Dreams and Insanity

Small farmers have big dreams.  I have always been somewhat of a realist.  I never really dreamed of graduating from high school, going to college and getting my first "real" job because I knew if I worked hard enough, God had already given me the gifts and talents I needed to achieve these milestones.  I did dream about having a family, but again I knew that in His time, God would provide a man worthy of being my husband and with God's grace we would have children. 

When I met Leron, he was so full of big ideas and dreams of what he wanted his future to look like.  The first time he took me to his parents farm he pointed across one of the fields and said, "there."  Noticing I was slightly confused he began explaining that for as long as he could remember he wanted to build a house right there.  With visions of Everybody Loves Raymond popping into my head, I thought yeah right no woman in her right mind would build a house right across the street from her in-laws.

Being a farmer's wife has defnitely helped me recognize the importance of dreaming, whether the dreams be big or small.  Dreams help us get through the tough times when we aren't sure if the crops are going to yield enough bushels to provide for next year or when it hasn't rained in a month. 

In the few short years we have been together, Leron and I have been tackling our dream list.  We have started our own herd of Shorthorn Cattle.  We have started our own business.  We have started our family.  We bought our first piece of land and have big plans to fill it with fruit and vegetable gardens, an orchard and maybe some laying hens for eggs. 

Dreaming is a lot more fun with someone by your side who is sharing in those same dreams and is there to hug you when they don't pan out and rejoice with you when they do.

As for insanity, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  I am pretty sure this could be the definition of farming too!  Each year we plant a crop and hope that it yields better than the previous year (most years it is the same), we hope that the commodity prices continue to go up to make a record profit (most years it goes down around harvest time), and we hope that the weather will rain, stay dry, get hot, stay cool, have sunshine or clouds when we think we need them (most of the time the weather is the opposite and the crops still turn out just fine!).  So a small dose of insanity goes a long way in making life fun and bearable when depending on so many things that are out of your control.

This insanity has clearly rubbed off on me.  That piece of land I mentioned we bought, it is right across the street from my in-laws!  While we have not had any Everybody Loves Raymond episodes and I don't expect we ever will (Leron and I were both very fortunate to have the best in-laws ever!), I still think any woman would have to be at least a little insane to move across the street from her in-laws.

Lenten Daily Challenge: Abstain from eating meat today, and make your meals truly penitential
Rosary special intention: All the insane farmers starting to make preparations for spring planting

God Bless!
Hannah
The Farmer's Wife