It has finally happened! But is it worth it? After being the stewards of One Ash, our 1888 Farmhouse, for over 20 years, high speed internet has finally arrived! We are now connected to a working and reliable (hopefully!) internet system. This is our internet story……
Now, obviously we have had some form of internet through the years. Otherwise this blog wouldn’t be in existence and we wouldn’t be sharing our homestead on social media. It hasn’t been easy though, and it sure hasn’t been very good!
When we first moved in, we would run the phone line from the kitchen telephone on the wall, across the main hall, into the family room and plug that “dial up” into our big, heavy laptop computer. It was such fun to hear that infamous sound as the internet connected us to the world beyond. That only lasted a few years, and then we discovered the Mi-Fi device…..and no more phone cord! Mi-Fi was unreliable, a little faster than dial up, but it plugged directly into the computer! We thought we were in technology paradise! No more phone cord running across the house to trip on!
Well after a few more years of trying various Mi-Fi type devices and companies, we became interested in the new-fangled Wi-Fi internet. These devices seemingly could be placed in one place in or outside the home, and then would send a signal to the computers you wanted to use. What? This sounded too good to be true! Well, in the desperation to have some faster and more reliable internet, we dove right into the world of Home Fusion, internet boxes and various other types of little “miracles” to give us better connection and faster service. These were expensive, and never really did the trick, but we were diligent and kept on trying.
One thing we never tried was satellite- we knew too many people around who were paying even more than we were paying for wi-fi devices, and they had even worse service. I don’t know how satellite is today, but over the last 20 years it wasn’t so great.
Then, of course, came the hot spots on our cell phones. To be honest, cell phone service is still sometimes questionable here at One Ash, but we have managed to get internet through those hot spots for a while. We’ve been able to get our technology needs with hot spots and more of those wi-fi boxes…….”home internet” they like to call it. It’s honestly been an exhausting and frustrating part of living in the country for 2 decades. But, the times they are a-changin’!
In anticipation of getting connected to fiber-optic internet, Mr. One Ash and I were saying we can just imagine how the folks felt when they were getting electricity brought to the house in 1955! Such excitement! Along with maybe a little apprehension that the old ways were slipping away. It must have been a bittersweet moment, and I feel a little that way this evening. Before you know it we will be spoiled to videos and web pages popping up instantly, to being able to stream a full movie without lengthy buffering, and to be able to edit and post blog posts with ease. We will share stories, just like the ones about the phone cord running across the hallway, and tell our grandkids how there was this little circle that would spin round and round while we waited for the internet to work. They will find it hard to believe and look at us like we’re crazy, and tell us how we must have lived in the olden days. Yes, I suppose we have.
So for now, we’ll just hang onto those memories and stories. And enjoy the new found time we will have since we don’t have to wait on the spinny-circle any more! Here’s to making it to the 21st century at One Ash!
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