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Pupcakes and Puppylove.

8 May

May 7 was a big day in the MFW household. No, we didn’t finish the barn, get new cows, or plant all the corn.

More important than that.

Yesterday this furry little fella turned two!

Jersey

Even though Dairy Man keeps reminding me that 2 is really 14 in dog years and Jersey’s getting older, it seems like just yesterday that he was a timid baby ball of fur adjusting to farm life.

I still view Jersey the dog as my fluffy little child …er… puppy. I love him just a little too much.

Need more proof? While Dairy Man was hard at work strip tilling the fields last night, Jersey and I celebrated his two years of life at a party with his aunt Amber and cousin Maggie.

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Can’t you see the family resemblance?

Jersey, like so many human children before him, had the misfortune to be born during planting season, harvest season, or summer.

Thus, he celebrated his birthday sans father figure. You really have to hope for rain if you want the farmers to come in for birthday cake.

But Jersey didn’t seem to mind once he was chowing down on a banana peanut butter pupcake.

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Yes. I am that crazy dog person who throws my pup a birthday party. It was delightful, complete with party hats, wrapped presents, guest goodie bags, and canine baked goods. Don’t judge me.

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Jersey and I are an anomaly in the farming world.

Most farm dogs live outside, chase cows, and inevitably meet untimely ends (by tractors, skidsters, cars, larger animals, etc.). But Jersey is not a farm dog. I watch him like a hawk. My pup sleeps next to our bed, has his own chair, and will live forever.

Dairy Man and his farming family think my puplove is a little crazy, but I’ve never been a normal farm wife.

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The key, DM, is to just accept it. And yes, that does mean I would like to revisit the doggy bowtie discussion. Jersey would look so dapper…

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Put Your Money Where Your Corn Is.

24 Apr

There comes a point in every farm wife’s life when she must put her money where the corn is.

In short, there comes a time when she must buy land. At least that’s what the Dairy Man told me.

Buying land was a rite of passage for our farm life. I still remember the jittery feeling in my stomach back when DM and I first went down this path.

After months of research, loan applications, bargaining, and stacks of paperwork, Dairy Man and I took our first large step towards personal investment into the dairy: buying farmland.

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This land-buying venture represented our first foray into deep, personal dairy investment.

I was just getting the hang of regular old farm life. Sure, the hours were long and the work was never-ending, but I hadn’t thought about the point when DM would want to invest our hard-earned dollars into the farm.

Silly me. I thought that money was accruing for a fabulous Mexican vacation or a paved driveway.

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But dairy life and personal life are inextricably intertwined. I’m slowly learning that there isn’t a big difference between “family money” and “farm money.” Somehow it all ends up in the same pot.

This means that every dime we earn, every choice we make, has to take the dairy into account. Annoying. Does this mean my desire for new flooring might get trumped by the Dairy Man’s desire for new cows? Yes. Not an easy concept for a city girl to swallow.

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When Dairy Man and I started discussing the land deal, it was easy to hide behind obscurities, generalities, and “somedays.” But eventually the time came to talk numbers, dollars, acres, a closing date. It was scary. I felt levels of resistance similar to those I felt before DM and I got married and moved to Smalltown. I secretly resented the notion that we had to deplete our hard-earned savings to buy something as un-sexy as dirt.

Because that’s all it is. Dirt. Buying land requires a down payment similar to that of a new house. But instead of four bedrooms, crown molding, and a walk-in closet, you get dirt. Instead of remodeling the bathroom, you get to spread poo on your new purchase. Thrilling.

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Dairy Man tried to soothe my fears with land adages farmers rely on:

  • “Land is our retirement plan!”
  • “Land is a gift that keeps on giving!”
  • “Buying land will make us rich … in equity!”
  • “When the apocalypse comes and the world succumbs to chaos and lawlessness, the landowners will be king!”

Even my desire to become a post-apocalyptic czar was not enough to convince me. I was scared. What if we had a terrible drought? What if it snowed in July and our corn babies froze? What if the field was trampled by a herd of rabid water buffalo? What if there was a plague of corn-loving locusts?

Farm life is a good exercise in letting go. I’m still getting used to a farmer’s reliance on the land and weather. So many things are outside of our control. This could explain why Dairy Man is so annoyingly optimistic and flexible. My type A personality strains heavily against the lack of control that comes with farm life.

But ultimately I trust the business acumen of my scruffy Dairy Man. This is the life I’ve chosen and these are the educated choices we must make.

Because, really, life itself cannot be controlled or predicted. I can thank farming for teaching me this. I’m constantly learning and gaining flexibility and patience. Plus, I don’t even go into hypovolemic shock when I get my shoes stuck in the mud.

