Farmer's Wife Friday--I Lost my Heart to a Farmer

Today's Farmer's Wife story is perfect for Valentine's Day. It's a love story for sure and might even make a great Hallmark Special. See what you think. Here's the gist of it: Heroine grew up in the country. She hated it and vowed never to stay there, let alone raise a daughter to do so. After a college education and happy years in the city the unbelievable happened....She fell in love with a farmer! Oh, no!! Loving him so, she moved to the farm but despised everything about it-except Mr. Farmer. 

 To see if she could find a way to relieve her unhappiness, she made a list of pros and cons:
Pros: 
          1.Husband interested and content.
          2. Independence, and so many hours together.
          3. Higher moral tone than city life.
          4. Abundance of room and fresh air.
          5. Fresh eggs, milk and vegetables.
Cons: 
          1. Mud.
          2. Lack of conveniences.
          3. Lack of money.
          4. Lack of water.
          5. Lack of society.
          6. Lack of beauty.
          7. Monotony of diet.
          8. Monotony of thought.
          9. Untidiness of everything.
         10. "Early to bed, early to rise."


Now, anyone can see that there are twice as many cons as pros. Instead of throwing the sugar bowl and breaking it, our heroine and her love decided to see how they could remove  enough cons so that "farming would be THE life".

 Broken Sugar Bowl--#12

Tackling the "cons" together, and one by one, the farmer and his wife began solving the problem of discontentment.

 Farmer's Puzzle--#33

They were realistic in their plans, knowing that it would be years before all the changes would happen: "but a definite plan is a big help and each convenience we complete is a joy realized after much pleasant anticipation."

 Grape Basket-- #45

The farmers added hens, cream. asparagus, and fruit as sideline money ventures and planned to grow a bigger variety of vegetables as additions to their diet.

 Morning--#57

With our 21st Century conveniences, we can only imagine what a happy day it was when Mrs. Farmer got an oil stove and fireless cooker to make her mornings a bit more comfortable.  There is so much common sense in this letter. I think that it might be my favorite so far. We can all learn to compromise and make something "work" if we really want to. She says, "Side by side, we planned the beautiful and the practical, and some day our home will be truly elegant."

She finishes, "We are the happiest couple I know, have more chance to enjoy each other on a farm than elsewhere and I can wish no greater blessing than for my daughter than the love of a farmer like 'Dad'." (Isn't that the sweetest thing?!)
So, what do you think? Shall we all campaign for the next Hallmark Special to be "I Lost My Heart to a Farmer"?


In conclusion, I'm going to add a couple of pros and cons of my own:
Pros:  1. Paper piecing makes for accurate stitching.
            2. Paper piecing makes it is easy to combine small pieces into one larger piece. The Morning block had 5 small pieces in the middle section originally...Strange.)


Cons:  1. When paper piecing creates 4 inset seams, it cancels out the accuracy thing. (That Morning block, again.)
             2. When paper piecing patterns are not reversed when drawn, the resulting block is backwards. (My Farmer's Puzzle is reversed. Oh, well.)

Be sure to visit Cindy to see what she thought of these Alabama farmers. Her blocks are always gorgeous!