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.
Modern Farm Wife 