Day Two: 2

We work in pairs a lot around here.

Just now, Anna and Joe left in the farm truck, just 2 peas in a pod. It's chilly and damp this morning, so Anna decided to don 2 sweatshirts, in lieu of her bulky work coat, so she could move easily as she works side-by-side with her dad this morning. They'll spend the first few hours feeding and checking the cows, making sure those who are enjoying snacking on stalks in a newly harvested cornfield adjacent to the pasture are where they should be, thanks to 2 nicely strung lines of electric fence.

2 is a necessary number on a farm, specifically a livestock farm.

There are the obvious tasks that are easier with a partner: closing gates behind the truck or tractor, moving cattle, working calves...those are all better when you have a buddy. However,  it's the side-by-side working relationship I see that makes this "2" the best part of living here.

Often times, I curse the dirt road, dirty clothes, late nights, unpredictable income and lack of flexibility that comes with farm life. However, as Anna left with her dad this morning, chatting away as she skipped down the steps of the deck about next week's 4H meeting, working with her show heifer, and what it would be like to go goose hunting (we have a lot of hunting traffic today), I thought how lucky Anna-- and all my kids are for that matter-- are to spend this precious morning with her dad. It's different than being coached on a team by your dad; different than having your dad just play with you as a kid. In our time as a livestock family, and this short time Anna has become more and more involved, I see a tight bond being formed. One that is forged by using her 2 hands side-by-side with her dad.

Working with someone bonds you together, but it's not just the sweet, tight bond that's formed. Socially speaking, it's an exercise in get over it. You don't have time to hold a grudge, continue to be grouchy with each other. It amazes me, as someone who gets irritated easily, to see Joe and Anna in action. They can holler at each other and get aggravated, but then have to quickly get over it, because there's a lot more work to do than to just sit around and be irritated at each other. It's truly a good lesson in social skills. Get over it. Move on.

Working in a 2-some makes you appreciate that person when he or she is not there. When Anna started back to school in the fall, Joe lost his buddy, his sidekick. She didn't just open gates and help load feed, she added sunshine and companionship to a rather lonely occupation. Joe and Anna have a bond as a father-daughter team that only those who worked with their kids can understand. I don't fully understand it, still, but I can see it in action.

Anna is only 8, but her work ethic rivals those double, or even triple her age. That kid spends days off of school, Saturdays, evenings, whenever, working. She's never been a "player," always wanting to DO something useful, help, be productive. Her sisters and their silliness drive her crazy at times. She's my worker bee, and I attribute that to working with her 2 hands from the time she could peer over the dash of the farm truck.

Pairs, partners, buddies, whatever you call it, groups of 2 just work better. We're all better when we have a partner, right? I'm hopeful that this 2-some will eventually turn into a 5-some with all my kids learning the ropes of livestock, but until then, the peas in a pod will continue on, one cattle pasture at a time.


Linking up with Holly's 30 Days series here.

And here's the rest of my 30 Day quest:
Day 1

30 Days, By the Numbers

And so it begins...

My dear friend Holly is a for-real writer, and when I say "for real," I mean, she's not only excellent, extensively trained, has been recognized and received accolades for her excellence in journalism, but she also is creative enough to think of this 30 Day Blog Challenge.

However, being an untrained, hardly recognized and rarely accoladed writer, it is a very intimidating challenge to not only write one blog entry per day for 30 days, but to come up with a catchy theme.

Last year, my theme was "Life on Our Farm."

Pretty catchy, huh?

Don't answer that.

Anyway, after realizing that my theme was due to her, and it was late October, which meant November was quickly approaching so I should probably come up with something maybe a little more catchy that just "Life on Our Farm," I remembered a really creative Christmas card we received one year. My friend Andrea---who not only taught with me, sang at our wedding, and was my roommate for a short time my first year of teaching (when she may or may not have had to live with me while I trained for marathons, dated a series of LAME dudes, and had to listen to my woes of the first year of teaching)--had a year in review, by the numbers Christmas Card. It kept her information concise, meaningful, and in her good math-teacher way, showed that NUMBERS ARE EVERYWHERE.

So here we are, Blog Challenge 2013-By the Numbers.

Number 1 is obvious, and that this challenge is 1 Lofty Goal for me as of late.

