Modern Farm Wife

Losing our Jersey boy

05/04/202505/04/2025by Modern Farm Wife2 Comments

We unexpectedly said goodbye to our beloved Jersey boy this week.

For nearly 14 years, he’s been our constant companion. Kyle and I got him in our first year of marriage, and despite the fact that we intended him to be a wild farm dog—chasing cows and living outside—I quickly fell in love. Suddenly the girl who wasn’t a dog person was buying dozens of squeaky toys, snuggling with my puppy on the carpet, and setting up a webcam in the kitchen so I could watch him while I was at work. We took walks on the farm every day and when he wasn’t in Kyle’s truck, he was by my side.

Even as we added kids and chaos, Jersey was always around—napping in my closet, running to greet visitors, and howling along every time we sang Happy Birthday. He loved long walks with Grandpa (my dad), burrowing in piles of leaves, and wrestling with Kyle. He could hear me open a bag of shredded cheese from anywhere in the house and lay next to my bed every night. He slowed down as he got older but still had the heart of a puppy (especially when the words “walk” or “bacon” were involved).

My kids have never known a life without Jersey. He was here to sniff each of them when they came home from the hospital and, even though he was smart enough to know he was being usurped, he grew to accept them when he realized how much food they dropped on the floor. The kids delighted in giving him too many treats, rubbing his belly, and competing for space with him in the sandbox.

There’s so much I want to say about grief and pain and how I can’t breathe when I walk into my closet and see the worn spot on the rug where he loved to lay. But for today, I want to remember all the good he brought into our lives.

Jers, we loved you so much and will miss you more. Forever grateful you were part of our family.

Family

Where I Live

04/17/202504/17/2025by Modern Farm Wife6 Comments

I live in the country, on a long road flanked by farms, fields, and silos. We call everyone within a mile radius “our neighbor” but rarely see them because we’re always racing past their houses at 65 mph. Our farm is nestled into a hill and this high position—supposedly one of the highest in the county—gives us daily access to spectacular sunrises and sunsets. But I haven’t always found the country beautiful. When my husband Kyle and I were dating, I used to drive up to visit him and I remember feeling twinges of panic as city sidewalks and Starbucks were replaced by cornfields and dirt roads. The openness and isolation unmoored me. I couldn’t stop thinking about how far I was from the freeway (or a Target). But, over time, I’ve come to love this place. The green fields of swaying alfalfa. The impossibly blue skies dotted with clouds. The smell of chopped hay and freshly-turned soil. And, unlike whatever tiny green space would have been available to me if I owned the city loft I once dreamed of, our country backyard has room for an inflatable water slide. So there’s that.

I live on a dairy farm with two things in spades: cows and big equipment. My toddler son once checked out a Tonka book from the library where a boy watches a payloader dig on his suburban street—what a thrill!—and dreams of driving big machines himself someday. “I don’t get it,” my older son said over my shoulder, “What’s so exciting about a loader?” His brain couldn’t comprehend the novelty and I had to laugh. It’s hard to impress a farm kid. My children think nothing of house-sized loaders, tractors, sprayers, and other pieces of equipment rumbling up our driveway. Between the machines and the moos (what the toddler calls them), there’s never a dull moment around here. As for living ON the farm, I love that we get to know our employees, that Kyle can pop into the house throughout the day, and how easy it is to ride our scooters and bikes to the barns. Whenever I feel grumpy about the constant tractor traffic or odor of manure, I remind myself, “I can literally pet a cow any time I want.”

I live in a new-old farmhouse of which I used to tell people, “It’s not, like, a cool old farmhouse. It’s just an old house on a farm.” Our house was built in the early 1900s and once held a family of 10 kids with less than half the square footage. Like many farmhouses, this one has been added on to multiple times—once in the 1970s and most recently last year by our family. At the beginning of the project, we (I) wanted to just tear the house down and start over, but practicality (Kyle) kept us working within the existing structure. It takes a special kind of creativity to make something old feel new, but I’m glad we did. We’re building on history. We’re adding to the story. Now, our four kids (who make enough noise to seem like 10) race barefooted through the new-old rooms, wrestle on the rugs, and ride their bikes on the driveway. Sometimes the house is clean and guest-ready, but more often than not, the floors are covered with markers and scraps of construction paper, books are piled on every surface, and the glass doors are streaked with handprints. This home is loved and lived in. This is my favorite place to be.

