Any other harvest widows out there?!

[Lala1980]

Hello. Lonely and frustrated harvest widow would love to chat/vent with other farmers' WAGs...

I am from "farming stock" but it is still hard at times. It is a brilliant way of life but sometime you just want a break and to get away. It is relentless. I feel at times that my DH is missing out on "quality" time with the kids (and me!). I'm sure DS2 thinks all daddy ever says is "I'll have to go we man". He thinks he spends time with DS1 but really DS is just following on behind chattering away and daddy isn't really listening.

And we still have the crappiest vauxhall here!

cantthink quiet and lala

You are all me. I'm finding living in a field, with cows as neighbours, and a H who thinks quality time with the DCs means they follow him round when he works. And as for me?? I cook and clean, a kill flies for a pasttime. And it be honest it sucks.
Yes a 'day out' is going to market, not even to sell anything, just to look, like I need to see any more stinky farmers with grubby hands looking at animals, while the wives roll their eyes and and plod along behind, wearily.
And agricultural shows!! Dont get me started, its exactly as you have described.
Help me

Lala - you're a proper farmer when you have a Ford Focus! Farmers weekly did a survey and found that 78% of British farmers had a Focus or a Vauxhaul!! What that says, I don't know!

LOL notheroldie - We're clearly DOOMED!

DH is currently slumped on the sofa with this weeks farming porn Farmers Weekly moaning about the fact he was to "watch a pile of Olympic crap before the BBC News actually gets to the weather"! Farmers... never happy!

Typical Show weather today, first proper hot day we have had since May, Factor 50 and still burning! It was really busy and everyone on good form just glad to have some sun on their backs.

Then the clouds gathered and got darker and darker and just when they had all the cattle into the main ring for the parade the heavens opened, thunder, lightening, torrential rain and hail stones the size of peas, the lot.

We had 45 minutes of constant thunder lightening and rain which turned the entire showfield into a pond.

Good old Vauxhall got us out of the field though! Better go and muck it out just chucked everything in (including children who promptly fell asleep).

We've got similar weather here - DH is getting stressed because he has to plough for the oil seed rape, the barley is getting flatter and flatter because of the rain and the dogs have buggered off out of the yard again.

Of course, the dogs buggering off is now my fault because I chucked them out of the kitchen and into the yard. I mean, FFS, what do you expect me to do if they come home covered in slurry, mud and shit because YOU and THEY have been working cattle? Let them on the sofa?

Lala why on earth do you keep your ponies on livery and not on the farm?

Politics. My dp had a very gold digging exw and I dont want people thinking I'm only with him for free livery! plus it gives me a shred of independence from the farm!
Raining so hard here today!

Good luck with the clipping. We were supposed to be clipping tonight but the rain was very heavy and the sheep are drying out.
Got on with shifting dung and mending the trailer which burst both it's tyres.

Can you smell us all?

I can smell you all (GentleOtter ) and raise you a DH who stinks because he had to pull the dog out of the slurry pit!

Lala1980 I get the whole politics thing. Shortly before I met DH, his older brother had got married to a gold digging skank and had thrown all his toys out of the pram resigned from the family partnership because his parents wouldn't let him and the skank his wife move into the farmhouse to "manage the farm". They wanted DH to move out of the house he'd been in all his life and live in a mobile home next to the cow sheds! They also wanted him to give up his share in the family business so the wife could have it with her "investment" and work for his brother! They (BIL & wife) then tried to take the family to the cleaners for their share of the farming partnership because they didn't get their own way.

When I first arrived on the scene, I got a lot of suspicion from the village, because they thought I was after DH for his money. like his skanky SIL It's been hard work, but they've seen us enable DH's parents to finally retire and for us to salvage & repair the mess that the brother left, but if I ever catch up with DH's brother, I'll drive the manitou over him!

Hi there!

I'm a harvest widow but DH is also a harvest widower as I work on my family farm. I'm arable and he's livestock so between the two of us we're busy all year.

I do get properly stuck in on the farm - bit worried how I'll cope this harvest as I'm 15 weeks pg with DC1! So far it's not been too hard though - only cos IT WON'T BLOODY STOP RAINING!! Lost a lot of rape in a bad rainstorm last night.

