There's something wrong with my husband......

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There's something wrong with my husband folks....but I'm hoping no one finds a cure soon!!

Nearly 4 years ago, I married this "townie" and drug him off to the old homeplace. Could hardly ever PRY him away from his recliner and the remote for about the first year or two. Then something started to happen - Oh, it was slow and insideous, but I've finally caught on that something is going on!

First, it was sitting on the porch glider with his coffee, watching the humingbirds doing their mating dance. Then, I noticed that when he was out mowing with the tractor that the areas being mowed were starting to get larger - and he remarked that his hay-fever wasn't near as bad as it had been in town. Soon after, he began riding around the place on his four-wheeler (formerly reserved for racing only) and commenting "You know, we cut a few trees and put in a couple little bridges, we could have a real nice path for the four wheeler and walks."

So, we got in the habit of taking a 1/2 mile walk around the farm on the evenings that I was off work (cardiovascular exercise, the former gym rat told me), but funny thing is - the tempo of our walks slowed down and he started pointing things out to me "Look at the size of those deer tracks...and those are coon - we'll have to watch for them when the sweet corn gets ready." or "Hey, lets walk back by the lake and see if the beaver dam is still there."

Last summer, he put up my clothesline with only a minimal amout of complaining. And after he and Unc built our chicken tractor, he went ahead and built a nice hutch for Sis's bunny (which somehow came along with the chicken deal) all by himself. And made it so it would fit over my raised garden beds. He even almost stopped whining about me using his truck to haul manure and wood chips. Then he bought be a roll of fence wire and fence posts for my birthday! Come fall, he drug an old woodstove out of the shed and installed it in his shop. I brought out an old upholstered rocker and now I often find him sittin' with his boots propped by the stove, looking out the window at out west field.

Now he gathers the eggs when it's his turn to do the chores and dutifully notes the number on the calendar - and chews me out if I forget to write mine down. We had to buy town eggs a couple of weeks or so ago and he commented on the difference between our eggs and them and said "How many chickens do you think we'd need so we wouldn't ever have to buy eggs - I'd like enough so I could take some into Mom too." and "I'm gonna stop by Rural King for some dog food, I'll see if their chicks are in yet - did you know there are baby chicken feeders in the attic in the shed? I'll get 'em down so you can clean 'em up.". He was amazed to learn that you could buy baby chicks by mail and I left him happily perusing the Murray McMurray website.

Last night, we were at the grocery store and he refused to buy green beans "They don't taste like the ones you canned.". I was paging through the seed catalogs and making a list later on and he surprized me by picking up the catalog saying " I want some of those little tomatoes that Sis buys at the store. Can we grow Honeydew melons? Hey look, here's spagetti squash! You aren't going to plant as many zucchini next year, are you? Are we going to plant pumpkins for the cheerleaders to sell? What kind of beans do we plant? I didn't know you could grow celery! What's kohlrabi taste like?". I think my seed order just doubled!!

So all you folks whose families are resistive to the Countryside lifestyle - Take heart! It may have a long incubation period, but this lifestyle IS contagious!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), January 20, 2001

Answers

Polly, It is comforting to have someone by your side that enjoys the things you do. How very wonderful, that a full new life has been opened up to your husband. My husband makes many of the same comments to me. It's nice when someone learns the beauty of nature and self reliance. It opens up a whole new world. Happy living!!!

-- Shau Marie (shau@centurytel.net), January 20, 2001.

Thank you so much for the story, Polly, I need the encouragement. I recently fell in love with a townie, too, a very kind, intelligent, generous man who is a very gifted artist. He makes stained glass and beveled glass doors, windows, panels, etc., and has always lived in Houston. I have always lived away from town. When we met, everything clicked, almost. I live a semi-homesteading life; I have large gardens, fruit trees, poultry, rabbits, etc., but have a small business in town. He has always lived in the shadow of downtown Houston. BUT, he also likes to garden and since we've been dating he likes spending a lot of time at my house. He's fascinated that my Federal heats the whole house, that clothes dry overnight on the wood clothes rack, when my stupid roosters crow, that you can grow certain vegetables over the winter. He thought he was eating chicken salad sandwiches the other day, and I just shook my head. He asked, "OK, what am I eating? You already told me that the beef we were eating the other day was deer--now what is this?" I smiled and told him it was rabbit salad sandwiches.

I have suggested to him that he could have his business anywhere because he always has to drive to job sites anyway. Then, a while back, I gave him a stack of old issues of Countryside and Backwoods Home magazines, and he's starting to get all sorts of ideas. I have been praying that this works out, but I am prepared to be flexible, too. Thanks again for your story!

-- Hannah Maria Holly (hannahholly@hotmail.com), January 20, 2001.


Great story, Polly! And not just the content, your style is very readable and enjoyable. I think you should submit it to Countryside.

