By Vrenie Beeler
If you are a farmwife, you will probably relate to this and, if you become one in the future, you’ll get a glimpse of what to expect:
1. Always remain calm, especially if equipment is involved.
2. Pray.
3. Don’t ask any questions (they might be stupid) but make sure you can read everybody’s mind.
4. Be ready at any time of day to drive wherever there are parts available for whatever machine broke down (see 3).
5. Know the tools in the shed and where they are kept so you know what to bring to the field when needed.
6. Have your phone charged and a water bottle with you at all times; things might take longer than expected.
7. Listen, without commenting, to the unexpected, expanded vocabulary that your husband might use which you did not know he had. (see 3).
8. You will do all your own work in the house, barn or garden in between, in stages.
9. The big piles of laundry that get larger by the day because you just can’t get to them might be the closest thing you will ever see to the Swiss mountains.
10. Make sure you are not planning to make homemade puff-pastry, bread or anything else, that might require you to stick around for longer periods of time during planting or harvest season.
11. Be prepared to bring more coffee to the field where your workers are, at any time of day or night. 12. Your own plans during harvest have zero priority; suck it up!
13. Smile at all times and think positive.
14. Remember, harvest will pay for the life you don’t have right now.
15. It is still better than an office job in a gloomy office building with windows that won’t even open! (See 13, 1 and 2.)
Vreni Beeler is a crop farmer at Swisstrio Farms at Zurich, in Western Ontario.
