Patience With a Capital P

Farm life is great, right?

We're living this life to ensure the health of our land, supply food and fuel for our country, and teach our kids great, big life lessons on our tiny piece of planet Earth.

We're actually on the cover of this month's Prairie Farmer magazine singing the praises of raising kids on the farm. Farming makes multi-generational relationships stronger, creates opportunities for responsibility for kids (as seen in Holly's blog today), allows so many life lessons to be learned and virtuous character traits to be fine tuned...

So why is it so DANG FRUSTRATING????

Because it tests everyone's patience.

A lot.
 

Like yesterday, we tried to be country and town folks when it came to trick or treating. As a town kid, I used to just roll out of my house when trick or treating began, met up with my buds from down the street, and visited neighbors, as long as I promised to be home by dark. Easy-peasey.

As a country kid, one has to be more patient, getting in and out of the car multiple times at neighbors' and grandparents' and relatives' homes before landing in town, only to have to unload stray costume pieces and coats and then, and only then, can you get out and about to trick or treat.

It's a process, and one that requires patience.

Which I didn't have much of by 6:00 last night, but that's another rant.

Anyway, the patience of the guys around here was being tested, but not the sweet candy-coated kind, they were being tested by the giant, green, angry combine kind.

Yes, a breakdown.

In the bean field.

With only a few measely (well, like 100ish) acres left in the whole dang farm to be harvested and then we can get this silly year over with.

While I realize my life is very easy as of today, considering the treacherous weather folks are having to endure up and down the East Coast, I also know that my big deal is still a big deal to me, and I wish for pity's sake this year could be chalked up to one of those patience testing ones, and I could move on to next year, which I know, without a doubt, will be a better one, right?

This year will go down as one that tested my patience, and I will learn from it, right?

Probably not, but I will try.

Either way, as a farmer or a farmer's wife, or a farmer's kid, you have to be patient. This breakdown caused a lot of sighing, then hustling, then considering, than banging around, then hustling, and now rolling, all the while making the guys' patience stretch very, very thin.

Farmers have to be patient, and, consequently, so do farmer's wives.

And for this farmer's wife, that's a NIGHTMARE!

So I think this life that has been laid for me and my kids is a test from God. I think he's trying to make me loosen my white knuckled grip on everything by giving me a lifestyle that you cannot predict like a bi-monthly paycheck. I think God wants me to see a life lead by patience with a capital P is one that accepts the late night, warmed up dinners with more dishes to do. He wants me to see that my kids can roll home on the school bus, change clothes and roll out with their dad or grandpa in a semi or a grain cart. Having patience with a capital P makes the challenges of this profession, like this year and its lack of rain, seem less tragic and more educational. Good stories...good for blogs...

Maybe I'm onto something.

I'm hopeful that even if I still try to be the control freak that I am, my kids will learn from our up and down and all around crazy farm life that patience with a capital P is the way to be.

Here's hoping.

Author's note: I am linking up with Holly Spangler for her 30 Days on a Prairie Farm series. Check our her Day One link here.