"Country Girl"

When someone asks me what my husband does, I proudly tell them "He's self employed and farms." Their next question is almost always "OH so you must be a country girl?" IF there is one term I hate more in the world it would be "country girl."

When I think of a country girl, I see a pink camouflage wearing, bow hunting, deer shooting, bull testicle eating, double fisting, beer drinking, 4 wheel driving, mudding, dirty girl. That's not me, and that's a far cry from what I am.   The term country girl does nothing to represent what a farmer wife actually is and the roll we play in supporting our husband and contributing to the daily operation of a farm. If anything, I'd like to redefine that term.

 I've always wanted to be a farmers wife, it looked traditional, classy, and fun. It did not look hard, tiring, exhausting, or draining. Guess what? It's all of the above; traditional, classy, fun, hard, tiring, exhausting, and draining.

I don't hunt, I hate to hunt. There is nothing fun about getting up at 4 a.m., setting in the cold, in the dark, waiting for an animal to cross my path for me to shoot. It's cold, it's dark, I have to keep quiet and I don't wanna go. However, I will proudly support my husband shooting as many deer as the law will allow and eating every last one of them. I'll cook it and I'll eat it but while he is out hunting I'd rather be baking a pie, cleaning the house, or thrift store shopping. Hunted animals are free food and I like free.

A country girl should be able to drive a manual transmission through any mud hole without killing the transmission, right? Wrong. I can't drive a manual transmission, maybe I could to save my life but you will never find me willingly driving one because I can't. If you ever see me on  the side of a road in an old ford pickup with what appears to be car problems, just drive on by. I'm just trying to get a five speed started and it typically takes me more than one try or five tries for that matter. Smile and wave, smile and wave, but don't expect me to wave back because by this point I've been standing on my left leg for so long trying to keep the clutch down and I'm trying to move the gear shifter thing from neutral to first gear while on the phone with Andy typically in the tractor in front of me and I have NO free hands. I'll smile and wave in my head.

Dirty, I'm not a fan of willingly being dirty. I like to be clean, have brushed teeth, semi brushed hair and a bra on before going out in public. However, sometimes duty calls. Sometimes your husband is miles away and there are cows out on 82 highway and you are still in your nighty pajamas and it is now your responsibility to go contain the cattle. What does one do? One quickly throws on whatever clothes they can find and go find the cows in my little (automatic) Ford Focus.. For me, that typically means sweatpants from the dirty laundry, old cowboy boots, a shirt with no bra and the best looking hairdo do you will find on this side of the Mississippi (insert sarcasm). My father in law finds it to be quite hilarious when he seems me in these types of circumstances, specifically on the side of 82 highway in a culvert trying to keep a cow out of the road and patiently waiting for help to arrive to graciously put her back where she belongs. If you ever see me on the side of the road with a mortified look on my face and clothes that make me look homeless, just remember; duty probably called and my husband/father in law are on their way and things will return to normal soon. Smile and wave and I'll wave back.

Patience as mentioned in the above paragraph, that has never been a virtue for me until I became a Dawson. These people are the most patient, carefree people I have ever met and I am very thankful my husband exhibits that quality as well. I'm learning, this has been one of the hardest lessons for me as a newly married girl and farmers wife. Sometimes there are times when we have plans and were suppose to be someplace fifteen minutes ago and I have yet to see my husband who will need to shower and I'm pacing through the living room waiting on him. OR I've had dinner ready for an hour and Andy was suppose to be home an hour ago and he had to pull a calf and is getting ready to walk through the door at any time smelling like he just got out of a sewer. It's just what we do, we wait, and we are patient because some things are just out of your control and the end result is better than the alternative.

No, a farmers wife is not the glamorous life style one would imagine or the lifestyle I thought it would be before I got into it. If I'm a farmers wife who must be a country girl, then yes I am. I am my own version of that. I'm a wild game chef, a homeless looking girl on the side of 82 highway, automatic vehicle driver by choice and a manual driver without choice, a patient individual, a lover of this country lifestyle I've adopted and of a husband who has the most important job, feeding the world.

"ERAN, I have a calf for you!!!"

