Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A Glance into Farm life, Part I


Have you ever walked by someone’s house, perhaps glanced in the window and it made you wonder about what that person’s life was really like?   I admit that I am fascinated how other people live, and that is why I started this blog, to give you a front-porch view of what life is like for this farm-wife on the Anderson Farm.  
American Living, Small Town Style: Chapter One


When I married Farmer Joe, I unknowingly married a complete small rural community and my life would forever be intertwined in Genesee, our hometown. We don’t’ have any stoplights in town and I’m about 20 minutes away from the nearest Starbucks located in the college town of Moscow, Idaho. Even in the larger surrounding towns,  the tallest buildings are not skyscrapers but are grain elevators and we don't have traffic jams.


Cody (left) our hired man & Lee (center) are volunteer fireman manning
the take-out station. Farmer Joe picking up the crab take-outs
While farming makes up a large part of our lives, it is only one part and I want to share on the front page of this blog about the other side of what this farm-wife does. While I do have the At Home on the Farm page, I occasionally like to tell you about rural life living on the front page because it is what makes us “us”. One part work + one part living = whole living. Even though our little farm community is ever-changing and growing, one thing remains constant, our connections to our fellow farmers and friends who live here. Today I want to show you scenes from an annual event that showcases a community coming together to support our local all volunteer fire department and next month I’ll talk about a grassroots fundraiser that many of the core residents are doing to help a fellow farm-wife as she battles the effects from a brain tumor and stroke.

For the first 17 years of our marriage Farmer Joe was a volunteer fireman and we gladly worked this event. Countless hours are spent preparing the food that usually will feed 600 inside and 700 take-outs.



Guests in the firehall enjoying their crab dinner

Farmer Joe's brother in law, Dave, Sister Lauren & Farm-wife Lisa
waiting for our crab dinner in Farmer Jay & Lisa's garage

Zack and guests were in charge of decorating cupcakes baked by his buddies

Farmer Joe stops to visit with friends before he picked up the crab dinners
In the next day or so, I’ll be posting my off the farm field trip, so please make sure to  check back. As always, so glad you stopped by and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.  All my best, Gayle

2 comments :

  1. I like your first sentence
    "When I married Farmer Joe, I unknowingly married a complete small rural community."

    That is so true. I come from a small farm/ranch community in NE, but after getting married and moving to a smaller SD community involvement too on a new meaning.

    Ranches are spread out and young people on those ranches are few and far between. We do a lot of socializing with neighbors our parents and grandparents ages.

    It takes young people to do the physical work to help keep small communities alive. The older generations will always come for a good visit, but are not always able to carry a heavy work load. They have invested a lot into the community over the years and us young people need to keep it going.

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  2. Gayle, I just found your blog and want to express my appreciation for the great effort you and Joe have put into this blog. I love the way you weave the farm, the family, food and all the good things about farm living for other people to learn and get to know some real people of the land.

    Best wishes!

    Paul Penner

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