I have been struggling to find the time-gumption-creativity-balance lately. Not that there's nothing to write about in agriculture, I am just in the process of redefining my life as a part-time employee (who hasn't been to work in four days because of sick kids and Halloween parties), mother of children who demand my attention in different ways (Jack is currently winging toys at the TV while playing the harmonica, while Anna is reading a Percy Jackson book and asking what some words mean by shouting them from the other room, Josie is writing her birthday party guest list (Guess what the 27th topic will be??) and Amelia is begging to paint her fingernails, and it's before 7:30 in the morning...see why complete thoughts and grammar are not my forte today??), and the wife of someone who thinks I'm conspiring against him by organizing his office and mud room...when all I want to do is be able to Swiffer off the dead fly bodies and chaff from the flat surfaces without losing grain tickets and my sanity.

So, this couldn't have come a better time, right?

So Day Number 1 is 1 Lofty Goal.
I'm up for the challenge.
I can do this.
We always find things to talk about, don't we, friends?

So here's to 30 Days, By the Numbers. I ask for your grace during this time of creative muscle straining, and please check out Holly's blog for the rest of us suckers who are trying to keep up!

Happy Reading!

Why Wouldn't It Rain?

Remember when it rained and rained.

Remember when it didn't?

Well, it's decided to be wet and soggy and foggy NOW, when we're in the midst of harvest, and don't ask me how much we have left (I was told it's still a lot, and we're not to discuss it). And, it's nearly Halloween, and my kids have colds, and they still want to trick-or-treat...

SO WHY WOULDN'T IT RAIN?

I'm coming to you today with the mind of someone who has had sick children, little sleep, and can't remember when I rescheduled today's orthodontist appointment for next week, but is too embarrassed to call the office AGAIN...so don't expect great things from this streamofconsciousness post.

However, I'm just giving you, dear readers, a tease...you see, Holly, my dear friend, has challenged us once again to make November a 30 Days of Blogging month.

And I , like a good blogger, agreed to join her.

but now...

WHAT WAS I THINKING????

however..

I'll be okay, but I figured I should warn you that your Confessions of a Farm Wife feed will be so active, you'll think I had a resurgence of creative juices. You'll think I was getting paid for this gig.

While Holly has already mapped out her blogs, I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants writer. However, I needed a theme, so stay tuned. I'll be starting on November 1st, possibly suffering from a sugar induced coma and feeling pretty grouchy after my night of chasing kids while trick-or-treating...which, by the way, Josie wants me to dress up as a fashion designer (because she thinks I'm fancy), but I told her I was a single mom (sorry, Joe...just a funny)...

But, I just thought of something...if it's raining, Joe can help CHASE!! OH THE JOYS!!

Let's hope for just a little more drizzle, and a quick dry...then maybe I can pull off the fashion designer costume...

Happy Wednesday!

Don't Go at It Alone

Harvest is a very busy time for our family.

Duh.

That is the understatement of the week. I woke up this morning, well before dawn, making a mental list of all the places I had to take people, food to prepare, appointments to make and keep, and I was tired.

And it was only 5:15 in the morning.

Anyway, it's now the precious afternoon time, when my big girls are still at school, my little ones are resting (although Jack is yelling from upstairs...I still call it "resting"), and I have had a really interesting morning so far.

You see, a while ago, I used to be a radio personality. Really? A radio personality? Well, maybe not so much a regular radio personality, but I was on the radio, and I do have quite a bit of personality. So my friend DeAnna, who was my meal ticket into the radio world, decided to switch her job to one with regular hours, unfortunately, off the air.

My career as a radio personality came to a screeching halt, and my two listeners wept.

Well, maybe not wept, but they did ask me what happened.

However, the farmwives still wanted to talk. DeAnna not only used me as a token farm wife, but the sparkly, smart Holly Spangler, of Farm Progress and Fulton County.

So we got to thinking...shouldn't we still talk? Wouldn't people want to hear (actually hear) what was going on in our operations?

I knew I had two listeners already, so why the heck not.

And here's the situation: we don't want to go through this alone. Holly has three busy kids, I have four, DeAnna doesn't have any yet, but we're all flying solo from our spouses during this busy time, and being women, we all need to process what it's like to be alone and work through what this harvest time does to our lives.

