On a typical day a handful of cars travel down the dirt road that defines the northern edge of my mom's 40 acres. There's no indoor plumbing.
Water comes from the well house and the toilet is in the outhouse.
From the time my great-grandparents came over from Scotland until now, no one has ever bothered to get a phone line hooked up to the house. As far as modern conveniences go, I would have preferred a toilet that didn't require dodging mosquitoes and lightning strikes to reach in the dead of night. I'd gotten used to not having a TV, and its presence rankled me. And my mom apparently hadn't seen a recent issue of Martha Stewart Living that offered tips on how to elegantly integrate an ugly-ass TV into a country home. My reaction surprised me.