The Next Level

It has been made very clear to me that it is time the bumpkin made some changes. This bumpkin loves change, so I am excited about it. I have created a group on facebook, The Farmer Takes A Wife, so please join if you are on there. I am also going to be posting my weekly articles that I write for the Monticello News/Jefferson Journal, which are published every Friday. Farmer husband told me that I could probably have quite a Twitter following, but then he laughed, so I'm not sure if he was serious. I'll have to think about that one.

I am going to be adding pictures more frequently, and doing more updates. I am facing the fact- people love the bumpkin. They want more of her! And far be it from me to keep all my fans wanting more. For example, I was called this morning by a lady in our county and the conversation started out just like so many conversations that I am having lately..."Is this the Farmer's Wife? Well, you don't know me, but I LOVE your articles honey!" But then she went on to ask me if I would speak at her church for a senior luncheon in September! OMG! The bumpkin's first speaking gig! I said sure, and she said she really loved my most recent article and wanted me to expound on that. So, folks, I don't know what is next for me, but you better join my facebook group now so you can say that you knew me when!

Here is the latest article:
I did quite a bit of babysitting growing up and I always knew I wanted to have children. I didn’t see myself with an extremely large family, but a few kids and maybe even a family dog sounded fine to me. With our third child on the way, the “few kids” part is still within reason. The one family dog part is what has been the biggest surprise to me. We currently have 13 additional mouths to feed apart from the humans that sit at the dinner table. The last 2 were acquired this week from vacation Bible school…2 gold fish. Our 6 year old daughter was gazing into the fish tank that she keeps in her room and said sweetly, “I am so glad I got these fish…I’ve always wanted a pet.” I had to laugh… from her perspective, the cow, 3 goats, 4 chickens, 2 kittens, and 1 dog weren’t pets because they didn’t permanently reside in her bedroom.
This got me thinking about how we interpret our childhood once we are grown-up. It made me wonder, what will my children remember? What will be the highlights of their life on the farm? Evidently, it won’t be the abundance of animals they were able to take care of. My childhood memories revolve around living in a city neighborhood and so they are very different from my husband’s. He remembers things like spending time with the men-folk in his family, watching and learning farm skills and listening to conversations about farm decisions; all the trips to the tractor store and getting an orange soda in a bottle each time. He remembers the freedom of playing outdoors alone and learning to drive at an early age. But there were also the memories of his Dad working late and missing dinner during planting and harvest time and an argument he had with his grandfather about taking a lunch break when there was work to do. He watched the farm transform through the years as the beef cows and hogs would come and go and the crops would change with the economy. These are all the things that I found so intriguing about him when we met- he had lived a full life before he was even 21! He knew about history, science, politics, machinery, the outdoors, and of course agriculture. He learned it all right here on the farm in Jefferson County.
I didn’t have a whole lot of life experiences that could stand up to his. I had lived a great life in the city, in my neighborhood and with my family prior to living on the farm. But the more I got to know the farmer, the more I realized how much I had missed by my lack of experience with the “real world.” For me, that meant stepping off of the pavement into the dirt and clay rather than the other way around.
When you get down to the basics of life you realize that it is made up of ebbing and flowing, coming and going, good years and bad, joy and pain, giving and getting. These are the principals of life, and they are taught to me and my family every day in the country and on the farm. The depth of those lessons are hard to come by in the city when you have to fight traffic, fight growth, and fight your neighbor. I’m not saying life is a perfect utopia out here, but it is real and honest, and you don’t have to search long to find the meaning in it.
So what will my kids remember about their childhood? I hope they remember their “pets”, but I also hope they take with them the valuable lessons that can’t be bought with an education or trips around the globe. All they ever need to know can be taught to them right here in the woods, pastures, and dirt roads of the country.