onefineday
Member
Advice!
Please help, I’m married to a farmer and we have a very young family. Problem is we don’t live on site! My Husbands family farm is 4miles up the road. He works long hours 7 days a week, and quite honestly I’m fed up! Mention the words “farming family” and lovely images are conjured up. But if you don’t live on-site (and there isn’t anywhere for us to live there) I’m pretty much a single parent!
Now please don’t shout at me that farming is an around the clock job, the animals need looking after, I appreciate that, but so is an old peoples home? More importantly so is a family. Farming might also be a lifestyle but again so is choosing to take a wife and have children. There’s the argument that my Husband is working to provide for his family, but the reality to that is if I went back to work part time and he stayed at home with the children we’d be just as well off financially! Unless of course your talking the inherited legacy of the farm, which is a lovely thing to work towards, however I’m not keen to raise my children to wait for a dead man’s boots? Don’t get me wrong I’ll support and encourage them, I want to provide for them, but they need to achieve for themselves not expect everything to be handed to them. The house we live in, my Husband and I purchased ourselves without any help from family and we both have a huge sense of pride in that.
I’m looking for advice so that we can improve our current and future situation. So I’ll lay out the information and you can offer me “warts and all comments and suggestions”
The farm and it’s practices:
815 acres (330 hectares if your in new money) this is our total farmed area, which includes the 250 owned, the rest is on an FBT.
This year currently growing 145 acres of corn and 45 of Maize.
60 Suckler cows, calving March/April
Finish 500 beef cattle
900 lambing ewes, Feb/March
1500 hoggs to winter keep
So in a nutshell, mixed farming!
What I’d love to know (If the info I’ve supplied is enough to go on) is how many people are required for this business, and obviously how many hours are you expecting them to work per week to maintain it? If it helps with more understanding, the family wouldn’t employ many contractors, they currently do most things themselves, like harvesting, spraying, fencing and hedge cutting. They have most of the toys! We would use contractors for maize drill and harvest, a little bit of dung spreading but not a lot else.
Please help because I’m obviously not growing any prettier and our Children wont be small for long.
I myself am from farming families, and when I was growing up my parents lived off site, but I have wonderful childhood memories of days out and family holidays, the thing I look back on most fondly is my Dad was always home in the evening for dinner. Currently me and the children eat 3 meals a day, 7days a week on our own. I firmly believe that family meals are so important for communication and discipline.
My Husband is definitely a workaholic, I have to beg him to take a day off. He always says not this week I’ve got a lot on, we’re taking cattle, we’re TB testing, we’re cutting corn, we’re fencing! There is always something, but I’m promised next week should be better. When next week comes and I remind him he reels out new excuses, or complains that because last week they we’re TB testing (or whatever the job was) he’s now behind on what he had wanted to do so can’t spare any time this week. If the weather is fine he’s busy, but if it’s wet he’s getting ready for it to come fine?!?
Is the problem his workload, or his mindset?
What’s it all for? I know of numerous farmers Sons who have devoted so much time from their youths to their farms that they’re now bitter, middle aged and Single. Each to their own perhaps, but I’m pretty confident that they were executing their finest dance moves at those Young farmer discos in an attempt to find a wife? But their farms and long hours have either kept them from attending enough discos to secure a suitable match, or they were successful only to return to work and neglect the relationship before it had a chance to set.
Don’t get me wrong I envy my Husband that he is one of the lucky ones to do a job he loves (he’d love it a whole lot more if there was more corn and less sheep). But he already has a lot of regrets from his youth. He didn’t go to as many parties as he’d have liked, he didn’t travel as far as he wanted to. So although it might not be acceptable, we could go out partying and getting embarrassingly drunk if the mood takes us when we’re 60, and if our health allows we can travel the world, but we’ll never get a second chance at raising our children. The next 18 years aren’t to be missed and regretted, they are to be enjoyed, savoured and maximised so that we build a safe and happy home for the next generation, one that they’ll always return to because they know we’ve always got time for them.
My in-laws are competitive, maybe that's farmers in general? Always looking over the hedge at their neighbour and wanting to keep up or do more. My Husband won’t except that farmers do have time off, we went to church one Sunday, and chatted to another farming family of our generation whilst there. My husband was obviously talking shop with the chap and I was talking babies to his wife. My husband and I then returned to the farm so he could get on with something, we got to exchanging the conversations we’d had, but there was a discrepancy between us? My Husband had been led to believe his friend was going home to also do something work related, but I told him “No, his wife said they were taking the children to the beach”. We agreed to disagree as I couldn’t possibly be right, the weather was favourable and it was a busy calendar slot. Not long after when we were driving up the road to see stock, we passed said family all loaded up definitely looking beach bound, both men look surprised to pass each other! What’s wrong with them, where is the shame in family time?
My father in law reminisces about how Sundays were for Church and chores, now everyone regards them as a total inconvenience because “no other buggers working when you need parts!” Recently you would have thought there were going to be medals handed out to the farmer that could stay out the latest silaging? My husband was telling a friend in the trade “yeah we didn’t finish picking up till 2am, I heard next door were out till 4am!” Ridiculous, the same week there were two fatalities in the industry reported in the press.
Work life balance is a constant argument between us (probably our only conflict) so I’m curious to discover which way my advice goes? I think I’m prepared to be told to shut up and stop complaining, but surely I’m not alone in thinking there's more to life than farming?
You seem like a nice bunch on here so be kind in your responses I’ve been reading a lot of your posts before I plucked up the courage and met my wits end to write this plea!
Many thanks in anticipation,
A very tired, lonely and disillusioned Farmers wife.