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The dairy is growing. I’m growing. DM is so proud. I know our lovely land parcels will be a good investment. I’m well on my way to being a feudal land baron and I’m excited to watch this dairy ebb and grow. Land is good.

Even though I can’t buy new shoes with equity.

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Dairy Man, Get Your Gun.

24 Jan

Despite living on a farm for the better part of the past two and a half years, I have a confession to make. Get ready for some serious self-awareness. Ready? Deep breath.

I have very delicate sensibilities.

Whoa. I know you’re reeling with shock right now. I’ll give you a minute to collect yourself.

While I’m not exactly a Victorian lady holding a scented handkerchief up to my nose and fainting at the mere notion of social impropriety (a la Downton Abbey), I have not transformed into a rough-and-tumble, dirt-loving, cow-milking, lady. I live on a dairy, but I still wrestle with the guileless city girl brain bouncing around in my head.

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I may be able to provide a detailed description of strip tilling or regale you with tales of escaped cows, but I try not to get too attached to our steers and plug my fingers in my ears and sing “Lalalalalalalala” whenever Dairy Man talks about artificial insemination. I blubbered like a melodramatic baby who just watched The Notebook when I ran over a squirrel.  Despite having a pair of stylish rubber boots that I use to tromp around the farm, I will be thrust into a horror-struck paralysis if I get manure on my shirt. While I know where my food comes from, I don’t really need to know the logistics of WHERE MY FOOD CAME FROM.

I’m sentimental about most living things. Deer look like Bambi. Steers are friendly neighbors. Geese remind me of Fly Away Home. Cows are dear buddies. Barn cats (provided they have all of their legs, eyes, and tails) are fluffy kitties. Jersey the dog is my baby.

Normal farm kids think differently about animals than I do. The “circle of life” that farmers accept (not to be confused with a baboon singing “Naaaaaaaaaants ingonyama bagithi baba” while hoisting a lion cub over a cliff) is still a concept that offends my delicate sensibilities.

It’s for this reason that I’ve resisted the idea that the Dairy Man should get a gun. Back in the “this-guy-is-cute-but-I-don’t-want-to-date-a-farmer-BUT-it-would-be-fun-to-visit-his-farm-and-play-with-calves” phase of our relationship, a BB gun was thrust into my hands to shoot pigeons in the barns. I missed every shot I took. To spare the lives of the fluttering birds, you ask? I plead the fifth.

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The Dairy Man doesn’t hunt and I stay far away from any mortality conversations around the farm, but there’s something about a farmer and his gun. As soon as DM got his dog, he started begging for a gun.

So, in the second-best wife gift ever, I finally caved and gave DM his heart’s desire for Christmas.

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While I don’t think DM will find time to hunt deer or geese next fall, he does have dreams of clay pigeons and skeet shooting.

(And because I want to save you from embarrassment, no, a skeet is not a small, flightless bird resembling a roadrunner. Don’t make that mistake in public conversation. I’m speaking from experience here.)

Dairy Man’s gun is just one more chip in my city sensibilities. It’s a gradual process, assimilating into this farm life. No one I knew in Chicago felt the need to own a shotgun, but we’re in the lawless country (pronounced COOOOOUN-TRAY) now.

I only hope that he doesn’t parade any trophies in front of me like Shadow the cat did with unfortunate field mice and moles. Only the mob should leave a corpse on your doorstep. Even if it’s a deer.

My delicate sensibilities just can’t take it.

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10 Mooing Neighbors

20 Dec

On the tenth day of Christmas, the Dairy Man gave to me
Ten mooing neighbors

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Nine essential nutrients
Eight loads of sand
Seven bales of hay
Six stripping shanks
Fiiiiiiive commodity baaaays
Four milking shells
Three shifts of milking
Two orange tractors
And a twinkly-light-laden faux tree

Above you’ll see Jersey, chatting it up with ten of our mooing neighbors. I’ve talked before about taking walks with my pup to fill the time spent without the Dairy Man. During the spring, summer, and fall, Jersey the dog and I take a LOT of walks. It’s a wonderful time to get my bearings, to breathe, to appreciate this boondockish place in which I live. There was a time when I didn’t think the country was beautiful. But I officially stand corrected.

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On these walks, Jersey and I love to stop and say hello to our mooing neighbor ladies. Our neighbor farmer raises beef cows on a few huge, green pastures. The cows (and cute little calves!) are friendly and very curious about the black and white canine furball racing along the fence line.