I live under piles of laundry because I have kids who apparently need to wear clothing—daily. (Of course, they would be content wearing nothing but their underpants and a smile, but this is generally frowned upon in civilized society.) If 4 kids wear a minimum of 8 items of clothing a day, I will wash at least 224 articles of clothing per week. This nonstop accumulation of shirts, socks, and discarded pajama bottoms, means I spend half my life lugging laundry baskets, turning small pants right-side-out, and moving armfuls of wet clothes to the dryer. And yet, somehow, my eldest son can never find his favorite hoodie.

I live in the kitchen, because in addition to their need to wear clothes, these small humans also need to eat—constantly. This is the room where I dish out oatmeal into colorful bowls, cut strawberries and cheese for school lunches, and blast German pop music on the bluetooth speaker when we all need a dance party. This is the room where I distribute snacks, sort through school papers, stir pots of white chicken chili, and drink coffee with Kyle before the kids get up. Despite the fact that the kids have a playroom, bedrooms, and a designated craft table, this is where they’re most likely to be for one simple reason: because this is where I am. Sometimes this feels suffocating, but I also wouldn’t want it any other way. (It’s also possible they’re here for the snacks.)

I live on my knees, giving hugs, petting the dog, bandaging wounds, retrieving toy tractors from under the couch, and scrubbing dried milk off the floor. To be clear, by “knees” I mean “knee” because I can’t put too much weight on my arthritic right one (hello middle age), but you get the idea. While I’m balancing on my physical knee and bowing on my metaphorical ones, I’m serving the people I love, praying for more patience and grace than comes naturally, and holding stubborn hope for our beautiful, broken world.

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Inspired by Nora Ephron’s “Where I Live” essay from I Feel Bad About My Neck and written along with my friends Kim Knowle-Zeller and Melissa Kutsche.

Humor, Writing

Five Stages of Grief During Michigan Spring

03/21/202504/16/2025by Modern Farm Wife4 Comments

The 7 colloquially-accepted stages of spring in Michigan:
1. Winter
2. Fake spring
3. Second winter ←you are here
4. Spring of deception
5. Third winter
6. The pollening
7. Actual spring

Denial
No, no, no. This can’t be happening. We grilled burgers last night. My kids haven’t worn their winter coats in three days. Yesterday I saw a robin. A ROBIN. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Harbinger of spring? Orange-breasted emissary of hope? Conveyer of a new day after winter’s long night? If Robbie says it’s spring, it simply cannot be snowing today. I will ignore the forecast. I will ignore the wintery view out my window. I will ignore the fact that I’ve been in a relationship with a noncommittal boyfriend named Michigan Spring for 38 years and am still begging to DTR (define the relationship).

Anger
A pox on your head, second winter, with your sleet and smug return to subarctic temps. I AM BELEAGUERED. I AM COLD. Even though I should expect these kinds of bipolar seasonal shifts, I somehow never do. This is a travesty. This is egregious. What kind of bass-ackwards, upside-down world has kids squirting each other with water guns one day and battling through snowstorms the next? What is real? What is true? Every time I get in my car, the opposite temperature of the air I want to feel is blasting out of the vents because apparently I existed in a completely different climate 12 hours ago. People can’t live this way.

Bargaining
Ok, you’re right. What did I expect? This happens every spring and I’m, like, totally chill about it. Five stars. No notes. I won’t rock the boat or think I deserve any kind of consistency. But let’s make a deal. I promise to stop complaining about the weather—at least some of the time—if you just give us another day in the 60s. I won’t say a thing when I send the kids to school in their parkas (because it’s 25 degrees) and they return to me in the afternoon as red-faced sweat-buckets with their pants rolled up to their knees (because it’s 55). We can ride the wave of 30-degree temperature fluctuations together! Just please don’t take away the sun.

