Sunday, January 29, 2012

Punxsutawney Farmer

This week we will celebrate a major holiday in which a local legend predicts the arrival of spring based on an arbitrary standard. Yes, if Husband sees his shadow on February 2, we'll have six more weeks of winter.

Wait. That honor belongs to a rodent in Pennsylvania, but February 2 does happen to be Husband's birthday. Check out this slide show. Isn't he the cutest thing? Also, note the pig right out the kitchen window in one photo.



I revel in the fact that I married an older man. Husband sometimes jokes that on his fifth birthday, his parents took him to the hospital to pick out his future bride.

Sometimes, I pick on Husband in this blog. But I do occasionally let slip how long we've been together and how much he means to me.

He comes from a long line of wholesome, clean-living men who are wonderful fathers (and pretty good farmers too). I'm happy every year to grow older with him--although never as old as he is!

Happy Birthday, Husband.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

20 Questions only a Farm Wife Would Ask

In my 15 years of farm wifehood (wifery?), I have said things that I never dreamed that I would, things like Why does this lettuce smell like pig semen?

In honor of all the farm wives out there, I have compiled a list of 20 real things I have asked Husband over the years. I must confess, some of these are sarcastic, some are rhetorical, some are exclamations but all are true.
  1. Why is there pig medicine next to the orange juice?
  2. Do you want these nails I just fished out of the dryer?
  3. What is that smell?
  4. Will you put that semen away before my sister's baby shower?
  5. Now that these jeans are ripped in both the crotch and the butt, can I throw them away?
  6. What is this stuff smeared on the flashlight?
  7. Why can't I ever find a hammer?
  8. Do you smell that?
  9. Will you get off your John Deere and mow the grass?
  10. Will you wash your hands before you stink up the baby's head again?
  11. Is that a pig tooth in your eyebrow?
  12. Why didn't you pay this much attention to me when I was about to give birth?
  13. For the love of GOD, don't you SMELL that?
  14. Why are you walking around the kitchen in those boots?
  15. What is that on your arm? Oh, my, it's all the way to the elbow.
  16. Don't you think we should get that nasty injury looked at by someone other than the veterinarian?
  17. Did you get the pigs/sheep/heifers/neighbors livestock back in the pen?
  18. Why is THAT in the house?
  19. How did THAT get out in the barn?
  20. Seriously, you spend all day wading around in shit, you're telling me you can't change that diaper?
Marriage, children, getting older are all full of surprises, what have you said to your spouse that you never thought you would?

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Ghost of Christmas Past

Earlier tonight we popped our pine out the front door. And while Husband and I crawled around on the floor picking up stray needles, I wrote this blog post in my head.

Every year when I get out the Christmas ornaments, I find one I should have thrown away long ago. Sometimes I let it go on the tree, my children unknowingly placing this bad memory on display. I secretly defy the angel to look around and see how great Christmas is for me these days.



It's actually a nice-looking ornament, however, it holds a story that I can't seem to let go.  Let's go back in time to the Christmas of 1987 (or maybe 1988)...

A middle school girl has a crush on a boy. He's a jock and not really interested in icky girls. She's a huge nerd with a bad perm. She doesn't keep her crush quiet. He is NOT interested--people probably tease him about it.

The class holds an ornament exchange and the boy draws the girl's name. She can tell this by his reaction. His mortified reaction. Twenty-five years later she can still see the look on his face when he realizes he has to buy a gift for the girl who had been making him miserable with her attention.

When the day of the ornament exchange comes the boy is not in class. He did not come to school that day at all. The girl still received a box, obviously wrapped by the boy's mother. Inside is the angel ornament.

For some reason I kept the ornament. I kept it in a red box under my twin bed in the room I shared with my little sister. I kept it while I was in high school and moved on to other boys--boys who appreciated my attention. The angel stayed behind while I went to college and then moved to my home after I got married.

The boy and I still live in the same small town. Our children played on the same ball team. Sometimes we give each other a hello nod. Once when I was attempting to run on the bike path I passed the boy and held my breath so he wouldn't see me panting.

This year my children grabbed the angel out of the box and placed it on the tree before I could hide it. Every time I see that angel I can still see the teacher bringing me the carefully wrapped box that his Mom had delivered before class, the card so obviously written in Mom-cursive with my name. For years I even saved that tiny card, wrapped inside the angel's body.

I used to be ashamed that the boy was so disgusted with me that he stayed home from school just to avoid giving me a gift. Now as a mother of boys, I wonder how I would have handled the situation, especially since I always joke that my sons will be like their father--not interested in girls until they turn 20.

In all this, I don't hold any ill-will toward the man the boy has become. And if that angel didn't sort of look like him from way back then, I probably would have long since thrown it in the trash.

And as I head upstairs to cuddle with Husband tonight, I'm very grateful that I didn't meet him until he was in college.

Appointment Pooping

  NOTE: If you do not want to read about my healthy bowel movement, well too late you just did. I recently became you-better-get-a-colonosco...