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Jersey loves to socialize with the neighbors and I love to stop walking for a second to watch the black and brown cows frolic through the field. It’s an idyllic view. I can barely stop myself from taking a picture every single time.

I used to long for a real neighborhood; for human neighbors, sidewalks, streetlights, neighborhood watch, city plows, playgrounds, and playdates. But these wide open spaces and mooing neighbors make life in the country just a little sweeter.

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Conference Season in Dairyland

20 Nov

Alas and alack. Our little hamlet of Smalltown, Michigan received a light dusting of the white stuff last week.

I can no longer ignore the fact that it is late November and the cold season is upon us.

I despise winter; I really do. Don’t get me wrong—I love a little snow between Thanksgiving and Christmas to get me in the mood for tree-trimming, egg-nogging, and fa-la-la-ing. But I would be perfectly happy if it all melted on January 1 and we jumped into spring. For me, winter means freezing temperatures, gray skies, pasty white skin, treacherous driving, and a puppy that suffers from cabin fever whenever he’s not playing in the snow.

But there is one good thing about this time of year (besides peppermint stick ice cream): I have a lot more QT with the dairy man. That’s “Quality Time,” Mom. Don’t get all weird on me.

After the frantic pace of fall harvest settles down, we enter the dairy’s “slow” season. Sure, DM may occasionally have to run up to the barn at 4 a.m. to fix a milk tank, but he tends to work shorter days at a slower speed. The world is our oyster and we have nothing but time to spend together.

Except for the conferences.

That’s right. Just when I’m getting used to eating dinner before 8 p.m. and having a housecleaning partner on Saturdays, the dairy farm conference season begins.

Back in the days of three-legged stools and buggies, farming was a relatively isolated profession. Until I met the dairy man, I thought this was still the case. I would have laughed at the prospect of a bunch of farmers gathering at a two-day summit in a hotel multipurpose room to discuss “the latest on carbohydrates, starch digestibility, shredlageTM, and snaplage for dairy cows.”

But these conferences exist. Farmers like mine are puttering all over the country in the winter to learn, network, brainstorm, and tour each others’ dairies. Being married to a dairy farmer has made me realize how large and collaborative this industry really is.

My DM reads dozens of dairy magazines and checks stock and commodities prices on a daily basis.

He also closely follows immigration legislation and yes, spends his winter going to dairy conferences in locales from Cleveland to Las Vegas.

Last year the DM spent three days at the Bellagio in Vegas. He saw David Copperfield. He ate expensive steak. He socialized with other “elite dairy producers” and talked cows 24/7. Rough life, eh?

I think the dairy man enjoys going conferences because he believes that if our dairy isn’t moving forward, it is moving backward. He comes back home from each meeting bursting with new ideas, innovative solutions, and a whole lot of swag from …ahem… semen distributors.

I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the dairy man won’t sit still, even in the dreary days of winter.

This is the guy who couldn’t even kick back on a beach in Mexico during our honeymoon. While I was sipping fruity drinks and taking long naps in the sun, my dear farmer spent most of the week poring through dairy magazines, drawing barn plans, and solving complicated math problems.

That man doesn’t know how to relax. I’ve seen him jump out of a nap with a start, scribble something on a sheet of paper, and immediately fall back asleep.

There’s no such thing as winter hibernation for my farmer. Conference season is upon us. But he loves it.

As for me, I think it would be great if our dairy cooperative would hold a conference in Hawaii … or the Bahamas. I’ve heard that you can learn a lot about dairy cows with a coconut beverage in your hand. Especially if you bring your wife. Trust me.

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Wallowing, vegging, and dogging

25 Sep

All right, friends. I’ve failed you.

I’m sure you’ve noticed. All of the people who read this blog faithfully (there are at least two – thanks, Mom and Dad) have undoubtedly noticed the lack of cow, corn, and canine tales. I’ve still been posting plenty of pictures of Jersey the dog to my five lucky followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but I have neglected the written word.

“Not cool, MFW,” you might say. “Man cannot live on ‘Omg! Lol! What a cute puppy!’ alone. He needs cows. Machinery. Detailed farming explanations.”

That’s not going to happen today. I blame corn harvest and self pity. Plus, I’ve already donned my sweatpants. Nothing productive can happen while wearing sweatpants.

I shouldn’t complain too much. At least I’m not the one out there farming from 6 a.m. to midnight. My dairy man amazes and exhausts me. I would be a terrible (and excruciatingly whiny) farmer.