Depression
Now is the winter of my discontent. I. give. up. The snow is blowing sideways and everything hurts and I’m dying. My skin will retain its ghostly pallor and my kids will wrestle on the couch like feral hyenas because it’s too cold to play outside. Now, my only job is to huddle under a heated blanket, eat ice cream, and drown in existential despondency while icy winds blow the sand toys away. I’ll never be warm again. I shall return to my SAD mole-person ways. As the prodigious words of Linkin Park say, “I tried so hard and got so far; in the end, it doesn’t even matter.”

Acceptance
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that “The only constant thing in life is change.” He’s no Linkin Park frontman, but I suppose there’s wisdom in both alternative rock and Greek philosophy. No season lasts forever—even though second, third, and possibly fourth winter seem to. In this liminal time of hunkering down and wearing three pairs of socks, there is permission to slow down. To ease up. To let the soft animal of my body love what it loves (furry blankets, hot drinks, simple carbohydrates). I didn’t plan to shave my legs or get any exercise this month anyway. Maybe second winter, with its uniform of fleece pants and shapeless sweatshirts, is more of a gift than I realized.

(But I will still open the sunroof every time temps go over 40, because no one knows how to live in hope quite like a Midwesterner.)

//

Written alongside the lovely women in my writing group. For more words about spring and growth, check out A Blessing for the First Warm Days by Kim Knowle-Zeller, How do you pinpoint growth? by Erin Strybis, Losing my hair by Fay Gordon, and Hanami by Melissa Kutsche.

Day in the life, Family, Photo essay

A Day of Ordinary Magic

12/11/202412/11/2024by Modern Farm Wife2 Comments

I want to believe I won’t forget. That her sticky kisses on my cheek or the way he says “spasketti” will always stay with me. But time has a way of making things hazy, blurring the edges until I’m left grasping at memories that feel like sequins slipping through my hands. That’s why I want to notice. To capture. To wrest these bits of our days onto the page.

Because nothing is inconsequential.
It all matters.
It’s all magic.

December 9, 2024: A day in the life

5:40 am / solitude
My morning routine has ebbed and flowed over the years, but ideally I’m at my desk before 6 am. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I put in my earbuds, crank up Christmas jazz, and try to journal while my farmer officemate pecks away at a spreadsheet or talks to the milk hauler on speakerphone. I’d like to tell you that I show up here every day without fail. I’d like to tell you that I’m always disciplined and productive. I’d especially like to tell you that I have something tangible to show for myself after years of predawn writing. But the truth is, this time has always been more about the practice than the results. Today I can only spare 15 minutes, but it’s enough time for a cup of hot coffee and two chapters of Brian Doyle. Doyle says “attentiveness is the door to holiness” and I can’t help but think that’s exactly the point of what I’m capturing today.

6:30 am / switching gears
The computer snaps shut promptly at 6:30 and it’s time to GSD. I turn on all the lights, empty the dishwasher, and start cooking breakfast while listening to an audiobook (currently: How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley). The Lazy Genius told me to decide once, so breakfast is oatmeal Mon/Wed/Fri and eggs Tue/Thu. All the Hatch nightlights in the house (3) switch from water sounds to CHEERFUL MORNING BIRDS! at 6:45 and several loud thumps from upstairs tell me we’re off to the races.

7:00 am / and so it begins
I usually sit down with 2-4 kids to eat a rushed breakfast before packing lunch bags, tracking down snowpants, and shouting, “Brush your teeth!” No one loves mornings, but Ellis is the only child I have to physically drag out of bed. As for breakfast, four kids take their oatmeal four specifically different ways and if that doesn’t explain the female mental load, I don’t know what will. Kyle’s rarely here because he meets with his first shift employees at 7 am, but if we’re lucky he’ll walk in to say goodbye right as I’m trying to herd the child-cats out the door.

