I told my girl recently the best way to learn was by doing. I believe that, because I’ve lived it. ⁣
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If my 42 year-old self could go back to my 22⁣ year-old self, at first thought I’d tell her what she should do different. But then again, I wouldn’t. ⁣
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Because every move has led me to where I am today and I’m better for the lessons I’ve learned.⁣
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The only things I’d change are things I had no control over. I’d rather not have lived through hard losses, but I’m thankful for the years I had building memories and knowing love that made the voids so great. ⁣
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Instead of telling my younger self to take a different path, I’d tell her to walk it more carefully. ⁣
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I’d tell her to take more time to savor the small, because one day she’d realize that’s where the big really lies. ⁣
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I’d tell her to dream big, because no dream was too big for her God. ⁣
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I’d tell her it’s ok to be scared, but to jump the cliffs anyway – she has more strength than she realizes. ⁣
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I’d tell her to stop measuring herself against others and stand tall in the unique person she was created by a God who doesn’t make mistakes. ⁣
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I’d tell her to soak up the present, because the present is a gift. ⁣
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I’d tell her to keep her circle small, tightly knit and treasure her true friends. ⁣
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I’d tell her to not give up when things get hard, but let the hard be fuel to reap the rewards of pressing on. ⁣
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I’d tell her that things in life worth having don’t come free. Handouts build dependence; hard work builds character. And the best things in life can’t be bought, so be content with what you have. Your treasures have hearts and souls (but it’s ok to splurge on boots. They have soles, too.)⁣
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I’d tell her to give herself and others more grace, it smooths our flaws. (And speaking of smoothing flaws, start using moisturizer on your face now. You’ll thank me.)⁣
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I’d tell her to just keep going and today I’m telling myself and anyone listening the same. ⁣
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Today is a gift, y’all. Every day we open our eyes and take a breath is a gift. Let us use the time we have, living full while fully alive. If I get 42 more minutes or 42 more years, I pray I don’t forget that. ⁣
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All smiles for silage. And thinking how grateful I am for all of this and all of you.
Grateful for this way of life more than I ever knew I would or could be.

Grateful I started sharing it online – the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Grateful for the community I’ve found here (that’s you!) that encourages, inspires and supports so well.

Grateful for all the freedoms I have and those who have and continue to secure them.

Grateful for the promise of a new day, new crop, and new life about to start on the farm.

This Farm Wife turns 2 on September 19th, and I can’t help but look back over the last two years and have immense gratitude. When I hit “publish” for the first time, I never imagined that two years later this is where we’d be. As cliché as it sounds, an attitude of gratitude keeps all of this – and all of the hard and heavy – in perspective. Because at the end of the day, we all have so much to be grateful for.

What are you grateful for today? I’d love to hear.

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Growing up I would often say “I wish…” and my mama would say I was going to wish my life away. Now I often say “Here’s hoping.” Either way, I know wishing and hoping aren’t always the best ways to live, but I can’t always help it. ‍

Truth is I don’t think wishing and hoping are all that bad when accompanied with some hard work (and a lot of faith.)

Truth also is I’ve jumped off a lot of proverbial cliffs the past eight years, and sometimes I’ve landed harder than others, but I’ve always landed. And learned. And found enough strength to keep going and growing. Here’s hoping the same for us all. Because we never know what will be if we don’t go for it.

Any other wishers and hopers out there?

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It’s easy to feel small.
Lost.
Unimportant.
I know. I’ve been there. That voice in your head that says your voice doesn’t matter. Your story isn’t “important” enough to share. Someone else is doing a better job than you could. So why bother?

Because that’s a lie. That’s why.

The thing is, we all have influence.
We all have a story and I promise you nobody else has yours. Nobody else has your voice. Nobody else can share what you can share, because you’re the only you. And thank God He made us all uniquely us. How boring would the world be if we were all the same? Cliché maybe, but true.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but someone does. So I’m going to use my one small voice in a sea of others to say it.

Own your voice.
Own your story.
Own your why.

You matter.
Your story matters.
You are enough.