During corn harvest the dairy man leaves at sunup and doesn’t crawl into bed until I’m long asleep. I’m a lone wolf for a few weeks and this phenom plummets me into bachelor-like behaviors. I eat cereal and hummus for dinner, walk around the house in my skivvies, and watch an embarrassing number of Say Yes to the Dress episodes (Netflix streaming will be the death of me). There is no one to judge me or the socks I haven’t picked up yet. A few husband-free weeks would make some gals hyper-productive, but I tend to go the other way. Rather than write about corn, I grab a giant container of Greek yogurt and a large glass of wine, plop in front of the tube, and feel sorry for myself.

I also blame my writer’s fatigue. I write (and write and write) at my snazzy new job all.day.long. Press releases, articles, web copy, marketing copy, tweets. I love it. It’s challenging, frustrating, exhausting, and invigorating. But when I get home at night, the thought of hunkering down at my computer to do more writing makes me twitch. It also makes me eat a lot of salsa. Or maybe that’s the guilt.

Speaking of guilt, I’ve got a depressed puppy on my hands. Jersey the dog has been spending a lot of time in the house these past few weeks. He usually goes to work with the dairy man, but not during corn harvest. Jersey gets carsick in the tractor and DM doesn’t like to have him around all of the heavy machinery. When I should be blogging, I’m giving the furry child my undivided attention. We walk, we play fetch, we learn new tricks, we take naps on the couch, we guffaw over dog-shaming.com, we eat a lot of peanut butter, we ogle at the neighbor’s heifers.

Between wallowing, vegging, and dogging, when’s a girl to do anything productive?

Next week I will drop some thrilling corn knowledge on you. I promise. For tonight, there is a furry fellow and a glass of red calling my name.

Thank goodness harvest is almost over.

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The Sorry Saga of a Stiletto.

21 Aug

Let me tell you about my day yesterday.

Yes, that is my shoe. Stuck in the mud. I stepped right out of the thing while walking from my car to the house. There it sat, mired in the muddy quagmire that separates our garage concrete from our back door concrete. WHY these two sections of concrete were poured without a connector is inconceivable. These are the countrylife questions that haunt me.

I will be the first to say that yes, high heels can face their share of dangers and perils in the big city. There are cracks in the sidewalk, uneven curbs, subway grates, and pigeon poop.

In fact, I was once trotting to work in Chicago and wedged my heel firmly in an ‘L’ grate. It was horrifying. I’m thankful my ankle didn’t snap. Rather, I kept moving forward a few more yards while my shoe remained sad and lonely in its metal prison. Try to look like a dignified urbanite while standing barefoot on the sidewalk wrestling with a shoe. I dare you.

That traumatizing experience notwithstanding, I found city life to be much kinder on my heels.

My country house does not have a paved driveway (the tractor tires would likely tear it up), nor does it have a smooth path from garage to house. My shoes are always getting dirty and scuffed. I engage in a delicate dance each morning and evening as I leave for and return from work. On any given day I can be seen balancing car keys, an iPhone, a coffee thermos, a massive purse, binders, and an umbrella while trying to leap from one section of concrete to another.

It’s not so bad when the ground is dry, but we’ve (thankfully) had a lot of rain lately. The Dairy Man and I live at the bottom of a big hill and when it rains heavily, torrents of rainwater wash down and pool in front of the garage. (And in our basement, but that’s another story for another time.) Though the puddles have dried up, the ground has not.

Thus, my heel sunk into the squish and didn’t pop back out.

While I have mostly adjusted to country life, my shoes can’t say the same.

These girls are not prepared for off-roading.

It might be time to start wearing my barn boots to the garage.  Either that or convince the Dairy Man to provide daily piggyback rides. Honey?
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Ps: Did you know you can follow the MFW escapades on Facebook? If you’re into cute pictures of border collies and posts about thrilling subjects like manure management, I’m your girl. Like me! I dare you.

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Time alone in wide open spaces

9 May

As planting season gets underway, I find myself with an abundance of free time. While the Dairy Man spends every waking hour tilling and planting, I am getting (re)used to being alone.

This alone time often falls victim to things like naps, Facebooking, and Mad Men marathons, but I’ve been trying to spend more time taking long walks with the pups. Without any reason to rush home (i.e. no one is waiting for dinner), we’re free to journey further and further from the dairy.

Out here, there are no sidewalks.

There is no pavement.

We leave the dairy behind and set out into the deep country.

Jersey and I wander down dirt roads and disappear into an overhanging canopy of trees.

Tire tracks let us know that others have traveled the road before, but we don’t see a soul.

I would enjoy the walks more with company. Having the sturdy Dairy Man by my side would certainly dispel the occasional “I’m going to get murdered” feeling that comes from such rural isolation. But the wilderness is peaceful. I am alone with my pup, my thoughts, and the rustling of a gentle breeze through the leaves.