Can massively sympathise with the independence off the farm thing. I worked for a long time in retail and was very independent both relationship wise and financially. Then I jacked that in and have gone to being married and working on a family farm! DH would love nothing more that for me to be his mum (i.e very old fashioned farmers wife, staying at home all day, feeding him). I'd be totally happy with that if he wasn't the tightest man on the planet and resents every 2p I spend on myself. However, I have not married a modern man and the nagging I have to do to get him to even do 25% of the housework is just ridiculous and it's wearing me down. I see things changing even more when DC is born (apparently, I could have planned that better as it's in the middle of turnaround!) .

Sorry - bit of a rant there. Got carried away with the idea that there are other ladies out there who might have an understanding of what I'm talking about. All my old friends think I'm dead lucky that I have the option to be a SAHM (albeit, they have no concept that being a SAHM farmers wife normally includes a 40 hr week 'helping' on the farm but as you're not doing a 90hr week it's considered SAHM) who can just sit around getting more pink cheeked and jolly whilst baking cupcakes.

Freerangelady - I solved the problem with the housework thing by getting cleaners. I didn't "AsK", I "TOLD" - would that work for you?.

Quiet - I've done the same! I also told him and the cleaner is brilliant. But she only does 2 hrs a week and still leaves:

Deep cleaning
Washing
Ironing
Cooking
Shopping
Any household admin e.g. thank you letters

All for me!!

DH cuts the grass when you can't walk through it and I've asked him 5 times. If this DC turns out to be a boy I'm training him up from birth!!

We do both have a fair amount of time during the spring and winter - he's just useless!

I hear you about the 40 hours "helping on the farm" thing, free.

Re: the deep cleaning - do what I do and book a "Spring Clean" every 6-8 weeks. I actually use a cleaning company (they are very good) and so they come in and do all the fridges, cooker, hoover the curtains/wash skirting boards etc, etc and absolutely blitz the place. As I pay the bills, I just don't tell DH and he doesn't notice.

Shopping - I do an online shop or persuade DH to come with me in the evening - you DH certainly should go with you if you are 15 weeks pregnant.

I had the same problem with my DH cutting the grass. I told him I was getting a gardener (I wasn't) and it spurred him into action. I now looks like silage grass again, but my other trick is throw a BBQ and invite all our friends - as DH hates people to see mess around the house and farm, he has a mad clearing up session!

My DH sounds very traditional like your DH, he has no idea how to use the washing machine or the iron, but then he does do the things like take the rubbish out and does help me when I ask. Unless he's reading farming porn the Farmers Weekly.

I end up doing the majority of DIY, decorating etc, etc and running of the house, but to be fair to my DH, he's running a massive mixed arable/livestock farm on his own and doesn't stop from dawn until dusk 365 days a year.

Canthink - there's nothing like a perfect farming MIL is there? Mine has a spotless house too - even the boot room never has a scrap of mud in it - on a livestock farm for goodness sake! My DH gets grumpy with me that I don't cook him a hot dinner at lunch time like his mum. No, I'm not going to do that dear husband because I have my own job and business to run, however partronising you may be about it and anyway, why can't you cook your own!?

Quiettiger - love the idea of a deep clean! That's the kind of stuff I never seem to get round to. Or if I do, it's on a Sunday afternoon, the only one of the week where DH and I get to spend together. which in reality he gets to spend sitting on the sofa whilst I spend the time cleaning oven etc

Still raining here - it's getting silly now. Really needs to stop!

Oh, I hear you all!! (This is now going to out me to people who know me...)

My MIL ran a "spotless house", baked, milked 70 cows twice a day, helped on the farm, did all the washing/ironing/cleaning, cooked a full lunchtime 3 course meal for 4, fucked up the accounts did all the farm admin, rivaled Mother Theresa for sainthood... And drove me fucking insane! I can still only deal with her in very small doses.

She then went downhill with depression following the BIL fiasco, and the house became a hoarders shit-hole. DH moved in with me because he couldn't cope with the mess. Then she moved out, I moved in to the farmhouse and we had a bonfire for 3 days to get rid of her crap. I kid you not, the house was so dirty, the pans were stuck to the bottom of the cupboards with mouse shit. After day 3 of the bonfire and clearing out her crap, the default setting for "everything" not nailed down I didn't want, was to burn it.