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8:35 am / clean before the clean
The kids are at school and I even remembered not to yell “I love you!” to my fifth-grader through the open car door (apparently public Mom love is embarrassing). Now, Wilko and I are back home to engage in that age-old first-world pastime: cleaning for the cleaning people. IYKYK. Last week someone commented on one of my stories, “I don’t know how you keep your house so clean with four kids!” and here’s the secret: I don’t. Sure, I’m an perpetual tidier who organizes toys into labeled bins and has a reputation for throwing away precious art creations made of toilet paper tubes, but our village also includes wonderful people who mop the floors and clean the bathtubs. I don’t think women talk enough about all the ways we keep our worlds afloat because of societal pressure to “do it all!,” but I’m here to tell you that I am not superwoman and there is no gift quite like walking into a clean home and being able to simply enjoy it with my family.

9:15 am / sequestered with a toddler
While the floors get vacuumed, Wilko and I shut ourselves in the office to play tractors and tackle my to-dos. This morning I have to pay a bill, buy Christmas gifts, send an email about health insurance, and schedule several medical appointments—all while Wilko sings Old MacDonald at the top of his lungs and tries to climb on my lap. After his fifteenth request of “Moooooooooom, you play the Fendt song?” I finally switch my Spotify from Christmas jazz to “Wilko’s Demands,” a carefully curated playlist of songs for a toddler with demanding musical taste (mostly for German pop songs about tractors). I sense that productivity will be futile.

11:00 am / early bird lunch
When you’re the fourth kid, you learn to go with the flow. Wilko eats lunch early, naps early, and wakes up at 2:30 to get the kids from school whether he wants to or not. On the upside, he has his own playlist and gets to spend a whole lot of 1:1 time with his mom (nature vs. nurture will ultimately reveal if this is ultimately a good thing). “I think he might be your best friend,” Kyle once joked when he came into the house to hear us having a legitimate—albeit one-sided—conversation about my high school reunion.

12:00-2:00 pm / all the things
The house is quiet and I can finally make my phone calls without an incessant toddler singing in the background. When that’s done, I heat up some taco meat for my own lunch and eat it with chips while watching 10 minutes of The Great British Baking Show. After this paltry amount of escapism, I pop in my earbuds and move on to picking up toys, folding laundry, wrapping gifts, shopping for a new winter coat for Anders, and stuffing Christmas cards.

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2:30 pm / pickup line
I drag a groggy, wild-haired Wilko from his crib and offer him a “car bar” for the ride to school. Wilko’s carseat is full of crumbs from my near-daily LaraBar bribery, but we do what we must to survive. I try to listen to a podcast as we drive through the gray drizzle, but Wilko screams, “I no like this guy! Play Johnny Deere!” After two minutes of futile arguing with a two-year-old, I acquiesce and retreat into my own thoughts as music fills the car. Once in the kindergarten line, I pull out my book and chuckle at the sound of Wilko singing in faux German to his stuffed pig.

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3:05 pm / reunited
“Sorry we’re late, Mom!” Ellis says as she climbs into the car. “There was a dog in my classroom and it really slowed the kindergarteners down.” “It licked me right in the face!” Henning squeals as he appears behind her, eyes bright and cheeks red from the cold. “Cool!” I say as I help them load up coats, backpacks, and art projects before driving away. On the way to Anders’ building, we talk about dogs and gym class and hot lunch (today’s bacon sandwich apparently changed Henning’s life). I love to hear their stories and get a glimpse into their world away from me.

4:15 pm / postwar snacktime
Rainy days call for hot chocolate. But lest you think we’re living in a Thomas Kinkade wonderland of sleigh rides and rosy-cheeked angel-children saying “Yes Mummy” to my every whim, we’re having this snack at 4:15 pm because it took 45 minutes after we got home to break up a knock-down, drag-out fight that started between two kids in the car. Punches were thrown. Names were called. A brother’s backpack was tossed onto the wet driveway. After the boiling emotions cooled, we had conversations about forgiveness and empathy and how it’s ok to feel angry but it’s not ok to hurt people when you feel angry (a phrase I say 10 times a day). Now that the dust has settled, the kids tuck into their hot drinks and I pray that I’m getting more things right than wrong.

