First, and this is key; you must declare, “I’ve always wanted chickens! Wouldn’t it be fun?” (Even if you just thought of it yesterday.) You imagine restoring the run-down coop in your farm yard…
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The knife slices through the potato, the sharp edge hitting the cutting board with each chop. Thwack. Thwack. It’s not quite noon, but I want the mashed potatoes made now, so all I have…
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“She’s probably the last little one we’ll have at harvest,” my father-in-law said, looking at Nora in her car seat. She smiled at me, her cheeks covered in chocolate, leftover from dinner in the…
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I shivered, tucking my hands into the pockets of my brand new Carhartt coveralls. Just the year before, I wore dress pants and skirts and walked the halls as a high school counselor. My…
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For weeks, people on social media have been excited about spring. More light! Longer days! My cranky side thinks, Yay, more hours for my husband to be gone! My stomach turns in knots in…
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The wind is terrible here. It howls through the windows, and the tree branches scrape against the house’s roof. It’s dry too—we need rain. We needed it weeks ago. Every time I look out…
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Nine years ago, love looked like counting down the minutes at work on Friday, then breaking the speed limit to get to the ranch. My stomach full of butterflies—all to spend the weekend with…
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I’m tired. And I know the crew is too. I hate how easily I snap at the kids at this point of harvest. In the brief moments when Rich is home, all three kids…
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When I married a farmer, I didn’t realize one of my biggest roles would be feeding people. Years ago, Rich occasionally showed up at the house before noon, asking, “Could you make the guys…
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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…