May is Mental Health Awareness month and I want to encourage you to share what’s on your heart to share – most likely someone else needs to hear it. Will everyone like it? Maybe not. Will someone relate and need to know they aren’t alone? Most definitely.

I’ve said this before, and I reckon I’ll keep saying it. Because it’s part of my story and I believe someone else may need the reminder to believe in their own.

xx,

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I don’t mind hustle. In fact, I like it and at times thrive off it. Knowing things have to get done and done quickly in order to get to the next thing puts everyone into high gear. These are the times we come together and grow together as a family. Our kids see what it takes to make this farm work, sometimes like a well-oiled machine and sometimes like a machine needing oil.  Even so, one way or the other, what has to get done, does and this time of year it’s constant. They watch their dad leave at dawn and come in well after dusk for nights in a row. They see us work together to get hay raked and baled and hauled to the barn. They do their own part shuffling us around on the gator to get where we need to be, saving extra trips and precious time. They blow and wash off equipment after it’s been used, while we move to the next field or next thing.  They don’t know what they are learning right now, but one day they will. I know they will, because I know I have.

Not growing up or working on a farm until I married into one, I honestly had no idea what I was getting into, I only thought I did. I knew it was hard work, time consuming and at times stressful, but I didn’t know the ins and outs. I didn’t know the extent of sacrifices physically, financially and emotionally, and in a way I’m glad I didn’t. While the learning curve has at times been steeper than I’d like, it’s built strength and endurance that were worth the climb.

One night recently my husband stepped in the house at 9pm covered in grease, dust and sweat and the first words he said were, “If I have another day like today, I’m quitting.” I knew he didn’t mean it, but I also knew it meant something, so I listened to the what and why behind his worry. After a tall glass of tea, a plate full of supper and him telling me all that happened, he was back to talking about tomorrow with the optimism he usually wears better than I do. He had learned some lessons that day, though and in them, taught me some, too.

Lessons in the hustle can be hard and sometimes costly, but hardly unimportant and rarely without reward.

The thing about lessons is that they are always there for the taking, if we take the time to grab them. My husband has been farming his whole life and on that day, learned there was more to learn. Hearing him say that was a light bulb moment for me. I consider him an expert at what he does, but even experts have opportunities to better themselves and even more so, teach others from the new, in addition to the old.  While some things are out of our control, some things aren’t and some things can be built upon to do better the next time around. On the farm – and in life – as long as we are drawing breath, there will always be next times to put into practice what we learned this time.

For us, “go time” is far from over, it’s just begun. Hay harvest is a several month long endeavor, and the old adage about making hay while the sun shines is truer than true. The only problem is that the sun doesn’t always shine when we need it to, so we have to make the best when it does…and when it doesn’t. Right now we have over 50% of our hay that needed to be cut a few weeks ago and rain in the forecast the next seven days. Holiday plans to visit family will probably be cut short, instead spent by long hours in the tractor. In-between hay chores, there is corn to plant, tend and eventually harvest. So much is dependent on weather and inevitably this time of year, there aren’t enough good days to spread out the work evenly. Instead, everything seems to need to be done at the same time. This is farming and I wouldn’t trade what we get to do, even if at times the stress of getting it all done is overwhelming.

Life can be the same. There are times we feel expected to get all the things done for all the people and all at the same time, but there’s only one of us.  As a mother, photographer, writer and farmer, I’m feeling that pull more than ever right now. I’ve been asked and ask myself if there can be balance in the hustle? I think there can. But I think sometimes it comes in the imbalance.

We can’t give all we have to everything and everyone all at the same time. We do the best we can with what we have when we can give it. I’m trying my best to learn to prioritize and it’s not a lesson that’s coming as fast or easy as I’d like, but it’s coming. In the end, I’m not sure we can do much more. I’m not sure I can, anyway. And I see the same on the farm. We have fields that need to be planted in corn, but we can’t get hay off of them yet. So, we wait and work on other things we can do. What needed to be done yesterday may not get done until tomorrow (or next week), but it will eventually get done and from even my short years of experience, it all tends to work out in the wash. As in life.

