Mother Nature Has a Heart

It appears Mother Nature has taken pity on us poor mid-westerners. I have seen the forecast and it is good. We are to get into upper 70's today - and yesterday was beautiful. There is a chance of showers over the next few days, but hey...we can use the rain. Hubby is about done planting beans and it is beginning to look like the corn all survived the cold weather. I lost a few annuals I was foolish enough to put in so early, and I have some perennials that took a bit of a hit, but overall I think everything is going to make it. Whew!

I never used to be this weather -obsessed. To me a thunderstorm coming was just a chance to curl up in bed and feel cozy. That was before I became a farm wife.

I was raised in a large metropolitan area of the midwest where the only farm kid we had was the quiet guy that nobody knew. I was an idiot. When I got out into the countryside, I had the misconception that all that corn growing in the fields was sweet corn - the stuff we humans eat. DUH. I had no clue what a soybean was. A "block" in the country is a mile? Who knew! They're referred to as roads, not streets? Lanes, not driveways? Wow...

If someone would have told me 26+ years ago that I'd be married to a farmer, I'da thought you were crazy. Serves me right for going to a keg party out in the country with a friend who happened, as it was, to be dating my future hubby's brother. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now when I hear about a storm coming, depending of course on the time of year, I start worrying about hail damage to the crops. Flooding, draught, heatwaves, early frost, late frost, poor grain markets, government programs, itemized taxes, machinery payments, land payments, landlords from heaven, landlords from the other place... it all runs through my mind at the most inopportune times. Say, 3:42 a.m. <sigh> My life has never been the same.

Of course, it's not all bad. If it were, then we wouldn't be doing it. We wouldn't be happy that our youngest son has decided to do it. We'd be running as fast as we could for the employment office to find a nice, stable job with good benefits and a weekly paycheck. Okay, I do work "off farm". However, I've got a pretty good setup. I have flexible hours, although when we're really busy I do put the hours in. I work at a company that deals with farmers, so I've got some insight there. I do computer stuff that I love... and, since farming is like the #2 most dangerous job there is (yes, really)... I decided years ago that if anything happened to hubby I needed to have a backup plan. I wanted to keep my fingers in the computer stuff and keep current so if I did go to work full time all the time, I would be able to do it without starting at square one. This worked out perfectly. There are times it drives me nuts, such as when we are busiest at work and on the farm, but that's the price I pay. It's worth it.

Still and all, this is certainly a different life than I expected. I swore when I was a kid I was never getting married and never having kids. Thank God those things don't get written in stone. Here I am, on my second marriage (as I say, 26+ years and counting, so I think it's going to work out) and I have four beautiful, fun, creative children and a whole bunch of critters. I guess I can weather a storm or two...

Now, off to smell the lilacs and pick some rhubarb.