10 Ways to Survive Being Married to a Farmer

Think you could cut it as a farmer’s wife? Here are my 10 ways to survive being married to one.

1. Cook. The way to a man’s heart may well be through his stomach and this can never be better highlighted than with a farmer. Beans on toast just will not cut it. Ever. Meat and two veg is always a winner and don’t try veering off the traditional path-the cous cous night is etched on my memory forever more.

2. Keep the windows up in your car when you get out or, if you brave it, do check before you drive off. Our farm cat has been on a great many adventures including trips to the village with workmen who haven’t noticed her curled up on the passenger seat. I’ve found her in the infant car seat. She can fit through a two inch gap. She’s even nestled on the pram when I opened the boot.

3. Rethink your footwear options. Suede, heels, flip flops, white shoes. The list can be added to forever more. Certain things just do not mix with mud, dust, straw and slurry.

4. Like shoes, there are also clothing limitations-anything white is a no-no and in winter, it is all about the layers to keep warm.

5. Check your wellies before you put your feet in them. Best case scenario would be nothing in there. Worst case a spider, slug or mouse. Someone told me their kids had to take their wellies into school for something and a mouse ran out of them in the class room. Always worth checking.

6.If you happen to go somewhere on the farm with a farmer, try and make sure you drive. Obviously if you’re in a tractor and they won’t let you drive it, there may be a problem but be warned. If you are in the passenger seat, you will be required to get out and open gates. Knowing how to drive your Land Rover has never been more important.

7.Leading on from the last point, if you go through a closed gate, do not leave it open. You’ve seen the signs. Please close the gate. We don’t want sheep or cows escaping and, if they do and it’s your fault the gate was left open, expect to have to chase the animals yourself.

8. Prepare for the unexpected. If something happens, you will be roped in. Never rounded up sheep before? No problem. Orders will be barked at you. The air maybe blue but no one escapes helping out when it is needed.

9. Don’t make plans. Day trip and holidays will no longer be booked in advance. Everything happens spontaneously on the farm and, usually when it rains.

10. Lower your cleanliness expectations. You could mop the floor of a farm kitchen 100 times a day but muddy foot and paw prints will still find their way onto you floor. You learn to live with it.

8 Comments

I think I would love farm life love animals but what I would most like to do is lambing in the spring its on my bucket list Aimee my daughter is 11 loves horses she was riding at croft but she’s just stopped loves them so if you have any she can come see one day please x

Another amusing post. Thankfully I read it at home this time so I’m not looking like a lunatic. Sorry about your shoes 😉
Nat.x

Thank you – been living with my farmer for 4 years but grew up outside of the farming community and still work and socialise with non-farmers. It’s nice to see the funny and irritating moments talked about by someone else, instead of always being the one explaining. I once found a dormouse in my boot – very unnerving at the time but sweet! Mud – no one outside of a farm realises the levels of mud!!!

Last night Tom was late in. I was getting a little miffed as dinner had been in the bottom AGA for an hour, keeping warm, and was starting to dry out. I went outside to see how he was doing just in time to see him pull a breeched calf out of one of the Anguses. The image of that calf slithering out into the floor, the rumble of the mother and the stars overhead made me smile for the rest of the evening x