Farm-Style Romance

Rodney and I were up at the "butt-crack" of dawn this morning awaiting the arrival of our newest batch of chickens. It was cold, it was raining and I'll spare you my thoughts on the mud for now. There is something about those sleepy mornings, sharing coffee, quietly discussing the day's chores, going over how well we slept or didn't sleep, and chitchatting about exciting topics like...goat feed.

We dumped the chickens ourselves today. It isn't unusual for us to find ourselves without help, and so my darling man and I unloaded 4 houses of chickens, just the two of us. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with chicken farming, each house holds 29,000 chickens which come to us in crates of 50. That's 2320 crates that have to be lifted and "dumped" into the house. Of course there is much more to it than that, but I can't go into it right now.

Rodney and I love this farm, we love to work together (most of the time) and we are still crazy about each other even after almost 19 years of marriage. Living the way we do, sometimes romance is in short supply. Things just don't get real hot when the topic of conversation tends to revolve around cattle, chickens, hay and goats. Of course, Rodney isn't real well known for being a Casanova anyway. I married that hard-working man for who he is and I sure don't expect to change him. Why on earth would anybody want to do such a thing?

Oh, but there is a sweet sweet side to that man of mine. Earlier today, I was sitting at my desk and I could hear the tractor coming. I love when I can hear the tractor coming! I love the fact that I still get butterflies when I know he is near.

So, I peered out the window and saw two big red buckets coming down the road.

Rodney knows I like buckets. He brought me a bucket when we had only been married a few months. He handed it to me and said "look what I found on the side of the road!" It was probably one of the most romantic gestures I had seen coming from him up to that point...and I still have that bucket.

I had gone to the feed store on Monday and picked up two protein tubs for the cows. When the little dude at the feed store loaded them for me, I was already excited that those tubs just happened to be red and when emptied by the cows, I would be able to use them for planters or any little thing my heart desired.

I don't remember saying much to Rodney about it, just that I wanted him to be sure and not get rid of them when they were empty. Rodney minds me very well.

And now I love him even more. Just the fact that he was out in the rain feeding cows, saw the empty buckets, thought of me, loaded them and sat them at my door, why he is a romantic after all!

With all this cold and rain, I sure needed a little something to heat things up a bit. I think two red buckets delivered via tractor could be just the spice I needed.

"Anytime baby"