And That's When the Fight Started...

Today, local radio DJs were inviting people to call in and share their stories of domestic bliss that end with the phrase, and that's when the fight started... One poor woman called in to say she was very pregnant with her daughter and she borrowed a red dress from a friend. When her husband saw her in it he yelled, Hey Kool-Aid! And that's when the fight started...

I was very tempted to call in but like so many of the stories I want to tell about my home life, my most recent and that's how the fight started story requires agricultural definitions, explanation of rural culture and possibly a quick refresher on the birds and the bees.

Let's go back to the beginning... (harp music, harp music, harp music, waaaaves)

Husband showed up to a farmer meeting a few years ago and was put in charge of procuring awards for the Champion and Reserve Champion Yorkshire gilts at the Ohio State Fair. A position, I am finding out, that has the same term of office as U.S. Supreme Court Justice--forever.

So now husband is in charge of ordering the annual awards. The first year I stayed out of it. The kids who won with their prize Yorkshire pigs got a check in the mail after the show was over.

The subsequent years I got involved and we ordered embroidered lawn chairs (they still got a check), which are a very popular way for kids to brag about their accomplishment when they bring the chair to the barn at the next show.

This year, after scoping out the award chairs kids were bringing to the shows, I got crazy and decided to order a chair with a pig embroidered on it.


Yorkshire pigs are all-white (pink) pigs that have ears that stand up. Note that other breeds of all-white pigs have floppy ears that hang down--this will be important in a second. Gilts are female pigs that have not been bred--or at least that's what is implied by their purity rings.

Let's play a game now. Pretend you are a serious pig farmer. What's wrong with this picture. (Jeopardy music, Jeopardy music)

The pig is actually white. This photo doesn't do it justice. That part I got right. One big problem is that this pig has a wee-wee underneath. He's a boy.

Also, look at those ears. THEY ARE POINTING DOWN. THE CHAIR IS RUINED. HOW COULD WE GIVE OUT THIS ATROCITY?

And that's when the fight started.

In my defense, I ordered the pig sight unseen from Friendly Suburban-Dwelling stitchery ladies who only knew that I specifically asked for a white pig that was NOT a cartoon. I figured discussions with them over the phone of Yorkshire breed characteristics and gender indicators would really be too much. It's a representation, not a photo.

I had also forgotten to have them sew Yorkshire gilt on there so what we had was a chair that said: Jr. Show Champion
[image of male pig not of the Yorkshire persuasion]
Ohio State Fair

I fell on my sword and offered my resignation as Special Assistant to the Farmer Who has to Acquire Awards for the Ohio State Fair Yorkshire Show. Fearing that he may lose a valuable contributor to many of his agricultural endeavors, he got in the car and drove the chairs back to the stitchery ladies to add the missing words.

And that's when the fight ended.

Guy Reads

Guy (that's my nickname for my husband) gets his paycheck from the farm, which in turn gets a lot of its steady income from milking cows. So even though his time and energy are spent on pigs, I try to keep him updated on cow news. Which means it's time for another installment of Guy Reads, the exciting segment where I share with you the news items I clip out of the paper for my husband.

In international news, CNN.com is reporting that a woman in England was trampled by cows while walking her dogs. I want Guy to see this, not because I really think any of us stand a chance of being trampled, but because the 98 percent of the nation who is not involved in agriculture will see things like this and believe cows are dangerous.

My husband does not get to have the conversations I do with Friendly Suburban-Dwelling Co-Workers to understand how little people do know about agriculture.

But here's something I didn't know... the Associated Press reports:

Belching from the nation's 170 million cattle, sheep and pigs produces about one-quarter of the methane released in the U.S. each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That makes the hoofed critters the largest
source of the heat-trapping gas.

Yuck. Let me just share that I have smelled a sheep burp and it is nasty. I'll save that story for another post.

Thanks to our powerful farm lobby and the quick thinking of Rep. Todd Tihart R-Kan., the EPA will not be allowed to include biological processes of livestock in their greenhouse gas regulations.

So in summary... do not mess with the cows. They will hunt you down, and burp on you.

Road Trip

Husband and the boys left this week for a farmer-son road trip to, where else, the World Pork Expo.

Really, I should just stop the post now. World Pork Expo seems to be a punchline in and of itself. But this is serious business--it's like Comdex for hog farmers. (Oh, sorry tech geeks, Comdexdoesn't exist anymore, does it?)