5:15 pm / bait and switch
I told my husband around noon that I had no idea what to make for dinner. Tonight, Kyle pulls into the driveway an hour earlier than usual with a plan to make something called goulash, despite the fact we don’t have most of the key ingredients. “I’ll improvise,” he grins, never one for directions or recipes anyway. Just then his phone rings. “Kids!” He shouts after hanging up. “There are cows out. Who wants to help?” “Me!” says Anders, springing from the couch and following Kyle out the back door. And just like that, I’m back to culinary square one. I wonder how long we should wait before pivoting to a dinner of cereal.

6:00 pm / dinnertime
Apparently the jailbreak wasn’t a bad one and my cow wranglers have returned. Kyle mixes a sizzling pan of beef, tomatoes, and noodles on the stove and I—perhaps giddy over the presence of another adult human in the house—light a bunch of candles and crank up “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga. The kids groan as I do the robot and twerk my rhythmless Dutch body along with the music, but soon, we’re all dancing. When the food is ready, our cacophony transitions to a calm(ish) candlelit dinner. (Pro tip: if you’ve spawned a crew of picky Philistines, keep the lights as low as possible when serving a new dish.) No one eats much, but we giggle, play Fortunately/Unfortunately, and enjoy being together.

7:30 pm / lost in a story
Wilko is down for the night after reading six Christmas books and singing two songs. Now it’s time for homework. Baritone practice. PJs. Tooth brushing. The big kids beg to watch a Mark Rober video before bed, but as much as I believe in the importance of STEM, I also believe in the power of stories. We snuggle into the couch and I start reading aloud (with voices/accents, natch, because once a theater kid, always a theater kid). Before long, we’re all immersed in another world.

8:00 pm / prep and landing
Kisses, hugs, prayers, and lights off. Anders reads Garfield in bed and the littler kids listen to their Yotos. Back downstairs, Kyle loads the dishwasher and wipes noodles off the table while I start making tomorrow’s lunches. All of these rote tasks seem to sparkle in the light of the Christmas tree, still-burning candles, and the warm feeling in my stomach from being cozied up together on the couch.

9:45 pm / winding down
Ellis is still awake because Ellis never sleeps, so Kyle and I switch on an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to keep us awake in case she comes downstairs with more questions about war or slavery (thanks, Exodus story). At long last, when I check on the kids before going to bed myself, all four are asleep. It’s when I stroke their soft cheeks in the dark that I feel it: the awe of simple magic. It’s a throb. An ache. An undercurrent of holiness that winds through these ordinary days filled with ordinary things. Today I’m grateful for the reminder to notice.

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I wrote this blog post in response to the prompt #ordinarymagic — an invitation to find the sparkle in our typical days using photos and words. For more ordinary magic, check out the writing of my friends Kimberly Knowle-Zeller, Melissa Kutsche, and Erin Strybis.

Family, Farm wife, Farming

I Don’t (Always) Love Farming

03/07/202403/07/2024by Modern Farm WifeLeave a Comment

I don’t (always) love farming.

But I love the green of our fields in summer / petting the velvety forehead of a cow / the sound of truck wheels on gravel—a harbinger of my husband walking through the door.

I love watching new barns go up / dropping kids off for tractor rides / the way the wind whispers through the alfalfa and the smell of damp soil after a rain.

I love the way my husband’s passion for his work lights up his face / our connection to the land and where food comes from / that the kids know the name of everyone on the dairy and they pray for them (and the cows) at night.

I love the bustle of daily activity / how silos remind me a bit of skyscrapers / that my fearless daughter feeds calves from her bare hands.

I love welcoming visitors to our farm / walking in wide open spaces / that we’re building something bigger than ourselves.

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Family, Motherhood, Photo essay

Because One Day They Won’t

01/25/2024by Modern Farm Wife4 Comments

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Because one day the baby won’t go everywhere with a tattered stuffed pig under his arm.

