“Dad, you’re never home!” My son, Rhett, cries, burying his face in his hands. Then he throws himself on the kitchen floor. “You’re never here at dinner, and I just want to be with…
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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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This is my first summer as a mom of three, and I feel like I’m failing. The smell of burnt hamburger fills the room, intensified by my baby’s sobs from the playmat on the…
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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…