A Farmer's Wife

I've decided that it's time to talk a little more about what my blog is centered around: the lifestyle of a farmer's wife. It's pretty obvious that that is the type of lifestyle that I talk about, but for some reason I've not made a post about it in particular yet. I'm going to talk a little more about having a farmer as a boyfriend -might as well be husband - and what it is actually like being his girlfriend.

My Farmer is a pig-farmer, or a "Pig Reproductive Technician". In words that you and me understand, B artificially inseminates guilt's -female pigs that have not had piglets yet - and sow's -female pigs with one or more litters of piglets under their belt - with predetermined genetics to breed the healthiest piglets possible.

He's good at his job, and loves doing it. It's quite interesting when you get into the in's and out's of it -that sentence just took on a whole new meaning - but I won't be going into that today. If you'd like to find out more about what B does and what goes on down on the farm, I'm able to write a more specific post about that with pictures of the pigs, piglets, and boars and the farm in general.

Pigs like to fill their drinkers up with stones, B is clearing
 out this drinker for them.

So now you know what he does, how does it effect me or our home-life?

Well, being a farmer means that you don't work a 9 to 5 job. B is down the farm at 7:15 am Monday to Friday and on every third weekend. He's meant to finish at  4:30 pm, but working with animals that can change sometimes. Work doesn't finish when the bell rings, it finishes when the pigs have what they need - a dry and warm bed, water, and food - and everything that needs doing that day needs to be done.

This means that some days we get to sit down and watch a film after dinner, and other's he gets in a little later and is too tired so we eat and go to bed early. 

It also means that B's alarm goes off at 5;30am, and again at 6am. If I sleep through the first one, I'm not lucky enough to sleep through the second. I get up usually before he does, and make tea and coffee - I'm the coffee drinker - and try to get some breakfast done for us. 

Not always having time to finish things during the week means our weekends are pretty full and tiring. We need a weekend to the weekend! We have a separate piece of land we rent from a nearby farm, where we grow veg and stuff, and that takes a lot of time up too. We also keep our ducks and chickens at home in our garden, and we spend quite a lot of time with them as they are all tame and love attention.

We spent our Saturday decorating the chicken coop and making the pond bigger
and better for the ducks. Follow me on Instagram or Twitter for more!

The amount of dust, mud -or at least what I hope is mud! -and straw that gets into our house is incredible. I can hoover all the floors, and 10 minutes later straw will appear. It gets EVERYWHERE! Our bathroom is pretty much always muddy and has piles of straw and dust everywhere as that's the first place B goes once he gets in from work. I hoover and sweep every day to keep it to a minimum!

Some of the better things that being a farmer's wife brings is having cuddles and chats with the piglets. Today alone I have had four piglets nibble my hand -yes they have teeth! - a cuddle with one of the smallest and I caught a piglet that escaped! Good job too, as being out in the open field would mean it's free food for predators and some people think it's funny to steal them while they are babies! Good luck when a tiny piglet becomes a 600KG boar.

These piglets are from 5 to 8 KG in weight. At this size, they are very curious and
want to know if I have any food for them.

This piglet is one of the smallest in her pen. She doesn't mind being held,
but I still have to hold her quite tightly so she doesn't wiggle or kick
and hurt herself or me.

All in all, I wouldn't say being a farmer's wife is bad at all. There may not be much structure to the day -anything could happen and B be called in on days off or be later or earlier than usual - and I may not always get the one-on-one time I want with B, but it means I appreciate it more when I do get time alone with him or when he's home on time. 

I love seeing how much he loves his job. He's happy to work with the animals, and comes back almost every day with a funny or cute story about the pigs. 

Sometimes I'm able to go with him to feed the weaner's - the piglets that don't feed from their mums anymore - and I take the time to get in the pen with them and play. I've also gone with B to catch some pigs that managed to completely knock down their fencing, leaving them to run riot all over the field! 

It's hard work, but I love seeing what he does and helping out in any way I can. I feel like a kid getting excited to go to work with their parent sometimes haha! Getting to ride in the tractors with B has to be one of the things I love most. 

We spend most of our time in work clothes and wellies, but sometimes we do scrub up good! This is a picture us just before a wedding in July, look at how different we look! Haha!

So what do you think? Could you be a farmer's wife? Comment down below! 

Also, if you'd like to know more in a more specific post about what actually happens on a pig farm, or know more about what B does and how it works, please let me know! 

Thank you for reading,
Bella xx