Because one day I won’t find scissors and a pile of tags in her closet because every shirt she tried on “felt itchy.”

Because one day the sliding glass door won’t be covered with fish window clings and tiny handprints.

Because one day he won’t come downstairs after bedtime to proudly show us his latest invention (Lego beyblades).

Because one day my living room floor won’t be littered with Dog Man books, googly eye stickers, magnetic darts, and discarded clothes from kids who “got too hot.”

Because one day he won’t toddle to the window shouting “TAC-DA!” (tractor) every time one drives past.

Because one day they won’t beg to listen to the belly button song from Veggie Tales and dissolve into giggles.

Because one day he and she won’t share a room—sneaking into each other’s beds, taking turns warming their blankets over the heating vent, or setting up a stuffie zoo long after they’re supposed to be asleep.

Because one day his coat pockets won’t be filled with playground sand, Matchbox cars, and Starburst wrappers.

Because one day I won’t spend a small fortune on bath bombs and scotch tape.

Because one day I won’t spend half my life turning small pants right-side-out, filling water bottles, breaking up WWE-style wrestling matches, and answering cries of “Mommy, I neeeeeed you!”

Because one day the house will be quiet and I won’t need noise-canceling headphones.

Because one day they’ll have questions harder than “What’s for snack?” or “Where are my mittens?”

Because one day they won’t be like heat-seeking missiles, drawn irresistibly to the homing beacon of my body on the couch.

Help me slow
Help me see

Because I want it all.

Wild and wonderful
Absurd and astonishing
Fleeting and full

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Day in the life, Family, Motherhood

Captain’s Log: Update from a Snow Day

01/11/202401/11/2024by Modern Farm Wife2 Comments

Captain’s Log, USS Tiny House
Stardate 01092024.

It has now been 11 hours since we entered the Zone of Chilly Isolation (homebound on a snow day). The planet natives have lost all sense of reason and have resorted to poking, pinching, and unintelligible shouting at the captain (Mom) to settle all manner of grievances.

The natives’ bed garments and occasional lack of pants seem to signify a general lack of decorum and grasp of civilized society. Many casualties (of sanity) reported in the Air Battle of the Balloons and Stuffies. Spirits are low. Hope is waning. Crew leadership is tired, dirty, and in need of many hours in the Deep Isolation Chamber.

Though the standard of interstellar diplomacy is severely lacking, all life forms will likely benefit from a warm meal, the arrival of reinforcements (Dad), and several minutes of dancing to incomprehensible German pop music before retiring to their individual sleeping pods.

I will beam down and make a routine check of all facilities when quiet—at long last—falls over the alien landscape.

Family, Motherhood

Mother to Mother: A Letter From my Older Self

03/10/202303/11/2023by Modern Farm Wife9 Comments

Dear Current Jessica,

Hi, it’s me. A wiser, wrinklier version of yourself who is—as Holly Flax would say in her best Terminator voice—“from da future.” I’ve been watching you with amusement lately. Not in a mean-spirited or vindictive way, but simply because I remember the depths of the emotions you’re wrestling with. I remember how it felt to sweat and struggle and wonder if you’re failing in all your roles—especially as a mother. I’m sorry to say you’ll never fully shake this feeling of inadequacy, but you will learn to diminish its power.

It isn’t easy. Days with little kids can be monotonous, like you’re living in a veritable Groundhog Day of laundry piles, sibling bickering, and vacuuming crumbs from the kitchen floor. I know you sometimes feel lost and invisible amidst the tasks and to-dos, but those things are like pebbles at the water’s edge. They’re real, yes, but they will be washed away. Release your grip; you’re giving too much weight to things not worth holding on to. Try not to worry so much.

