How to Know If Agriculture Has Consumed Your Life

Farmers and ranchers get into their work so much that it can become more than just a job. It can become their whole life. The following list can help you determine if agriculture has taken over your life.

1. Going on a date with your spouse involves “a quick drive” through an implement dealership to look at a tractor.
2. You have 2,536 pairs of gloves scattered in vehicles, tractors, the shop, barn, and house.
3. You own a generator.
4. At least one outbuilding is twice the size of your home.
5. All of your winter coats and caps advertize lick tubs, seed companies, sale barns, implement dealerships or your preferred source for bulls.
6. A toothpick holder always sets on the kitchen table but you still carry them in your shirt pocket, hat, pickup, and tractor.
7. Your vehicles are licked clean by livestock.
8. Family vacations are centered around county or state fair, farm and ranch shows, stock shows, agricultural conferences or conventions.
9. When your teenage son’s buddies show up, you see an ‘instant work crew.’
10. When the floorboards of your pickup get wet, the cab smells like cake, grain, manure, cows or hay.
11. You were shivareed on your wedding night.
12. Come November or December you justify buying the equipment you’ve been mulling over, for tax purposes.
13. FFA and/or 4-H is currently, or was a part of your life at some point.
14. Your kids’ teacher taught you or your spouse in grade school.
15. You’ve invested more money in equipment than in your house.
16. You plow your own road in the winter.
17. You’ll simultaneously drive a tractor or combine while eating lunch or dinner so you don’t lose any time even though you eat it in 1.2 minutes.
18. You’re raising your family in the same house you grew up in or that your grandparents lived in when you were a kid.
19. It is of utmost importance that your tractor, combine, or swather has a radio.
20. You’re a preferred Schwan’s customer.
21. You get a discount on auto insurance.
22. You consolidate date nights with farm/ranch supply shopping.
23. The reason you get home after 2 a.m. is because you stayed in the field to finish baling, planting, or combining.
24. You check the weather at least twice a day.
25. The number of vehicles, trucks and trailers you get licensed every year is a page long.
26. When you go out for supper with your spouse, you have to check a pasture, field, water tank or gate on the way.
27. Your spouse is from your hometown or a neighboring town.
28. You’ve had plants sprout on the floorboards of your pickup before.
29. A bad day on the job is when the radio isn’t working.
30. Even though you could have an inside job that’s less stressful and laborious, pays better, has better benefits, pays you while on vacation and for holidays that you don’t have to work on, you still prefer your job on the farm or ranch.

If you’re guilty of any of the aforementioned statements, that’s a good sign for agriculture and the economy. It means there will be plenty of opportunities for other people to do all those jobs that farmers and ranchers don’t want.

This was originally published in the Mitchell Daily Republic, February 11, 2011 ©2011 Amy Kirk