My Farmer

My Farmer. I am so thankful for him and for our life together.
After celebrating our anniversary a few weeks ago, I started reminiscing about our time together. About the day we got married.

We got married on a whim 40 years ago. My Farmer came home during a break from tech school for a week, asked me if I’d want to get married, I said sure, and within the next 5 days, our families, friends, and neighbors all came together and put on an amazing wedding. If you look at the pictures, you would guess we had planned it for months. My mother-in-law provided the venue. Her beautiful yard. It was an amazing place for a wedding with the most breath taking backdrop EVER! She also decorated wedding cakes, so she threw together an incredible cake. I did not tell her what I wanted, yet she designed it perfectly for me. Friends and neighbors picked flowers from their yards and together they made amazing arrangements. Beautiful corsages and my bridal bouquet were made by very talented people, but I’m not exactly sure who. My aunt and uncle drove 3 hours to be there so my cousin could be my maid of honor and her brother arrived with his key board in tow to play the wedding march. My brother, who is a professional photographer, an amazing professional photographer, came 100’s of miles to be there and take the pictures. Family and friends from near and far, arrived without “save the date” (which really wasn’t a thing back then) or invites being sent out. Invites were all by word of mouth in only a few days.

To this day, 40 years later, it still amazes me what happened in a weeks time. One day I was at the airport, excited and nervous to see my boyfriend that I hadn’t seen in 3 months……to one week later, being at the airport again, flying back to school with him, as his wife. CRAZY!!!!

I really do look back in amazement. I am in awe, still to this day, at what our family, friends, and neighbors did to make that day such a dream come true for me. We were young. Very, VERY, young. Everyone could have said, Nope! Not gonna happen! Well, actually, that was some of the first reactions. My mom and dad definitely were not happy about it. But after that initial reaction, and everyone seen that we were serious, they all made it happen. I know there are a lot of people that I never truly thanked for making my wedding day so special. That is what this post is about. To publicly say THANK YOU! to every single person that was there that day and to everyone that was behind the scenes making it happen. Much Love to ALL!

My Farmer and I actually started dating 5 years before that. We were in jr. high. He was an 8th grader and I was a 7th grader. I still have a paper heart that was made at our first Valentine’s Day dance with our names on it. I would never have guessed that 45+ years after that dance, we would still be together. Living this life. Having raised two wonderful children. And now we are living the next chapter in our lives as grandparents. Wow.

As with any marriage, ours has come with ups and downs. Some times the downs were really, really low, but together we always found a way back up.

Through these years, I have learned a lot from my Farmer. One of the first things I learned was that I did not just marry my Farmer. I also married the farm. The farm is a huge part of who my Farmer is. I may not have liked that at first, but have come to realize that it is a good thing. This farm seems to keep a person grounded. That is a huge asset. An asset I am very grateful for.

Living the farm life has made be grateful for many things. Mostly for small things. Such has considering any time away from the farm a vacation, even if it’s less then 24 hours. When the time allows, you take what you can get and be grateful for it.

I believe this life has also made me more of a praying person. Praying and being grateful have come together many, many times while living this farm life. For instance….when we had 100 acres of potatoes in the ground, just barely popping up, and the weatherman predicts below freezing temperatures. You bet I prayed! And the next morning I was grateful that the potatoes did not freeze, or at least did not freeze all the way down. Or the time when my Farmer became ill one harvest and I had to learn to drive the combine to get the grain cut. I prayed a lot! Driving that big ole combine is scary! I sure was grateful when my Farmer felt better so he could finish the job.

I would like to think that through the years, my Farmer has also learned a lot from me. I’m not exactly sure what, but I am confident that he has. He should have. He better have! I threw out a LOT of lessons through our years together. He had to have picked up on a few right?!? (I am smiling here)

In all honestly, if you think about it, isn’t that one of the important pieces of the marriage puzzle? Learn from each other as you grow with each other. I’m sure it is. Or maybe it’s that the wife is always right. Ya, that’s for sure one of the important pieces. (wink, wink)

Enough rattling on, back to the beginning. It was an amazing day. 40 years ago. Wow! How time flies when you are having fun.
I know now, and I appreciate so much more now, how much work all of our family and friends put into that day to make it such a special day. To make it a magical day for me and my Farmer. Well, probably just me. I’m sure he wasn’t really into magical.

Once again, I want to say THANKS to every single person that helped put on our wedding and everyone that attended. It really meant a lot and still does to this day. It’s not every girl that has family and friends that can throw such an amazing, beautiful event together in less than a week. I was one pretty dang lucky young girl. Now I’m a pretty dang lucky old married lady. BUT that’s totally OK. I’m proud of it. Well, maybe not the ‘old’ part. Let’s call it experienced. No, maybe not.

And THAT my friends, is how I got started “Livin’ the Life, the Farm Life that is”.