I attended last year's World Pork Expo, a very strategic move, it turns out, because I wouldn't have wanted Husband to be tempted to bring me back any weird souvenirs.

This year Husband and his father loaded up four Yorkshire gilts (white females), two Yorkshire boars (males, with balls), and one Hampshire barrow (black with a white belt, no balls) for the 10-hour drive to Des Moines, Iowa.

Our pigs travel in deluxe aluminium accommodations. I would mention the trailer brand just to be nice but they don't seem to have much of a Web site, let along a social media program. So I'll just say this: We would have brought our Carhartt Jackets but it was too warm for Carhartt Jackets and we left the Carhartt Jackets at home [I'm not compensated, just fishing for a comment from the nice people at Carhartt who seem to "get" the Internet.]

Anyway, Ryan and Justin were very excited to head out on an adventure with Daddy. Husband is to be commended for taking such a big trip by himself. I just hope he can get a little shuteye while Ryan drives through Illinois.

More World Pork Expo updates and this blog's FIRST EVER photo contributions from Husband, coming soon!

Master of My Domain

Recently, all the professional farmers in the family were either on vacation or off at a pig show (I count my seven year-old son as one of the professionals). By a crazy twist of fate, I was the only person left to be officially in charge of the farm for the day.

So I did what any hardcore farm wife would do when left in charge of the farm--I went shopping. Luckily for me, Husband had retained the services of a real farmer to help with the feeding. My only real job was to make sure that everything was still here when the real farmer came to feed.

After my shopping trip I took the inventory:

Cows. Check.

Road-kill munching farm dog with adorable patch on her eye. Check.

Tractor. Check. Hay bales. Check.

This thing. Check.

Pigs. Check. Observational cat. Check.

Fortunately, Husband found the farm in pretty good shape when he got home. I hope I get to be in charge again soon. I could use another trip to the mall.

I ama pig farmr.

There is no better moment as a parent than when you look over the little head of your offspring to make eye contact with your spouse, both bursting with pride and stifled laughter. We do this often with Ryan like when he visits every pig pen in the entire State Fair to pick out a gilt to buy, or when he notices that the Hampshire sow we bought in Iowa is now in a different barn on the farm, or when he takes little scraps of paper outside to grade this winter's litters.

Today, Ryan came home with a paper he did at school. Heaven only knows what his Friendly Suburban-Dwelling Teacher thought when she saw this:

In case you can't read 1st grade-ese, I'll translate:
What is special about me: I am a pig farmer.
What makes me happy: pigs.
Animals I like: pigs
What I like to do: Go to pig shows.

This fall he had to do a poster about himself where he cut out various things to represent what he liked to eat and play, etc. I had to LIMIT him to two pigs per box. He just couldn't understand why he couldn't put a Duroc sow and a Hampshire boar as two separate things that he liked.

How do you tell a seven-year-old future pig farmr that to most people, a pig is just a pig.

A Real Farm Wife

Farm wives are a special breed of women. And while I'm much closer to being one than the VAST majority of females in this nation, I'm not really sure I'm a genuine farm wife.

I have known a few REAL farm wives in my time. I'll compare myself to what I think of when I say "farm wife."

Household Vet
Farm Wife: Has conducted bloody operations on pigs/calves/lambs/chickens with needle and thread in her own kitchen.
Me: Are you kidding me? It's all I can do to allow husband to store his pig medication in the refrigerator in bottles--I make him use the veggie drawer.

Heavy Equipment
Farm Wife: Drives the tractor with hay baler, cause that's the girl job. Jumps off at noon to prepare fried chicken and potatoes for all the farm hands.
Me: I mowed the lawn once and reduced a six foot pine tree to toothpicks. Afterward, I decided to Shake and Bake some boneless breasts. Does that count?

Pooper Scooper
Farm Wife: Covers her hair with a kerchief, grabs a pitchfork and gets to work.
Me: I did fill MANY a manure spreader during my 4-H years, including the morning after my Prom (no, this wasn't even punishment, just the way my Dad did things) I have since retired my pitchfork.

Living off the Land
Farm Wife: Tends an enormous garden full of vegetables, which she cans and freezes to enjoy year-round. Raises chickens for eggs and has a freezer full of hamburger from the last steer she had processed.
Me: I like to eat a few tomatoes from the in-laws' garden but I hate chickens. I know most farm wives would shudder, but I buy all of my meat at the grocery.