The hustle may come and go and sometimes stay longer and stronger than we want, but what we learn in it, helps us get through it – this time and next. While it feels really good to be going, it will also feel really good when the constant going is gone. The promise and fulfillment of getting it all done is a great incentive to keep plowing through until it is…and the next season of hustle begins.

How do you handle life’s hustle and what lessons you’ve learned? I’m all in for learning from yours, too.

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There are two times of year I most love to be alive – fall and fall. Ok, that’s one, but for me it holds double weight. It’s the time of year on the farm when things begin to change rapidly. Calves begin to drop daily, along with the temperature and the leaves on the trees. The changes always seem to come faster than I’d like and winter sets in earlier than I wish. But that also makes these days of change even sweeter – knowing they won’t be around for long.

It’s also the time of year when I turn another year older, and that tends to make me reflect. Especially now that I’m *almost* officially the age that I deemed my parents “old.” Funny how the eyes of a child define that much different than the same eyes when they reach that age. And even though I still have my eyesight (for at least another year, I hope…), I am starting to see things differently.

I’ve been considering all the labels I’ve had put on me by others and even myself throughout my life. Some probably right. Some definitely wrong. But until the last few years I would’ve never labeled myself a dreamer or an artist. It’s not that I never entertained dreams for my life, but I never took the time to give them a lot of thought and certainly not to live into them or expect them to find life in and through me.

When I was old enough to get a job as a teenager, I did. When I graduated high school, I did the “next” thing, went to college and got two degrees so I could support myself if needed and help support a family in the future. For the most part I was a good girl (except for those times I wasn’t.) A rule-following, realist – because life is, well, real.

Not until five years ago when I quit my corporate job to come home to our farm and be more present in my children’s lives, help more in the day-to-day of farm life and pursue a passion for photography, did I start to realize I had dreams that could also possibly become reality. And they have. But I’m not done dreaming…or doing.

Why do we tend to think dreams are only for dreaming? People who do big things often dreamed big dreams first.

Maybe its just me, but I realize more and more that I’m actually the one holding myself back from doing the things I know I want to or feel like God is calling me to – because I say I can’t. Nobody else is telling me that. Only the face staring back in the mirror. The same face I’ve stared at, cried with, laughed with, been content with, and been anything but content with.

I say I’m not capable.

I say I can’t learn.

I say somebody else is already doing it better.

I say I’m not worthy.

I say I’m not important enough.

If you have said or are saying the same to the face you see in the mirror…I’m now saying this to us both:

We are capable.

The world actually does need what we have to say and do, because nobody else can say or do it the same.

We are worthy and we are important. We wouldn’t have been given breath and lungs and the desire to dream if God hadn’t deemed us or our story worth sharing.

You and I were made for more than just a life wished for – we were made for a life lived.

And lived into with all we have to give. But just like the animals and crops on this farm – what doesn’t get fed will starve. The same applies to our dreams. If we feed them truth and effort, we give them life and the harvest will come in its own time and its own sometimes beautiful, sometimes messy way. But it will come.

We were made for so much more than we think and we can be so much more than we tell ourselves we can. But getting to the finish line will never happen without taking the first step. And yes, that first step can be the hardest to take. But just like that new, wet calf I watch with it’s knees buckled and shaking, once it gets up and drinks, the next steps come easier and within moments it’s off and running. So can we all be.

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There was a day I didn’t know if I’d have kids. Not that I didn’t want them, but life was what it was and I didn’t see how or when they would ever be a real possibility. And then God made me a mother and life definitely wasn’t what it was anymore.

My first child was more than a gift, he was a life-saver. When I got pregnant with him, I was in a relationship, but not a marriage. I was in a place of rock-bottom and then sitting on my favorite sitting rock on our farm’s creek six months pregnant, I realized it was time to look up and surrender. So, I did. Jesus saved me that day and a few months later I became a mom.

