Thank God I’m a Country Girl

When I get a spare moment in life, at work, out and about, at home, I usually hop on Pinterest.  I love this site, it has so many great ideas, tips, recipes, and funny sayings you could browse for days.  One of my favorite things to do during the day is to copy pictures of ideas that I love and email them to my husband so he can do them.  Some of my favorites have been under stairs bathrooms, which we are planning to complete in our basement, cool storage kitchen tips, and best of all, various adorable chicken coops.  Now, I live dead center of a neighborhood in a suburb of Toledo, but God I want me some adorable chickens to live in their own adorable home in my backyard.  What could go wrong?  Plus, my husband and I have an ongoing argument that I could totally be a farmer.  I say yes, totally, and he says, not in a million years.  Here’s my reasoning.

I first got the idea my freshman year of college when I took my first environmental studies class, which ultimately led to my completely USELESS Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Policy degree.  During this class, I had a professor, who let’s just say kept it REAL.   This man practiced what he preached, such as refusing to wear a watch because of the non-recyclable battery and not owning a refrigerator (because they are mass suckers of energy), but instead dug cisterns in his backyard where he kept his perishables.  WEIRD.  But to my 19-year-old brain, this man was LIVING what he was preaching.  For God’s sake, the man made me feel bad about wearing a watch.  That is a gift.   In this class, he had a whole segment on sustainable farming, crop rotation, fallow fields, and so on.  For some ungodly reason, to my young idealistic mind this was fascinating to me.  I kept thinking, how great would life be to not have to leave your own land ever and be able to completely sustain yourself?  It was an introverts dream come true.  I pictured myself waking up to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” every morning, going out and feeding the chickens with my apron on like Cinderella does, petting the horse and feeding the dog (OK fine, my idea of farm living IS the first 5 minutes of Cinderella, complete with singing birds in cute vests).  Then I would come back in and bake apple pie after apple pie to naturally cool on the windowsill.  Then at supper, I would ring-a-ling my triangle and tell the workers to come in and enjoy some good ole fashioned stew, dumplings, corn pudding, and of course, my ever present apple pie.

Apparently, Mark thinks there is more to farming than the above described, to which I always reply WHATEVER.  Apparently all the above mentioned animals poop a copious amount and someone has to clean it up.  Apparently, someone needs to do something after the crops are planted or else we don’t eat or make any money.  And apparently, eating apple pie every day is somewhat bad for your cholesterol.  So, he continuously reminds me that, of all my dreams, this one he can guarantee I would last approximately five minutes doing and he, as usual, would end up finishing what I started while I found a good book and a glass of wine and read on the couch.  Or maybe the porch swing, because naturally our farmhouse would have a big wraparound porch complete with porch swing and rockers.  Did I mention it never gets cold at our farm?  Awesome I know.  Anyways, do you see how little faith my husband has in me?  Even after 17 years he apparently has no idea who I am.  (Note the sarcasm here, I’m laying it on pretty thick.)  And when he brings up my current garden, I will tell you I have no idea what he’s talking about.  You know, the one I plant all excitedly in May, and then when it gets too hot out, I completely ignore it?  Yeah, that one.

So – now you know why occasionally you will hear my husband yell, “YOU COULD NOT BE A FARMER” at random times.  This is mostly because I have just given him a look after a John Denver song or a Bob Evans commercial plays that says, I could totally do that.  So, I’m guessing Son-In-Law is not an accurate representation of farming?  Cause, I always pictured myself in the Pauly Shore role, as the cool city-girl who awesomes up the farm folks.  (Crap, I’m dating myself.  I just looked it up on IMDB and that movie is 20 years old.)

Yep, Paul Harvey was talking to me.  I hear ya Paul, I’m on it.

But really, this is more what I pictured. Cakes on the griddle, rosining up the bow of my fiddle, whittling some wood.