I don’t mean to sound dismissive. I know saying “Try not to worry” is akin to asking you to fly or not reload the dishwasher after someone else does it. It’s like that day when your husband asked, baffled, why you were cutting red peppers for school lunches at 10 pm and you spat out, “Because I care!” Oh, my sweet, well-intentioned psychopath, you really do. I remember how consequential it all felt back then, like your kids’ ingestion of healthy veggies was directly correlated to their college acceptance. You care deeply—about everything from artificial sweeteners to the patriarchy. That’s your superpower. But it’s also the reason you grind your teeth at night. It’s a lot of pressure, trying to fix the world.

You have this habit of looking at deficits. This motivates you, but it also keeps you from seeing the glimmering miracles at your fingertips everyday. Notice them. Notice the way your heart leaps when you run your fingers through your son’s tousled bedhead. Notice the taste of strong coffee and the smell of lavender shampoo in the baby’s hair. Notice the sound of knock-knock jokes and whispered prayers and shrieks of childish glee from under a pile of blankets. Yours will be a life of window-rattling noise and vibrant color. It will always be too much and never enough. Accept this. Savor this. When you get overstimulated and overwhelmed: breathe. Let the small miracles buoy you.

I also need to tell you something you easily forget: You are a good mom. Before you start listing all the reasons to the contrary, hear me out. You track shoe sizes and dentist appointments and read parenting books in the school pick-up line. You clothe your kids’ bodies and feed their bellies. You fly kites and kiss bruises and fill your Amazon cart with craft supplies to fuel their creativity. Sure, you also spend a lot of time obsessing over small things, but you obsess because you care (now there’s a t-shirt slogan). You’re not going to do everything right, but that’s ok. Your family doesn’t want perfection, they just want you.

Dear one, give yourself grace. Be gentle with your discomfort and uncertainty. I know you often feel like an imposter. Like you’ve been handed your roles—mother, farm wife, functioning adult—but don’t have the basic skills to do any of them well. But God didn’t give you this beautiful life to watch you fail. No one gets it all right. I know those words may feel empty, but I have the benefit of hindsight and decades of perspective (as evidenced by all these forehead lines). It may feel like you’re in the trenches now, but frankly, these aren’t the trenches. This is just life. This is what it’s about. Pain and joy. Boredom and delight. Uncertainty and promise. There is abundance bursting all around you—just open your hands.

So, how to end? Shall I offer some vague platitudes? Motivational cliches? Tips from the future? I wish I had all the answers. But, even now, I rest in the liminal space. In lieu of certainty—which we know is a fallacy—let me offer permission. This messy, miraculous business of living isn’t always easy. But it’s worth it. Care for the people around you. Care for yourself. Center your heart on the only One who really matters. Be in the moments that count.

(Also, take more walks and start using retinol, but that’s another conversation for another time.)

xo,

Future Jessica

My dear friends Kim Knowle-Zeller and Erin Strybis wrote a book called The Beauty of Motherhood that releases in a little over a week. Kim and Erin are exceptional, gentle writers with a heart for mothers and ability to see the magic in ordinary life. I know this book will provide so much hope and solidarity to women like me, particularly those holding the beautiful tensions found in motherhood.

This post is a part of the blog tour for The Beauty of Motherhood: Grace-Filled Devotions for the Early Years (read two more perspectives from my friends Fay and Melissa). With scripture, stories, prayers, and practices, The Beauty of Motherhood provides mothers with refreshment and the reminder that they are not alone as they mother. Order your copy at Amazon, Target or Bookshop. The Beauty of Motherhood releases March 21!

pc: Allison Christians Photography

Family, Motherhood

Why is this house such a mess?

11/07/2022by Modern Farm Wife1 Comment

Why is this house such a mess?

Because I need to return those shoes. Because I’ve needed to return those shoes for a month. Because—by some strange alchemy—those shoes in their cardboard box have been in our bedroom for so long they’ve turned into a piece of furniture we drape blankets on.

Because I’m a little tired. Because I’m a little lost. Because I was completely out of effs to give by the moment bedtime devolved into a “marker fight.”

Because these children shed socks and hoodies like molting birds. Because these children eat syrupy pancakes with their hands. Because these children believe it is a vicious affront to be asked to “eat over your plate” when they would rather bounce on one leg by the kitchen slider and peel the frosting off a chocolate-covered pretzel.

