I was 21 when I fell in love with my husband. I wasn’t looking beyond his muscles, tan, and his perfect blue eyes. I didn’t think passed the way I felt when he wrapped me in his arms and when he proposed after 2 months of dating, I said “yes” without hesitation. Later, when countless people asked me if I knew what I was getting into by marrying a farmer, I had no idea what they were talking about. I thought marrying a farmer couldn’t be much different than marrying a dentist; instead of teeth, we’d talk about tractors. Jeff wisely married me before I had a chance to experience a farmer’s summer. A farmer’s summer is much different than a dentist’s summer, or any other occupation really. Farming is not just a job you can find on Monster.com, it is a way of life. Make hay while the sun shines is not just a catchy cliché, it is a salary.
A few weeks after our wedding, we experienced spring’s Day Light Savings Time. For most people, it is the blessed day when an hour of precious day light is added to the end of the day, instead of the beginning. For a farmer, it means another hour of time to work outside, and for his wife… another hour without her husband. Of course there are many adjustments in the first part of any marriage, but I found myself smack-dab in the middle of a different land, a place where people work every day except Sunday from the time the sun comes up in the morning to when it is too dark to work any more; a place where farm wives can cook a hot meal for hungry men in 10 minutes flat and drop everything to go help jump a tractor. In this strange land, meal times are when there is a break in the work or they’re at the right side of the field and Sunday is truly a day of rest, unless a cow gets out.
It’s been almost 6 years since I experienced my first Day Light Savings Time as a farmer’s wife. Even though I love the life and the man I married, I still dread the day. I much prefer the winter months when a cold rain storm outside will keep my husband indoors. He comes home for lunch and is home for dinner at 5 or 6. It is bliss. As the weather changes and the sun sheds its welcome light for the busy farmer to work, he works. Day Light Savings Time snapped its magic fingers yesterday and poof, it is light until 7pm. Today is the first day of work and so it begins…. No more long lunches or early dinners because I will be taking him lunch and dinner and we’ll wait for him to be on the right side of the field. The days will get longer and longer until he is working 14 hours…. Sigh, I am tired just thinking about it.
I didn’t marry a dentist and know nothing about teeth. At times I’ve thought it would be nice to have married a chiropractor, but that is beside the point. I fell for a farmer and my life is forever his life. I know far more about farming than I ever thought I would and I know so little in comparison to a real farm girl, it is frightening. Here is a quiz for the day: What kind of tractor is pictured and what is it pulling? I mistakenly said “towing” instead of “pulling” when I was describing what I was going to blog about to Jeff this morning. He gave me the same smirk as when I said “dead furrow” instead of slurring it all together like “deadfurrow” (you get lots of bonus points if you can tell me what I the heck a dead furrow is). Jeff thinks my poor use of farm lingo is quite endearing and I am just glad I’ve never driven through the dead furrow with my car.
7 comments:
I love the way you have embraced being a farmer's wife, despite the busy spring and summer months. (I actually always dreamed of living on a farm, but I think I have a very "romanticized" idea of what it would be like, in my mind :)
And for the record, I am very impressed with your knowledge of farm life. My answer to both the tractor and dead furrow questions is no clue!!
BIG blue tractor with some kind of tilling thing! :-) That's my best guest...pathetic, I do know!
Guess...not guest
Are you asking what Jeff ment by the difference between pulling and towing? I kept reading these scentences to try for the bonus points (impulsive competivteness) but I'm too tired and/or stupid to understand :)
As a kid, I used to dream of living on a farm some day. I spent most of my summers on the Peters farm, working hard and hard at play. It was wonderful! I was so jealous of my cousins and did not look forward to heading back to my "city life." But, I didn't marry a farmer...I married a fisherman. And so, I pretty much got the worst of both worlds. I'm stuck in the city, with a husband that works just as much (or more!) as a farmer. My husband's work doesn't begin with day light savings though - it begins twice a year with the start of salmon season in July and crab season in December.
your dad says the tractor is a ford and he was correct about the disc (he told me last night)But neither of us knows what a dead furrow is. I know what a furrow is but have no idea it could be dead!
I asked Benton. He said "it's a tractor that looks broke." "And what is this behind it?" "It's an Uncle Jeff!" "Not on it. Behind it." "Oh. It's a rake." So there you have it.
Post a Comment