In fairness, I am comparing myself to farm wives from a different generation who made wife and mother their career. I guess in this day and age of two-income families, a farmer is happy to be married to a woman with a 401K and occasional business trips to satisfy her need to travel further than than the end of the lane.

I think my husband appreciates all my attempts to help out on the farm. Like all the times I have looked out the window and said, "The cows are out. Who should I call?" Or the time I drove the truck and trailer during a long trip so he could nap--luckily he woke up just in time to help me cross four lanes of traffic and make our exit. I know husband will always remember fondly the time I filled out the paperwork for a litter of pigs and used his pet name for one of the boars--that we sold and had announced at multiple shows and sales afterward.

Maybe those weren't the best examples after all, but I know that I do try to be a good farm wife. What other kind of woman would still be around months after uttering this real, actual sentence to her spouse: Why does our lettuce smell like pig s&men?

Beauty is in the Eye of the Pig-holder

Growing old is never easy. Your skin isn't as taut as it used to be, your hair loses some of its radiance, and the toll that childbirth takes--well, you really make sacrifices for that litter of babies you had. On top of it all, you have to worry about being replaced with a young showy little miss.

Here on the farm, the old sows don't worry about such things.

All I did was gently suggest that her skin might feel smoother if she did not take naps in manure. See the look I got. Is she sticking her tongue out at me?

This old gal doesn't have time to do her hair. (She's starting to get a little nappy.) But how many of us didn't put on a few pounds and let ourselves go when we're days away from giving birth.

And finally, my heart goes out to this old sow who sacrificed her body and the shapeliness of her tits to nourish her growing brood.

Being the female of the species is never easy. But it's good to be married to a man who knows how to appreciate a female whose award-winning county fair days are behind her. A man who can look past the changes that childbirth has wrought and see strong genetics. A sensitive guy who knows that your State Fair profile shot from when you were a young gilt is the preferred photo to use when touting your son's latest State Fair win.

Don't Look Ethel!

Ahhh, wedding season. Two hearts become one. Each person in the union unwraps and then learns how to operate new strange and puzzling kitchen appliances. And each partner learns slowly and patiently how to tolerate the quirkiness of their new family.

Like every spouse, I am certain that I have married into a family with strange and confounding habits. My family, of course, is perfect. But so you can decide for yourself, I have compiled a handy comparison of our two equally loving and perhaps equally weird family traits.

Meal Time
My family: We eat supper at 5:30, 6 if it's a special circumstance. You do the day's activities, stop and eat and then resume, as needed.

His family: The last meal of the day is eaten after all work is completed. If that's midnight, then you head to Waffle House.

Honking the Car Horn
My family interpretation: Hi, we see you out working in the lawn!

His family interpretation: Oh. My. Gosh. Livestock are on the rooo-THUMP-ooad

Cursing
Me at age 4 having difficulty in the bath: God-damned soap.

Him at age 35 getting bit by a pig: Oh, geeze-golly-darn that hurt.

Gift Buying
My family process: Shop year-round for the perfect gift.

His family process: Run out the night before the event and buy whatever you happen to see.

Vacationing
My family vacation growing up: Pack the motorhome with lunch meat and chips, head out to the lake for a weekend of skiing and sun-burning.

His family vacation growing up: Pig show in Des Moines

Cultural References
My parents exposed us to: The Big Chill soundtrack and song references like "I shot the Sheriff," "Don't rock the boat, baby" and "Indiana wants me, but I can't go back there"

His parents exposed him to: Black and white episodes of Andy Griffith.

How you know you've really joined the family
My family: You buy an RV and make homemade ice cream. Bonus points for making homemade ice cream while you are RV-ing.

His family: Your love for the OSU Buckeyes binds you to the team like Elliott and E.T., so that you turn ashen when things aren't going well, and your glowing heart can be seen through your chest when the team is winning. Bonus points for watching games in complete isolation so that no waitresses or noisy guests can come between you and your absolute focus on the team.

So my advice to newlyweds everywhere is to realize that just because your family keeps butter in the cupboard, and his family never washes their cars, you can develop new traditions together that meld the craziness that raised you.

And if they do something really weird, just do as my family always advised: Don't look Ethel!