mind you it’s a bit rude to be awakened on a Saturday morning at 7am by a chainsaw!
Personally, if you don’t want to be considerate towards your neighbours, you should live somewhere secluded with no one around for miles!
Generally speaking, most people try to be nice, there are quite a few bad apples everywhere you go, regardless of what country or culture you live in!
i grew up in Halifax but spent my summers in Shubenacadie. I’d rather wake up to dirtbikes than garbage trucks. Most city-folk who poo-poo ATV’s and accuse “rednecks” of “spoiling” the woods should take a close look at their own wasteful lifestyle.
mmmmm venison.
Thanks Frosty – you echo my sentiments completely. Actually, I’ve been thinking that Halifax herself could use a little bit more country – ATVs going round the rotary and down Spring Garden, spitoons downtown, fires allowed in the backyard and a little less fashion (I’m being serious – this is not tongue in cheek). Fuck, I love rural NS.
Really? “LESS fashion”? Because after spending many years living and working abroad, I haven’t noticed much here… 😉
But I agree, ‘ATV’s, or specifically small engine/ light-weight vehicles ARE going to be in our future, get used to it. Only a Haligonian that had never travelled to ANYWHERE (besides the US) would not realize that EVERY other continent uses them…because they save fuel.
But fires? Nahh…live out here if you want to do that…I burn MY brush.
I’ve lived in semi-rural NS all my life and over the past 20 years there’s been a steady rise in cyclists in the middle of the road who seem to think every day is the tour de France & boaters who trailer their boats to the lake I live on for the weekend usually to get pissed and drive like idiots. I’ve had some of these guys actually stop me to question the legality of my noise levels, and other fun things I get up to. Sheesh – 30 years ago we could shoot skeet in our back yard!
Er..
http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/rail-to-tra…
Bringing it to the city!
cousin zeke, is that you in the form of bad mr. frosty. holy shit man. know what bud, i totally agree with you on all points made there. i like to do the same when able to, and hate it when some whiney little punk ass bitch says something to me. it’s called fucking personal freedom. as long as i’m not shooting you or your family, leave me and the rest of us redneck type folks the hell alone. there is just too much whining about second hand smoke, noise from atv’s, cussing and whatever else. and as we all know, the bikes aren’t that loud, how about those little fucking tuner cars, now there’s a waste of time, brains, and money.so you do what you want, and we will do what we want. get the idea.
My neighbours wake me up with a chain saw at 7 am on a somewhat regular basis. And its not inconsiderate, they heat their home with that wood! Not to mention – it’s not a bad time to wake up anyway. If Im hungover and dont want to get up at 7 doesnt mean that my neighbours need to change their routine :). Plus I like them, cant see ’em, and I like it that way!
And speaking of ATVs – most of the trails that are used (at least around my area) are old logging roads that have been around for a good twenty/thirty years, if not longer! Hell, four years a go the thirty or so acres next to our property was clear cut, the soft wood left, piled, to rot. Now we get people out there on ATV’s (and we use the roads for horseback riding) but the damage wasnt done by us, at least not in comparison!
So. Thats my piece. I love rural NS as well, although sometimes the bugs are bad and its a pain in the ass making it in town for that show, or making it home again AFTER the show.
Regardless. I moved out here when my mother was a yuppie, and it didnt take long for her to outgrow that phase. So your hobby farming yuppie neighbours will be normal neighbours soon enough – well, as normal as possible if they’ve bought land in NS!
Not all country folk work in the daytime, putz.
Great post by Gabrielle, hear hear!
I now officially consider the matter closed…
Just out of curiosity, OP, how much wilderness do you personally own? I’m a fan of property rights myself, and I surely wouldn’t like anyone telling me what to do on my own, paid-for land, within reason (doing something that affects adjacent landowners being a no-no, for example). And if you’ve got permission from other landowners to do certain things on their property, so much the better.
I’m just establishing that you “country” types aren’t suddenly thinking that you’ve got special rights to Crown lands or things like that…
I got enough to swing a dead cat or two, thanks…
No, no special rights to crown land being claimed here, (!?) but just don’t move next to me and tell me my goats stink, my working on outboard motors in my shop “disturbs you” and that my Rooster wakes you up too early for your hour-long commute to the city, that’s all…
After all, I don’t come into town and tell you folks to clean the piss from your sidewalks and teach your bums some manners, do I?
Mr Frosty if you considered the matter offically closed at 1.18PM, then WTF are you still doing posting on this topic at 10.40PM?
And for the love of dog, please put on some farking pants.
…because RiD made a (slightly) interesting point…you should try it some time.
Although I see you are still waiting patiently for someone to bite so you can spring your quip about dyslexic christians worshipping doG…that has some merit, not much as it’s an old one, but it is kinda funny…
Pants? Why, so’s I kin shite meself?
Frosty, good answer. I see where you’re coming from when you mention city commuters moving into a rural neighbourhood and thinking it’s just a suburb. That would piss me off too.
The point *I* was getting at is that is that there’s as many yahoos in rural parts as we’ve got in the city. I’m not saying you’re one of them. And the comment about Crown land had to do with this observation: who’s got the best year-round access to it? Not usually city people. So when there’s evidence of misuse of public lands, it’s usually not city yahoos, it’s rural yahoos.
It sounds to me like your observation was targeted at people who work in cities or large towns but live out in the boonies. Not in new subdivisions out in the woods, but intermingled with classic rural folks with rural jobs. Like I say, I can sympathize with the frustrations that can arise in that situation.