Learning to be a mom wasn’t – and still isn’t – easy. But it’s the most rewarding, hardest job I’ve ever had. More than six years of college. More than ten years in the corporate world. More than wrangling the blasted 36-year old hay rake I had to deal with yesterday. Motherhood is hard. Motherhood is beautiful.

A couple of years into being a mom and juggling the corporate grind, I had an opportunity to interview for a “bigger, better” corporate job. They flew me to St. Louis as one of three position finalists and I honestly thought I was about to be doing something great for our little family. It would mean more time away, but the opportunity for more “things” – and that was enticing. I sat in the airport on the way home and prayed that if it wasn’t what God wanted for me, I wouldn’t get it. But inside, I really wanted it. Fortunately, God knew better.

If I had taken that job, another child wouldn’t have been a possibility. I thought I was ok with that. After not getting the job, I realized another child was exactly what we needed to make our family complete – and that’s what our little girl did. She made our family complete.

Today is her last day of kindergarten at a school she’s been in for three years with several children and teachers she’s spent the majority of her days with. She’s sad about leaving. I’m sad about her leaving. But in the end, this is just another step towards all the other steps God already has laid out.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the hay for the grass, it all just runs together and looks the same. Life gets busy and lines get blurred. But to get the most out of this one life we get, we have to stop. Stop and remember what’s important, I mean what’s really important. And then we have to let that dictate where and how we move forward. Each life chapter holds it’s own sweet memories, it’s own sweet beauty.

I personally think it’s ok to stop and relish the past. Cry a few tears if that’s what comes. Write a few words if that’s what helps. That’s where I’m at today. Crying and writing. Tomorrow will start a new chapter that will hold it’s own special moments and one day I’ll be looking back on this one and crying a few tears, maybe writing a few words as we move to the next again.

And that’s the glory of it all – life is about moving on. It’s about changing and growing into who we were created to be. It’s a journey, with mountains and valleys, sometimes droughts and floods. But it’s a journey worth the hard. Days like today remind me that moving forward is a necessary part of life, and even if the next step hurts a little, the view from the top of the hill will be worth the climb. 

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If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it (or at least thought it) a thousand times. This motherhood gig is hard.

It’s tiring and trying.
It’s long days and sometimes longer nights.
It’s worry-filled as much as it’s wonder-ful.

There are times when the weight of it comes to bear. And there are times I wonder if my mom felt the same. 

She didn’t know she wouldn’t be here to tell me, and I didn’t know I would need to ask. When she died a few weeks after I graduated college, I didn’t even know who I was then, let alone that I’d one day be a mom with all the questions and doubts and fears that a girl still needs a mother for well past her childhood.

It’s a strange thing, walking into motherhood without the one who gave you life still holding your hand. It can be lonely and raw and feel all a bit unfair somedays.

Maybe your mom died like mine. Maybe your mom left on her own accord. Maybe your mom is sick and doesn’t have the capacity or will or both to be a mom anymore. If for any reason you are also a motherless mother, I’m here to say I get it. And maybe we can just sit in this place together?

Maybe your mom is still very much a part of your life. Maybe your mom helps you through the hard and is an integral part of your children’s lives. But maybe you still feel the weight of motherhood in all it’s heavy and could still use someone else speaking truth and love into your life through the changing seasons motherhood brings?

Sometimes the best thing we can say and hear is, “Me too.”
Sometimes the best friend we can be is just a friend to “be.”

A couple of weeks ago I needed a friend to just “be,” so I called the one friend that I can cry with, laugh with and “be” with easier than most and we sat on my porch for a couple of hours and did just that. We laughed. We cried. We just were. And it was like salve for my weary soul.

I like to think if my mom was still here, she would come running when I called. I actually know she would and somedays that hurts worse than anything, because she’s not just a phone call away. But God has given me people in her place – not to take her place, but to take a seat on the porch and help fill the void. And I can look back over the years and see all the people He’s put in my life that have helped bridge the gap and answer questions and love me like a mother would.