I trained DH VERY quickly, aided by my slightly "brain damaged" cat (She was kicked in the head as a kitten before I rescued her). The "laundry fairy" does not exist. If he left his clothes on the floor, my cat will pee on them. If the clothes go in the wash basket, they get washed. If he doesn't put his clean clothes in the basket away and leaves them on the floor, my cat will pee on them. If you leave the towels on the floor, the cat will pee on them...

It's amazing how cat pee concentrates the mind!

Cantthinkof1 - TELL DH you're having a cleaner. Then inform him that you're not his mother and things run your way. If MIL wants to bang on about how you're "inadequate", let her bang on.

Life is too short and as I put it to DH, this is a working farmhouse, he doesn't live in a slum, the place is clean and he's not embarrassed by a mess when people come over. Plus, this place is 850 years old, full of woodworm and damp, with crappy windows, no central heating, wood burning stoves and a 1960's bathroom. I'm not a miracle worker!

Oh forgot to say, MIL also cut the grass, kept a massive vegetable garden, painted the house, found the cure for cancer...

That made me chuckle quiet tiger!

Can I borrow your cat please?

I'm a harvest widow too.

I know exactly what to expect and should be used to it, but every bloody year it still catches me out!

We live on a big arable farm and are in the middle of harvesting the OSR so this rain has been causing an awful lot of cross faces and rude words!

I don't seem to see him for more than an hour at a time, even when it's raining there's always other things to do, either that or he's up and down like a jack-in-a-box "just going to check the rape". Honestly, I could quote bloody yields per field in my sleep!

I also get a long list, "oh could you just do x,y, z... , you're less busy than I am" . Less busy?? I work full, I'm running the house by myself, applying for other jobs left, right and centre, helping on the farm where needed and looking after a very excitable puppy with a broken leg!! Less busy??

Saying that, I do enjoy it and I wouldn't swap it for the world. I just have to say it really loudly through gritted teeth to remind myself sometimes!

QuietTiger can I also borrow your cat??

Does anyone have a solution for reducing the amount of grain that gets traipsed into the house? short of making him strip naked before coming in the house, which might give the tractor drivers a laugh but probably wouldn't improve him temper Although with the price of OSR I think I may just sweep it up and sell it myself for cash in hand!

Now this will completely out me to people who know me...

The funniest thing about my cat and my MIL was the bathroom carpet. It was frankly Minging and dated from about 1965. I was in the house 1 week and the cat decided the carpet made the perfect toilet. I encouraged her to piss on it by not cleaning it properly After a week, it stank and DH couldn't cope with the smell which was the plan and he ripped it up and replaced it with lino. I threw the carpet outside (bearing in mind this is now cat pee encrusted 1960's bathroom carpet that has been there since DH was born and has seen 2 boys grow up...) and MIL came along and asked if I still wanted it as it might be useful!! DH pointedly threw it in the skip! that replaced the bonfire.

Fieldette We haven't got any OSR this year, thank god, but DH is stressing about getting the barley off the field and the state of the maize. The maize didn't go in until the first week in July because it was too wet, which means it'll be off late with starch content problems... then he's also stressing because he has to plough for the OSR, but the fields are too wet... We deliberately left them fallow to get OSR in on time as a wheat break crop this year, but the weather is a bloody nightmare!

How many times can you check an osr field? If its got hail damage it's got hail damage dad!! Our family record today was 5 times. And that includes 5 trips round the neighbours because of course, we're the only ones that have been affected!

Fieldette - I find rape growing in my laundry basket with frightening regularity! I'm amazed at how much you fit into a day/week. I do think farming men have no idea how much work they create at harvest!

PMSL Free - you've perfectly described farmers!! Are you insured for hail damage?

Hmm think Tractor Ted in Summer Time needs re written

Hi My name is Tractor Ted. Its is summertime in tractor land.

This is the farmer. He is watching the Weather Forecast.

This is the Farmer cutting his hay.

It is raining in Tractorland.

The Farmer is a bit grumpy.