Because we (’re supposed to) value creativity. Because we (’re supposed to) value play. Because yesterday they overflowed the bathroom sink while running a “super stuffie bath shop” and all I could think to say was, “Please use Panda to mop that up.”

Because real people live here. Because we sometimes wear “busy” like a badge of honor. Because a therapist once told me that my connections with actual humans are more important than keeping the books in rainbow order.

Because we believe boredom fuels inspiration. Because on Saturday they used a three hole punch to make confetti for a unicorn’s birthday. Because they see beauty in the way light refracts through magnetic tiles.

Because we like lots of hummus on our peppers, salt on our chips, and couch pillows in our snuggle forts. Because after we rolled in a pile of crunchy, flamed-colored leaves, we carried the evidence back into the house on our clothes, shoes, and hair. Because today—when I could have been folding towels—I cranked Ella Fitzgerald on the speakers and slow danced with the baby under the living room lights.

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(inspired by a prompt from exhale creativity)

Family, Motherhood

More of This

07/01/202207/01/2022by Modern Farm Wife3 Comments

“A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged.”
–C.S. Lewis

Four months into a pandemic and subsequent state shutdown, I sat on the deck behind our house.

The mid afternoon sun was still high in the sky. A warm breeze rippled across the pages of the book in my lap and the sound of my children’s laughter danced across the driveway. I looked up to see all three kids gathered around a clump of dirt and grass.

“Mom! We found a toad!” My daughter Ellis’s eyes were bright as she pointed to the knobby brown creature at their feet. I smiled and watched my kids gently poke the toad with blades of grass before hopping after him—completely caught up in childlike wonder and delight. For the first time in what felt like weeks, I took a deep, grateful, breath.

“I want more of this.” The thought, unbidden and surprising, floated across my brain. Our days lately had been chaotic and stressful. The world was on fire. I was tightly wound, trying to do a full-time job remotely while juggling three kids and the busyness of farm life. Everything felt impossible. Every day felt like failure.

But as I gazed around the backyard, taking in the brilliant blue of the summer sky and the flash of small feet in the grass, I felt something new. Peace.

Our days were hard, but they were beautiful. For the first time since becoming a working mom seven years before, I had space to simply be. I wrote every morning. I read every night. We took walks to visit the cows. We picked handfuls of dandelions in the field. We ate picnics on the lawn and visited Kyle in the tractor. Everything felt smaller, slower, gentler. And I wanted more.

Looking back now, I think this was the start of the shift inside me.

I would not come back unchanged.

In his book “Life is in the Transitions,” Bruce Feiler says the average person can expect to experience three dozen “disruptors” in their adult life—about one every twelve to eighteen months. He defines a disruptor as any deviation from normal life, from the birth of a child to a devastating diagnosis to a worldwide pandemic. It doesn’t matter if the life transition is positive or negative (or a mixture of both), once we go through it, we cannot stay the same. Change is inevitable.

It all comes down to our expectations.

If we expect life to be neat and linear (as an Enneagram One like me is prone to do), we’re in for a world of hurt. If, however, we view transitions as a fundamental part what it means to be human, we start to see possibility.

Today marks one such moment of possibility for me.

I’m taking a career pause to focus more on my family.

(Talk about burying the lede.)

Today I will say goodbye to a job I’ve held and loved for over ten years to make space for something new. I will release who I am now to find what I longed for all those months ago: more of this.

More play, less rigidity.
More calm, less frenzy.
More grace, less productivity.
More connection, less achievement.

I’ll admit that I’m afraid. I’m not sure who I am if not a director of communications. So much of my identity is tied up in my job and being a working mother.

But when I close my eyes, I see that woman on the deck clearly. Her feet are bare and freckles speckle her nose. Her shoulders are relaxed and her face is soft. The sound of her children’s gleeful laughter fills the air and, for the first time in her adult life, she considers what it would feel like to slow down.

Years later, I’m ready to find out.