Compromise & Love

It's another week full of meetings and travel.  

In honor of the fake holiday Valentine's Day coming up, please enjoy my recent article in Farm Indiana.  We celebrate love a lot on our farm and hope you celebrate it every day too!

*****

As the winter nights have settled in and the farmer has been home more, I have thought a lot about “love” lately.  He loves me enough to ignore my frequent shopping bags and my many lunches and dinners to catch-up with friends.  He has the patience to listen to the “presentations” I give each evening to report on the day’s activities.  However, I love him enough to do more loads of laundry than I ever could have imagined.  I have enough love for him to realize I will never have clean floors, and I must ignore the cow manure and dirt to get through each day. 

With love comes compromise.  It’s in every relationship we have with one another, our work, our families and even ourselves.  I think we sometimes get so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget about the others around us.  With the many issues going on in our community, country and world, I sometimes wonder what would happen if we added a little more compromise in our lives.  Maybe, just maybe, there would be a little more love. 

In regards to agriculture, I wish people would understand the compromises farmers and ranchers have to make in order to sustain the farms they love.  Baby animals aren’t on our schedule, so we have to compromise time with family or being away from home to bring more life into this world.  During disastrous weather events, farmers and ranchers have to compromise their own lives and homes to save their livestock.  Just in the past few months, families have had to decide whether to save their own homes from flood waters or to move their animals to higher ground and save their lives. 

Farmers also have to compromise their safety for their work and to bring food to your table.  My dad died while working on the farm, others have been run over or trapped by equipment or lost limbs.  Working and caring for livestock can be dangerous as well.  You can be trapped or trampled by an animal or drown while saving them.

At times, agriculture is attacked for our way of life and our work.  And many times those that seem to judge don’t have the understanding or will to learn about what we love to do each and every day.  I always think, wouldn’t it be nice if they could compromise a little of their time to learn because we compromise our time to feed them?

In our two and a half years of marriage, I have realized we have had to give a little, take a little and commit to a lot for our love.  Compromising isn’t always hard and many times is for the best even if we don’t know it yet.  We may be on the opposite side of an issue or argument every so often, but we support each other no matter what the outcome is or who may be right. 

Even though I am right and believe the floors would be cleaner if he took his boots off outside, I compromise and let him come inside because it’s all for the love.