It's been very, very, cold lately. On top of the cold, we are also calving. Calving in the winter time usually means we end up having to bottle feed some of them, or we have to find a way to keep them warm after they have been born. In this case, it was warmth.

My cousin Cody works for us after school and this night happened to be helping Andy check the cows. Cody was ever so proud of himself for finding this newborn calf and rescuing it. If he had not found it, it probably wouldn't have made it through the night. A calf lost is money lost.










Cody has the same ambition that Andy does and is always so happy when he has done the right thing and a good thing. This particular night I had gotten home from work early and was fixing supper when I hear Andy and Cody pull up to the house in the gator and I didn't think much of it until the back door opens and I hear Cody proudly yell, "ERAN, I HAVE A CALF FOR YOU." A year ago this would have been no problem, we had a garage with a cement floor and had options for housing a newborn calf. This year, we've moved into a mobile home with no porch, garage, or extra space, BUT it does have a very large garden tub that hasn't been used since we've lived there. Immediately that was Andy's suggestion. Cody, with the biggest grin on his face, happily carries this newborn calf into our bathroom to sleep in the bathtub for the night. 

My Yorkie, Phoebe immediately wanted to keep him company. 

After we got him into the house, Andy was not sure if he had had his colostrum yet so we mixed it up and fed it to him in the bathtub. 

He made many attempts to get out of the bathtub but was unsuccessful due to his unsteady legs and slick surface. 

Thankfully he was only a house guest for one night and his mom was very happy to take him back the next day. 

Sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh at the little, ironic, things life throws at you. 

Why so fearless?

I wouldn't ever call myself a fearless person, I'm more of a worry wort. I worry about things that have never happened, could happen, I think may happen if something else were to happen or happened to someone else, blah, blah, blah...I just worry. I don't "go out on limbs". 

Then I met my husband, or should I say, started dating my husband. We "met" when we were about five and went to school together but didn't start dating until we were in our early twenties. On our second date, he introduced me to his women, aka, The Fearless Fifty. No, he didn't have fifty women per say but he did have fifty head of black cows all getting ready to have babies that he referred to as his women. I was fifty one. When he purchased these cows, they were old, broken mouth, crazy, and ugly. After having them for about two years, the women started coming around, their black coats were prettier, they were fat, and not quite as crazy. You couldn't kill them if you tried. Hence, fearless. 

Fearless...

Andy is very smart and an excellent mechanic, when we first started dating he was working as a field mechanic for John Deere and had been there for two years. With more ambition than most 22 year olds, his dream was to be self employed and farm for a living. In March of that year, he quit his steady, good, well-paying job to be self employed, run his bulldozer, farm, and mechanic for a living. It's pretty easy to have a comfortable life when you know you are going to have a paycheck every week from someone else, it takes a little bit more courage to willingly give-up that comfort and start writing your own pay check. Talk about a leap of faith. 

After Andy and I had been dating about 6 months, we found out I had to have brain surgery. It was a long summer, I was hateful, I was in pain, I screamed at him because I hurt so bad, I was working full-time and going to school full-time, I could barely drive, I could barely read, I couldn't feel my arms or legs, I couldn't eat, the only thing I ever wanted was complete silence and a Coke from Sonic, it was my drug of choice. Scared to death and without any other options, I had brain surgery in August. I was awful to him, I was mean, I was in pain and he was the last person I wanted to see during the first two hours after surgery, I came around and he patiently waited until I felt better, was nicer, and liked having him around (luckily that didn't take to long). I was off work and school for the next four months and we spent most every day together while I was recovering. 

Fearless...

I moved back to school in Columbia in January to finish my last semester of college, Andy had been self employed almost a year, we were living two hours away from each other and  anticipated getting married...soon. He called me one night at school and said "I think I'm going to buy Randy's land, 191 acres." Here we are 22 & 21 years old about to owe more money than we had ever made in our life.  Determined to make it work and not settling for mediocrity, we bought another 45 women to put on the land. 

Fast-forward two years, we've been married almost two years and just bought another 230 acres and another 35 women. Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall, you will find Andy (us) taking risks, leaps of faith, and demonstrating a "you don't know 'til you try" attitude.