Recently, a fellow farm wife asked me, “Was marrying a farmer what you expected?”
I thought back to the summer before my farmer and I were married. In the evening after work, I would drive out to the farm, park my car, and hop into the buddy seat of the combine. Butterflies popped up in my stomach as my arm brushed against his tan, muscular arm. He had one hand on the wheel, with his eyes focused on the field in front of him. Our conversations ranged from wedding plans to harvest and the yield from the crop. (The farm talk mostly went in one ear and out the other.) It was just us, and we had our whole lives in front of us.
The sunset—lighting the prairie sky on fire, painting it red and orange. A beautiful contrast against the amber waves of grain rolling ahead of the sharp blades of the combine header.
Eventually, the bright colors began to fade, giving way to a night sky. He still had more cutting to do, but I stepped down the ladder at the edge of the field. Turning to wave to him, I pulled my jacket around me—the heat of the day yielding to a cool summer evening. I went back to my apartment, where the dust bunnies were full of dirt, no cow manure or stray wheat. And my dryer vent only had lint—no kernels of wheat or straw mixed in with the blue lint.
Shaking my head at the memory, I replied, “You know, I don’t know if I knew what to expect.” Then I laughed. “Farm life had a romantic feel to it. But I wasn’t living on the farm; I could come and go. I didn’t know what I was getting into.”
//
Click here to read the rest of my essay at Her View From Home.
stacybronec.com 
Leave a Reply