I’m Liu He. I am a boy and I am 13 years old. I’d like to tell you something about my country life. I live with my mother, father and brother in a farmhouse in the country. My grandparents live in a house with a big yard near us. The yard is like a small farm. There is a pig, some rabbits, chickens and some kinds of vegetables.

For me, the most interesting place is the chicken house. There are eight hens (母鸡) and they can lay eggs (下蛋). My grandmother usually puts some eggs into the warm box with the hens every summer. So the chickens can be born soon.

After the chickens are born, my grandmother lets me keep one. It is not strong, so I can’t play with it or take it outside. I always give some bread and vegetables to it. After a few weeks the chicken can live outside the chicken house and I can visit it if I miss it.

I am happy to live in the country.

My five-year-old daughter and I were just about to leave the supermarket Target when it started to pour rain. We stood behind the glass doors and looked outside. Some shoppers were waiting, either for someone to pick them up or for the rain to stop.

“Do we wait or just get wet?” I asked my daughter.

“Mum, let’s just get wet,” she said.

On our way out, I asked my daughter if she was sure.

“It’s going to be cold,” I said.

“Let’s go,” she answered.

We hurried across the parking lot, with buckets of rainwater dumping on us. I got her into the car, put our bags in the back and sat in the front seat. I turned the heater on, thinking my daughter would complain she was cold. As I drove home, I thought about all the people still at Target.

How often do we let life’s storms keep us from going where we want? We think, if we just wait, whatever difficulty we are facing might go away. We thought we might have made the better choice. But when we avoid facing life’s challenges, we miss out on something important.

My daughter was brave to go out into the rain. She took the difficulty as part of the day’s journey. She was willing to take on a challenge to get where she wanted to go. Sometimes in life, you have to get wet.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

Three years ago, my parents and I lived in a small house in a busy city. They worked all day, so we didn’t spend much time together. This made my mom sad, so one day she advised（建议）us to move to the countryside（乡村）.

My dad and I agreed（同意）. Soon she found a big house near a forest. But it was run-down. It didn’t have a roof（屋顶）and it didn’t have any bathrooms（洗手间）! I thought she couldn’t be serious. But she was. After a lot of hard work, my parents turned it into a homestay（民宿）and we moved there.

Our homestay has five comfortable bedrooms for visitors. It is open from March to November. The rooms aren’t always full on weekdays, but on weekends, we usually have lots of visitors from the city. People love to come and relax in the countryside.

When we first moved here, I missed my friends and my school. But now I go to the village school and I have lots of new friends. Sometimes I go to the city and visit my old friends, but I don’t like being in the city anymore. People sometimes ask me if I get bored living in the countryside. I always invite（邀请）them to come and stay in our homestay for a weekend and let them find the answer themselves!