Did you get them all bred? And other strange questions you ask when married to a farmer.

1.       Are you coming home tonight?

This is asked frequently during planting, harvest, spraying, calving or any other “season” that requires frequent late night, or all night, hours.  It’s not necessarily asking if he is coming home at all, but more if he will be home while anyone else is still up. 

2.        Did you come home last night?

It’s not unheard of for a farm wife to wake up in the morning and have to look for signs that her farmer actually came home last night and left again before anyone else was up.  The most telltale signs will be the pile of dirty clothes on his side of the bed and the empty plate from the dinner he warmed up when he got home. 

3.       So…will that be 10 minutes or 2 hours?

When you ask a farmer about what time something might occur, it’s nearly always given back as an order of events.  Such as, “I have to hay the cows up north, check the water tanks, drop this truck by the shop and then I’ll be home.”  These answers nearly always require the person asking to get further clarification.  And by clarification I mean narrowing it down to a time frame of a few minutes or a few hours. 

 Farmers work in time slots similar to that of the cable guy – “I’ll be home for dinner sometime between 6pm and midnight.”

4.        Did you get them all bred?

Of course this would refer to our livestock and the time of year that they are being bred or being checked for pregnancy.  It’s obviously vital to a livestock operation for the animals to reproduce -- so conversations around breeding, semen quality, and pregnancy and delivering of babies take up a good percentage of our time. 

I worry about having these conversations in public places – for fear someone may overhear our conversations and consider turning us into the FBI.

5.       Is it going to rain?

Many people probably find themselves looking at their smart phones or watching the morning news for the weather forecast.   Anyone married to a farmer doesn't need those things - -they just ask their farmer.  

He will know what all the different weather outlets are reporting for temperatures and rain chances and have an opinion of his own (that’s probably better than the local weather forecaster anyways)!