"Now, of all times in our history, we should be using our minds as well as our hearts in order to survive...to live gracefully if we are to live at all." MFK Fisher in 1942

To really care about food, how it is grown and where, the nutrition available to our bodies and how we experience it in community is anything but demeaning. In fact, the connection I've experienced and the influence I'm able to offer my family and community is one of the most liberating experiences I've ever encountered. My unique role as farmwife allows me to work alongside my husband to provide income for our family, teach my children wise practical skills that will carry them well and help my community make positive changes towards food access and a stronger, local economy.
More than a definition I'm recognizing the need to allow my past to line up with my calling in order to do the work I was designed to do in the short time I've been given to do it. I'm no longer held captive to the way I was raised, the way I was taught, the commercials and noise. Nor do I plan to be held captive to anyone elses definition of farmwife. That's for each of us to work out. The balance of my days includes making investments, policy change meetings, harvesting in the fields, cooking in the kitchen, facebook updates while rocking my babies--all while having a deep, meaningful respect and admiration for my husband. For now, my redefining looks much more like stripping off all definitions and becoming clothed in the normal, beautiful realness of everyday life.
"I milked. I helped in the fields. Whatever had to be done. Every day. I never had a public job. Always at home. But I could do anything that had to be done on a farm. I think that's where they got the idea of family farms. Because a family worked the farm. Every member of the family worked. My children learned to work on this farm." Dorothy Cox (Kentucky Farmwife) 1920's