So that's what we're doing. We're processing through podcasts.

Yup. Podcasts.

What's a podcast?

Well, I am not for sure in technical terms, but I truly enjoyed the chatting aspect of it, and kind of forgot that we were recording our musings. DeAnna and Holly are two women who get where I am. They understand dinners that are late. Husbands that can't commit to anything until the last tractor has been pulled into the shed. They understand my shopping woes, and don't mind that my little guy was farming our carpet while we talked.

It was great, and we're lucky. You see, farming lends itself to bonds. That's why there's trucks lined up at the coffee shops in every small town, nearly every morning. That's why there's 4H Clubs, Farm Bureau Boards, FFA Alumni Chapters, etc. Farming is lonely, but that loneliness lends itself well to ties that bind us together in agriculture.

That's why there's stories like this, and this, and that's why the AgChat Foundation, among other groups, is banding together to help those in need during the aftermath of Winter Storm Atlas (read about that here). Entire herds of cattle were wiped out. People need help, whether it's financial, or just an ear to lend to work through losing most of their livelihoods. Imagine having to tend to a herd day in and day out, 365 days a year, in wind, wet, snow, and heat. Imagine pulling calves to save their lives and their mothers', and keeping them year after year, healthy, well fed, and grazing happily. Then imagine, in the span of hours, losing that entire stock. Not just the financial ramifications come to my mind, but the change in lifestyle would be enough to make someone who is "on call" 24 hours a day need to talk to someone.

Don't go at it alone.

Whether you're a young mom seeking comfort of other moms navigating toddler years, find a mom's group (believe me...been there, done that, needed it desperately). If you're a guy, it's harder to not be so touchy feely about needing to talk some things out, but try. Please, please try. Find a church group, a basketball league, a group of dudes to watch a baseball game (did you know the Cardinals are NEARLY TO THE WORLD SERIES??).

Don't go at it alone.

That's what today was about. In my dark, early morning thoughts, I was dreading my day. Now, I'm halfway through, and looking forward to hearing how we sound. I needed my talk today. I needed to hear that it's okay that I stink at gardening, am not the only one who online shops because where in the HECK ELSE DO WE GO (??), and struggles to find good meals that stay warm hours after the dinner hour has past.

We're lucky out here. Even though our address does not show up on GPS (Believe me, I just got off the phone with UPS), even though we are miles from neighbors, streetlights and stop signs, we're tighter than you would think with those in our same situation.

No one wants to go at it alone, and I'm so thankful to have found a place where I can unpack the vast lifestyle and information overload that is agriculture.

Uncharted Waters

No, it's not raining here.

And, nope...we're not "boat people," but wouldn't that be fun to sail away....

I have a boy.

A toddler boy.

An inquisitive, machinery obsessed, Batman toting, horn honking, combine crazy boy.

And boy-oh-boy does my house/demeanor/to-do list/laundry pile reflect it!

Case in point:

Last night, as Joe returned from taking the first few loads of grain to town and, of course, dealing with a cow being out, so a fence was checked in the dark (on the first day of harvest, of course), our little guy ran up to him as he ate his warmed up dinner and said, "Daddy, let (please say that with a "y" sound instead of an "l" sound...it's cuter) me tell you something. I need a tractor ride."

This was one of the first times our little guy had seen his daddy all day, and this is what he deemed necessary to tell him at that point in time.

"I need a tractor ride."

While the girls are excited about the combine being in the field across the road, and Anna is loving working with her new heifer calves, prepping them for showing this summer, Jack is a totally different demeanor when it comes to tractors, combines, trucks, even his Gator.

Today as we rolled in from preschool drop off, he jumped out of the van and headed to his Gator, backed it out (yes, his backing out skills are better than mine), and headed over to the part of the driveway where the guys were having their morning conversation. Cap on his head, my little guy joined the dudes and asked Grandpa for a sit in the semi, where he promptly tooted the horn. He wants to be out there. He wants to know where/what/how Dad is doing what he's doing.

It's completely uncharted territory.

We have a tomboy. We have a princess. We have a Millie (and if you know us and our Amelia...you know what I mean). Now, we have a Jack.

A farm boy.

And this is a great time of year to be a farm boy.

