So, since I actually became a farmer’s wife, I haven’t had time to write about becoming a farmer’s wife.
Go figure.
I’ve got chickens to feed, eggs to gather, fields to consider, barns to take down, barns to put up, and a life to learn.
I guess when I thought about being a farmer’s wife, I didn’t think it would be so much work.
It’s like delivering the newspaper, or raising children, or having a good marriage – it’s just so daily.
But I love it.
I love waking up to space. Lots of it.
I love throwing a stick for my dog after I clean out the chicken coop. I love watching our two new mousers, Reep and Cheep, wrestle on our Cracker-Barrel-size front porch.
I’m mesmerized by the light of the sun as it glides across my porch and shines into our over-sized windows.
I’m content.
I’ve met a hard-working couple who raise chickens and cows and pigs. They’re fine people. On Christmas Eve, I dropped by their house to buy a gallon of fresh milk. That’s a tough act to follow.
We’ve been befriended by a young farm couple who stopped by our house during the Christmas holidays, bearing the gift of flavored popcorn. It makes me smile thinking about it.
We belong here.
It’s nice to have a place to belong. My heart still aches for friends and family in Florida, but I wouldn’t want to move back.
When Tom and I think of the future, if we’re not careful, we’re afraid. But we shouldn’t be. A hundred years ago, people lived from year to year and crop to crop like we’re doing now.
It’s a hard thing, but good, too.
It’s made us realize how dependent we are. Dependent on the weather, the land, the economy, but more than any of those temporal things – dependent on the eternal God.
As Americans, we sometimes forget that.
We shouldn’t.
It’s a new year. No one knows what this year brings. Not in my old house on a quarter of an acre in Florida – not on my 64-acre farm in North Carolina.
In 2014, I’m glad I’m a farmer’s wife.
We’re cultivating a dream.
And it feels good.
P.S. In the last week, we’ve added four to our family: Two kittens named Reep and Cheep, and two Great Pyrenees pups named Lacey and Molly.
Life is good.