The silence is deafening. My soul craves it. Somehow these rolling hills and the wafting scent of manure stun me. I live in a beautiful place.

Things are only going to get crazier this spring + summer + fall, but I’m no longer a complete novice to this country life. The Dairy Man will get in when he gets in; we might eat tacos at 9:45 p.m. or Subway on the side of the road; I will have to relearn how to be alone. But I can’t help but feel so very blessed.

And you can’t beat the view.

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Those lazy-hazy-crazy days of … March!?

22 Mar

Oh hey, in case you haven’t heard, the weather in Michigan is going crazy.

This was the temperature two days ago, on MARCH 19. This was only at 12 noon. It went up from there. To 85 degrees.

March, a month that usually brings light snow flurries, gradual warming (to the 40s/50s), and the fleeting promise of spring has plopped us smack into summer.

For the past week, temperatures have been in the 70s and 80s. Wednesday’s high was one the warmest ever recorded in West Michigan in the month of March. Phew.

Even though a small part of me feels like the world is going to end in a apocalyptic ball of global warming, I have emerged from a long winter hibernation desperate to soak up as much “summer” as humanly possible. The hammock is out, my skin is rosy (from a long nap taken in aforementioned hammock), and all of our meals take place on the deck. From this vantage point, it’s easy to see that everything is turning green.

I know that this is wrong, wrong, wrong. This can’t last. Something in the universe has gotten out of whack and we’ll probably get a blizzard in the middle of June. I half expect to see a plague of locusts or frogs spring forth from the earth.

The cows are confused. Most of our girls haven’t even shed their fluffy winter fur yet. They are hot and bothered, but fortunately the Dairy Man turned on our big fans to cool things down. There was talk of a frozen daiquiri bar, but Dairy Man wants to try the fans first.

The heat wave has also allowed us to get a jump start on Manure Mania 2012. Bum bum bum. The Dairy Man doesn’t call it that, but I added a name to the annual process to lend some drama and flair. I’ll provide more details on this odorous undertaking in a future post, but all you need to know at this point is that warm weather = manure spreading. All day, every day. Our two orange tractors work the pavement from dawn till dusk. Pit to field, pit to field, pit to field. The goal? To empty our manure pits before the real craziness of spring starts.

We’re not the only ones. Dozens of farmers’ tractors are motoring around the countryside and the scent of spring is upon us. The Dairy Man says it smells like success. I say it smells like, well… poo. Agree to disagree.

I know the summer-March won’t last forever. The earth will figure this out and I’ll go back to light sweaters and boots. But until then, we will haul, cool the cows, and spend time outside with the pups.

I just hope we can get him back inside.

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Hey, I’m going to Indiana.

16 Feb

Texts between a Dairy Man and his wife:

Dairy Man (9:31 am): Hey, I’m going to Indiana. Might stay overnight. Ok?
Modern (9:32 am): What?!
DM (9:34 am): Is that ok?
MFW (9:37 am): Uuuuh when are you going?
DM (9:39 am): Now.

MFW picks up phone and dials.

DM: Hello?
MFW: (incredulous) You’re doing what!?
DM: Brant and I were talking about visiting his uncle’s dairy in Indiana and we decided this was the best day to do it. So we’re leaving in like 10 minutes.
MFW: Um, ok. And you’re staying overnight?
DM: Yeah. We want to stop in Shipshewana tomorrow to look at some heifers and machinery. Is that ok?
MFW: I guess. It must be nice to be a farmer, eh? It’s all loosey goosey over there. “Sure, I’ll leave the state today.”
DM: Yup! Living the dream. Are we good? I’m already late.

So, um, apparently the Dairy Man is gone for two days. Only in farm life do you wake up in the morning with a husband who isn’t going to Indiana and, by 9:30 a.m., it can all change. To be fair, I should mention that my particular farmer is always a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy. It drives me mad. I’m organized, deliberate, and decisive. The Dairy Man is spontaneous, impulsive, and flexible. Our marriage works because we are able to meet somewhere in the middle. I would spend days on a trip to Indiana: packing a suitcase, Mapquesting the best possible route, grocery shopping so that the Dairy Man wouldn’t starve, doing laundry, making lists. The Dairy Man spent 10 minutes: he threw some things into a bag and hit the road.

Farm life is all of the things I am not. It can change in an instant. One minute you’re making a milk production spreadsheet, the next, you’re in a truck on the way to visit a dairy in Indiana.

Baffling, really. I just hope he brings me back a souvenir. And not the mooing kind.

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