Well, here it is, Folks! My long-awaited blog. I intended to have this up and running last year and that obviously didn’t happen. When I first moved to Iowa, I started posting on Facebook every day with “Day 1 (2, 3, etc.) on the farm…” and shared something that I learned or something that happened to me. It was a new adventure and an outlet for me to stay connected to family and friends back in Illinois. I had several people comment that they loved reading what I posted each day and that I should start a blog. The more I heard those words said to me, the more I considered starting one. I even came up with a blog name and created a separate Instagram account for it. Then, last year in July I was playing around with some logos on the computer and made the bold move to announce on my Facebook that I was starting a blog. And, nothing happened…(Crickets)

I got scared. I didn’t know the first thing about starting a blog. My husband, Ryan, is very good at encouraging me and usually doesn’t push too hard. We’ve talked about this blog for a very long time and I used “I don’t have time” excuse quite a bit. It wasn’t until recently that we had some unexpected changes happen in our life that resulted in me having a little more time on the farm than usual to work on things that have been put on the back burner, such as writing a blog. So, I just mentioned that Ryan doesn’t push me too hard, but this time he did and I’m grateful for it because here we are. Blog post number one. The first of many, I hope.

Why Essential Farm wife?

So, you may be wondering “Why the Essential Farm wife?”. Well, that’s easy. The word ‘essential’ means important and I have learned in my 20 months of being a farm wife that farm wives are important to farmers and vice versa. I know there are men and women living on their own, running their farm operations without a significant other. But, what I’ve learned about living on the farm is that I wouldn’t want to do it on my own. I’ve become a pretty independent person over the last decade, but there’s something comforting about working together as a team with your spouse.

The Essentials

I have several things in my life that are essential to me as a person. Things that help me function and grow as a human being. The first is my faith in God. Having a personal relationship with God is essential to me and has carried me through all of life’s ups and downs. Having a Christ-centered marriage is also important to my husband and me. Second essential is family. I’ve always been a family-oriented person and enjoy spending time with them. I’m always up for a family get-together. Friends are included, too.

Food is the third essential. (I just realized there’s a pattern to my list of essentials.) My husband calls me a foodie. I never would have called myself that before getting married, but I have discovered a love for cooking and trying new foods that I never had before. It’s also more fun to have someone else to cook for rather than just yourself!

The fourth essential is farming. While most would think that farming just became an essential part of my life most recently, farming has been a part of my life for a very long time. I have extended family who farm and I grew up with farm ground all around me, filled with corn and soybeans. In a way it seemed fitting that the man God would have for me to marry would be a farmer. I now live on a farm with pigs and cattle, a pumpkin patch and with rows and rows of corn and soybeans all around me. A lot of the food I eat comes from farmers. So, I couldn’t be an essential farm wife if the farm wasn’t an essential part of my life!

The final item on my list is fitness. I have a love/hate relationship with workouts. I love how they make me feel afterwards and that my body has changed for the better because of them, but I dread doing them. I have to constantly remind myself of the why behind the workout. Why am I doing this? Because I want to feel good and I know it’s good for me. So, there you have it…the main essentials in my life are Faith, Family/Friends, Food, Farming and Fitness.