I just have to figure out how to keep him safe, happy, occupied, and get my laundry done!
Suggestions????

Are We There Yet?

Lots of equipment keeps rolling out of our shed.

The semis are/have been taken to get their check-ups and have had a fresh wash.

There are people along the drive to town working, rolling, hauling, harvesting.

Posts on Facebook show that folks are working.

However, we wait.

We're not there yet, and it's starting to get itchy. No one wants to start too soon, no one wants to wait too long. Everyone in our operation knows it's not quite time, but everyone is also getting that anticipation anxiety.

Joe's happy to watch the Cardinals as the end of the season draws near (did you see the almost no-hitter last night??? Amazing, and a bummer at the same time.), but I know that he's thinking constantly at what's ahead. The guys are hoping for a good harvest, a safe harvest, an easy harvest, but with our track record and the weird weather, we're all bracing for some craziness.

So, we're not there yet, but I promise as soon as we get there, I'll let you know.

For now, I'll just stock up on Nutty Bars and try to keep my boy from climbing all over the tractors that are so close to our driveway, you can smell them!!

Food Wars, Again

I'm baaaaacccckkkk.

Well, not really, I just happen to be at home on a preschool day, and my little man is happily playing by himself. So, instead of cleaning the swampy bathroom or unloading the dishwasher/dryer/washing machine (you pick), I'm blogging.

All for you, dear readers.

All for you.

Anyway, did you know the Food Wars are waging on? Still? I know, I know, this again... but they won't go away. Have you seen the latest anti-agriculture, not correct in the slightest commercial?  Chipotle has taken to the marketing waves ala Panera, and has put out this product, and, consequently, put-off, a lot of agricultural folks. Through the same methods of fear and misinformation, Chipotle tells the tale of Big Burrito and the Big Ag industry and the lovely Scarecrow who loves the earth and feeds the world, one burrito at a time.

And while I know I should have more of a knee jerk, "That's not RIGHT!" reaction, I find myself just sighing. Because, honestly, I'm tired of this fight. I don't feel like it's fair, and obviously, what we're doing to advocate is not working. And while this argument is frustrating and the information is incorrect, it's STILL HAPPENING, and apparently, people are STILL BELIEVING IT.

Thus, I become frustrated.

I can't change anyone's mind, but the food wars wage on, and thanks to social media, information overload, over-consumerism, and obviously the NEED for healthy burritos (is this an oxymoron?), the American public seems to just go with whatever is "trending." Which reminds me...did you know the Today Show has a hard-hitting news segment every morning of "What's Trending Today," which includes all things that seemingly were scrounged from the pages of the National Inquirer.

I'm digressing.

What I began to say was that although I cannot change anyone's mind, and because I refuse to chain myself to Chipotle's doors with a picture of my hardworking husband on a t-shirt and get some publicity, my story won't be told, and those of the lovely small-farmer Scarecrow in Chipotle's ads will get more air time than Joe and Anna working calves on a Sunday afternoon.

Because that's BORING! We're boring. We're not money grubbing Big Ag producers. We're BORING people who work like dogs during the day and fall asleep watching the Big Bang Theory at night. Life around here isn't sensationalized like what you see on ridiculous 20/20 investigative reports or in stupid commercials depicting farmers as corporate big head, arrogant and greedy men. We're folks who want it to rain to put our crop out of danger so we can pay for preschool, and the operating loan, and our increasing grocery bill.

So, I'm tired of this fight, because I'm starting to think our angle is wrong. I'm wondering if because the American public believes advertising more than a personal story, maybe I should chain myself to a Chipotle door (date night, honey!). Maybe I should sensationalize our farm lifestyle to get some more press.

Or maybe I should just get back to cleaning the bathroom and folding laundry, because that's more up my alley.

I'm tired of this fight, because it's not fair. In light of the message Chipotle is trying to send of kindness and loving and caring farmers, they're actually being kind of jerks to farmers. They are a profit based company, which is fine by me, but don't attack another's livelihood to make a bigger bang and thus bigger bucks. That's not fair, and neither kind nor loving nor nice.

If we'd all let each other do our own jobs, the ones that we are good at, trained for, and care about, wouldn't life be a lot easier?

With that, I should get back to what I do the best...and clean the bathroom.