Tuesday, February 1, 2022 I found this online somewhere last week and it rings so true – thought you might enjoy it and possibly understand a little more why I am so grateful for the work I do every day.
“Farm work doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t make you anything. It reveals you.
There’s gym strong and then there’s farm strong. They’re mutually exclusive. The toughest women you’ll ever meet spend their days on a farm.
There are more uses for twine than you can possibly imagine. You can tie up a hole in a slow feeder, fashion a tail strap for a horse’s blanket, mend a broken fence and use it as a belt.
“Well that certainly didn’t go as planned,” is one thing you’ll say quite a bit.
Control is a mere illusion. The thought that you have any, at any given time, is utterly false.
Sometimes sleep is a luxury. So are lunch and dinner. And brushing your hair.
If you’ve never felt your obliques contract, then you’ve never tried stopping an overly full wheelbarrow of horse manure from tipping over sideways. Trust me, you’ll find muscles that you never knew existed on the human skeleton to prevent this from happening.
When one of the animals is ill, you’ll go to heroic lengths to minimize their discomfort.
Their needs come first. In summer heat and coldest winter days. Clean water, clean bed, and plenty of feed. Before you have your first meal, they all eat.
When you lose one of them, even though you know that day is inevitable, you still feel sadness, angst and emotional pain from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. And it’s a heaviness that lingers even though you must regroup and press on.
You’ll cry a lot. But you’ll never live more fully. You’ll remain present no matter what because you must. There is no other option.
You’ll ask for so many miracles and hold out hope until the very last.
You will, at least once, face-plant in the manure pile. You’ll find yourself saying things like, “we have maybe twenty minutes of daylight left to git ‘er done” whilst gazing up at a nonspecific place in the sky.
You’ll become weirdly obsessive about the weather.
You’ll go out in public wearing filthy clothes and smelling of dirt, sweat and poop. People will look at you sideways and krinkle their noses but you won’t care.
Your entire day can derail within ten seconds of the rising sun.
You can wash your coveralls. They won’t look any cleaner, but they will smell much nicer.
Farm work is difficult in its simplicity.
You’ll always notice just how beautiful sunrises and sunsets really are.
Should you ever have the opportunity to work on a farm, take the chance! You will never do anything more satisfying in your entire life.”
-Author Unknown
Photo of the day: How lucky am I that I can share the farm work with this amazing boy. 
Sunny
#BLESSED
Linda
Not so blessed but very grateful.
Beth
beautiful
Linda
thanks. ❤️
Gigi Caito
Love the comment about face planting. Years ago I scheduled a vet visit for my horse during spring mud season. I arrived extra early to bring him in and clean him up before the doc would arrive. I went out to bring him in and my boot got caught in the mud and started to come off. Silly me, I leaned on the horse to steady myself while putting the boot back on. Of course he moved and down I went! The vet arrived just in time to see my go down. He, his vet tech and our barn manager had quite the laugh.
Barn life is wonderful in so many ways. Thanks for the reminder, Linda!
Linda
LOL,, thanks for sharing Gigi. I’ll never forget when I was walking in the boys’ barn with my arms full of hay and one of them knocked me down face first into a poop pile. I was stunned and when I looked behind me to see who did it, three of them were standing together looking as innocent as could be. I hollered at all of them and it never happened again. ha
Lana
Oh my, that is all so true! The sadness is part of it all and is the worst, but the rest of it is mostly wonderful. I remember, years ago, going into a new doctor’s office in Maine, and the nurse asked, ‘do you live on a farm?’ I was a little horrified, as I’d changed my clothes after chores, but she said, ‘you smell like hay. I love that smell.’ I expect it was my hair… Thanks so much for posting that.
Linda
Thanks for sharing Lana! I am usually carrying a hay bale twine hanging from at least one pocket and I probably have the Eau de Barnyard imbedded in my soul. lol #farmgirlstyle