Please help, I’m married to a farmer and we have a very young family. Problem is we don’t live on site! My Husbands family farm is 4miles up the road. He works long hours 7 days a week, and quite honestly I’m fed up! Mention the words “farming family” and lovely images are conjured up. But if you don’t live on-site (and there isn’t anywhere for us to live there) I’m pretty much a single parent!
Now please don’t shout at me that farming is an around the clock job, the animals need looking after, I appreciate that, but so is an old peoples home? More importantly so is a family. Farming might also be a lifestyle but again so is choosing to take a wife and have children. There’s the argument that my Husband is working to provide for his family, but the reality to that is if I went back to work part time and he stayed at home with the children we’d be just as well off financially! Unless of course your talking the inherited legacy of the farm, which is a lovely thing to work towards, however I’m not keen to raise my children to wait for a dead man’s boots? Don’t get me wrong I’ll support and encourage them, I want to provide for them, but they need to achieve for themselves not expect everything to be handed to them. The house we live in, my Husband and I purchased ourselves without any help from family and we both have a huge sense of pride in that.
I’m looking for advice so that we can improve our current and future situation. So I’ll lay out the information and you can offer me “warts and all comments and suggestions”
The farm and it’s practices:
815 acres (330 hectares if your in new money) this is our total farmed area, which includes the 250 owned, the rest is on an FBT.
This year currently growing 145 acres of corn and 45 of Maize.
60 Suckler cows, calving March/April
Finish 500 beef cattle
900 lambing ewes, Feb/March
1500 hoggs to winter keep
So in a nutshell, mixed farming!
What I’d love to know (If the info I’ve supplied is enough to go on) is how many people are required for this business, and obviously how many hours are you expecting them to work per week to maintain it? If it helps with more understanding, the family wouldn’t employ many contractors, they currently do most things themselves, like harvesting, spraying, fencing and hedge cutting. They have most of the toys! We would use contractors for maize drill and harvest, a little bit of dung spreading but not a lot else.
Please help because I’m obviously not growing any prettier and our Children wont be small for long.
I myself am from farming families, and when I was growing up my parents lived off site, but I have wonderful childhood memories of days out and family holidays, the thing I look back on most fondly is my Dad was always home in the evening for dinner. Currently me and the children eat 3 meals a day, 7days a week on our own. I firmly believe that family meals are so important for communication and discipline.
My Husband is definitely a workaholic, I have to beg him to take a day off. He always says not this week I’ve got a lot on, we’re taking cattle, we’re TB testing, we’re cutting corn, we’re fencing! There is always something, but I’m promised next week should be better. When next week comes and I remind him he reels out new excuses, or complains that because last week they we’re TB testing (or whatever the job was) he’s now behind on what he had wanted to do so can’t spare any time this week. If the weather is fine he’s busy, but if it’s wet he’s getting ready for it to come fine?!?
Is the problem his workload, or his mindset?
What’s it all for? I know of numerous farmers Sons who have devoted so much time from their youths to their farms that they’re now bitter, middle aged and Single. Each to their own perhaps, but I’m pretty confident that they were executing their finest dance moves at those Young farmer discos in an attempt to find a wife? But their farms and long hours have either kept them from attending enough discos to secure a suitable match, or they were successful only to return to work and neglect the relationship before it had a chance to set.
Don’t get me wrong I envy my Husband that he is one of the lucky ones to do a job he loves (he’d love it a whole lot more if there was more corn and less sheep). But he already has a lot of regrets from his youth. He didn’t go to as many parties as he’d have liked, he didn’t travel as far as he wanted to. So although it might not be acceptable, we could go out partying and getting embarrassingly drunk if the mood takes us when we’re 60, and if our health allows we can travel the world, but we’ll never get a second chance at raising our children. The next 18 years aren’t to be missed and regretted, they are to be enjoyed, savoured and maximised so that we build a safe and happy home for the next generation, one that they’ll always return to because they know we’ve always got time for them.
My in-laws are competitive, maybe that's farmers in general? Always looking over the hedge at their neighbour and wanting to keep up or do more. My Husband won’t except that farmers do have time off, we went to church one Sunday, and chatted to another farming family of our generation whilst there. My husband was obviously talking shop with the chap and I was talking babies to his wife. My husband and I then returned to the farm so he could get on with something, we got to exchanging the conversations we’d had, but there was a discrepancy between us? My Husband had been led to believe his friend was going home to also do something work related, but I told him “No, his wife said they were taking the children to the beach”. We agreed to disagree as I couldn’t possibly be right, the weather was favourable and it was a busy calendar slot. Not long after when we were driving up the road to see stock, we passed said family all loaded up definitely looking beach bound, both men look surprised to pass each other! What’s wrong with them, where is the shame in family time?
My father in law reminisces about how Sundays were for Church and chores, now everyone regards them as a total inconvenience because “no other buggers working when you need parts!” Recently you would have thought there were going to be medals handed out to the farmer that could stay out the latest silaging? My husband was telling a friend in the trade “yeah we didn’t finish picking up till 2am, I heard next door were out till 4am!” Ridiculous, the same week there were two fatalities in the industry reported in the press.
Work life balance is a constant argument between us (probably our only conflict) so I’m curious to discover which way my advice goes? I think I’m prepared to be told to shut up and stop complaining, but surely I’m not alone in thinking there's more to life than farming?
You seem like a nice bunch on here so be kind in your responses I’ve been reading a lot of your posts before I plucked up the courage and met my wits end to write this plea!
Many thanks in anticipation,
A very tired, lonely and disillusioned Farmers wife.
