One of my husband’s favorite travel shows to watch on the television is “Adventures with a Purpose.” It got me to thinking about what a farm wife’s “Adventures with a Purpose” would be.
Adventure means an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity. Thinking back to my farm wife “Adventures with a Purpose,” through the years those adventures would be numerous. There are the times when called to come outside to the hog pens and help separate and load hogs in order to get them into the truck or trailer would certainly be a strong possible hazardous adventure. The same could be said of helping with the loading, moving or sorting of the cattle, especially when stationed at a pen gate and told to only let out certain ones.
There are the adventures of helping out by driving a vehicle while pulling another trying to get it started. That could be classified as a definitely exciting experience that could be hazardous if it is done wrong causing an accident. The misread hand signals could also be an adventure and could lead to an exciting and hazardous adventure. Once I was asked to back a trailer into a certain spot. I kept saying I couldn’t, but was told, “I bet you can”...well it was a starter adventure activity and proved unsuccessful!
During the difficult and hard farming years of the early 80s, a hard adventure was having to visit a banker and to try to get loan extension papers signed and thinking of the hazards of not being able to make the payments. Those hard farming years were certainly an adventure but thankfully we made it through and somehow kept farming.
There were the fence fixing, cedar tree clippings and thistle spraying “adventures with a purpose,” when farm wives were called to help out. The adventures of planning, cooking and delivering meals to the fields were exciting, especially when the field they were supposed to be in was not where they were and that was before cell phones. So trips were made back and forth trying to find where the farm workers were.
Oh yes, there were those traveling adventures that led a farm wife to towns near and far trying to find the right part for a tractor or combine. Then there were the traveling adventures from field to field helping move farm machinery.
The adventure list for a farm wife could go on and on but as I think back, I can say I somehow survived those “Adventures with a Purpose.”
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