There will never be another who is my mom, but there are people who are like a mother and I hope I can be the same to someone or some many before my time is up. There is power in loving others out of a love you’ve known and lost and there is power in loving others through the love of the One who never leaves nor forsakes.

My Mother’s Day wish this year and most every year since being without mine is that neither her memory, nor her legacy would be lost. And in learning to live into the role of a mother having been loved and raised by a really great one, I think that wish is granted.

I mess up more than most and most every day. But when my girl can lie next to me in bed at night like she did recently, snuggle up close and tell me in her sweet 6 year-old voice that she forgives me for the mistakes I made that day, I guess I’m a step ahead. Maybe the biggest thing we can all give one another – and most importantly ourselves – is grace. And every now and then a cup of coffee and some time on the porch to work out the hard together. The invitation is open.

xoxo

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Sometimes life grounds us when we don’t want it to.
Sometimes it feels suffocating.
Sometimes it’s more than a day or two – sometimes it’s an entire season.

Farming is so much like life in so many ways. The climate affects output. When everything isn’t “just right,” we lose the ability to move on and adapt and deal. Yet, sometimes we have to learn to adapt – regardless. Just like a farmer does.

If it rains, they work on things that can be worked on while the sun’s not shining – so they can make hay or plant their crop when the sun shines again. 

There’s a lesson there for all of us. Life’s never going to be perfect, but some days will be. Those are the ones we need to capture, even if it’s just in our minds. Hold on. Remember. Cherish. Because the rain is always going to eventually come…and it’s necessary.

We don’t grow without periods of rain in our life any more than the grass on this farm grows without it. If our grass didn’t grow, our cows wouldn’t eat and our calves wouldn’t grow to repeat the cycle that is life as we know it and love it.

Neither would our personal lives manifest themselves if didn’t learn and grow from the times we wish we didn’t have to. But they always pass. The rain always eventually stops and the sun always eventually shines. Somedays that’s the best reminder of all. It was for me today.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…” Ecclesiastes 3:1

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The preparation has seemed to be as never-ending as the ninety degree days this summer turned fall, that hasn’t felt like fall until the last two days. For weeks my man has worked through sweat-soaked shirts with welding burnt arms to finish fabricating the truck body that would hold the sorghum when it was time to be cut.

The ground was wet, then the ground was dry – until the day he planned to start, and the ground was wet again. He’d say that about sums up the life of a farmer – and he’d blame the weatherman for getting it wrong – again. How does the forecast change so much from breakfast to lunch and back again by supper? If you’ve never paid attention the way a farmer does, you might never realize.

Life can be the same way, you know? We work and work, anticipating the time when it will all come to fruition.

The deed will no longer belong to the bank.
The kids will leave our nest and build their own.
The gold watch will be presented and we’ll finally clock out for good.
Except that doesn’t always happen – or at least not in the time or way we had planned.

Sometimes we exchange job security, for soul security – trading a higher quality of life for a higher calling.

Sometimes we get exchanged for “younger, more affordable, less risky” help and the gold watch is exchanged for a pink slip.

Sometimes the good health we always took for granted is what drives us to our knees, praying for one more day granted.

Sometimes the row we planned to hoe grows faster than we can find time to weed it – and life gets tangled and messy and full and we think we missed the harvest altogether.

But here’s the thing. As long as we are breathing, there’s still time. The one way our lives are different than life on this farm, is that as long as we have life – we have another chance. And the God I know and love and serve is in the business of giving them away – freely.

As long as He’s given you breath, He’s giving you time to get things right. With Him. With them. With whoever you need to get right with. Even with yourself.And maybe He’s holding the harvest from coming in, until you (and I) are ready to receive it. Maybe He’s doing His best work in you (and I) through the drought and then the storms – making strong the soul that would have been too weak to hold the harvest He has planned. Because when He calls the harvest in, the haul is more than what we would ever pull on our own.

No matter how in control we think we are – or plan to be – the truth is we just aren’t. But God is and as the One through whom all things were created, He is also holding all things together. He alone can bring the harvest – we just need show up willing to plant and then receive.

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