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), January 20, 2001.

I second Joy's suggestion to submit your article for publication! There are a lot of Hope-to-be's out there, and it could give them some encouragement! Sure home my honey gets excited about living out here someday! Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), January 20, 2001.

Contagious? More like kudzu.Run! Run for your life! Run! run! run! It only gets worse! You can't believe what happens.What they'll drag home next.What idea they'll get.Speaking from 20 years of this. Run like the wind! Before it too late.You know how fast kudzu grows.

What really gets tough is ,then, slowing them down to a rational and doable level of projects.Oh, guess I haven't managed to do that one either.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), January 20, 2001.



I'll also second Joys' suggestion, Polly. I love to read your stories. Can still remember the one where you had the neighbor lady over and you all had lunch or the one about taking the sheets off the clothes line and how good they smelled when you made the bed. I could almost smell them myself. Hope you get back in the habit of writing many, many more. Pretty please??? On to your hubby....mines' getting closer to my kind of lifestyle too. Ain't it great!? I can hardly get him off the hill anymore. He use to grumble about gardening chores especially, now he just plods right along beside me. He's still not as obsessive about the garden as I am, but maybe a few more years? Caught him looking at the seed catalogs the other night and know that I'm going to be buying more than I had thought. They're never too old to change, are they!? :)

-- Annie (mistletoe@earthlink.net), January 20, 2001.

Awwww - I'm blushin'!!

Come to think of it, Annie - I always did say my family members were a bunch of characters! Okay, I'll take a copy to work with me tonight and buff and fluff it; then try to figure out how to submit it.

Hannah, I hope everything works out for you! Sharon, I figure in another 20 years, he'll about have all MY ideas finished up - then he can start on his! Everyone else - thanks for your stories and encouragements - love you all!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), January 20, 2001.


Can I trade husbands? Just kidding. I can't see my husband ever unbending but I'll take heart in your story. Maybe after he retires and no longer has a hour commute. PS I agree with Joy. Love to see your story in Countryside.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), January 20, 2001.

Polly: I read your story to my wife. We both had a nice, warmhearted chucle from it. Thanks! Maybe when you buff it and have it ready to go, couldn't you just E-mail it to CS?

-- john leake (natlivent@pcpros.net), January 20, 2001.

Is it contagious? If it is I'd like to send you my husband so he can be thoroughly exposed to it! Mine thinks nature is fine as long as it stays outside and he stays inside. Hmmm actually he has started walking with me occasionally on the farm.....there might be hope for him yet. Of course I can hang it up if there are sports on TV...lol

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), January 21, 2001.


Polly,

I like to call that "growing out of something, instead of "outgrowing". We grow out of our past, just as crops grow out of manure and fertile soil. Thats why I never rush change or wish I could change the past, I only try to navigate my future. Congratulations.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 21, 2001.


I was the "townie" and my husband the "Countryboy"! It 'snuck' up on me ,too! Don't know what happened to the girl who asked "how do you flush this thing" (I was in the out house!!!!!)I also think you should submit it to CS....It's really cute.

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), January 21, 2001.

Polly, my husband and i are both from the city, he is from the small rural town (pop. 1200)we live by and i was raised in a city of 17,000. However, my parents both grew up on farms, unlike his, and I would love nothing more than to quit my city job and concentrate on our homestead. My hubby doesn't think its feasible. But, he didn't think he would like raising chickens and sheep either. He, like you husband, does the mowing thing now, cleand the barn stalls out on a regular basis, doesn't mind the chores at all! He still has a way to go, in my mind, but he is slowly getting there. I will be patient. You are so lucky, unless he takes it overboard. I don't think there is a cure however! JoAnn in SD

-- JoAnn (jonehls@excite.com), January 21, 2001.

It sounds pretty serious. Pretty soon he will want to go off the grid, pull the pump and put in a hand operated one, get a hand operated washing machine.

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), January 21, 2001.

Oh, how I wish! We had one fun, productive weekend when I disconnected the cable TV! I can only do that when I'm desperate, or he'll figure it out! Do you girls know how lucky you are?!

-- Kathy (catfish@bestweb.net), January 21, 2001.


I agree that Polly ought to submit her little story to the magazine, but how many of you would be willing to allow your little anecdotes to be attached to it?!? I think that the whole thread, with a little editing, would make a neat article!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), January 21, 2001.

Polly -- I loved your article. My husband was a "farmer" and me a "city gal", but we're quickly changing roles! I can't wait till we get out in the country and raise all the animals, vegetables, grow our own hay and we both go to "seed". I got a clue something was a little off 25 years ago when I was outside cutting grass & trimming shrubs and he was inside baking cookies for our daughter's girl scouts meeting!!!

-- Marsha (CaprisMaa@aol.com), January 23, 2001.

Great story, Polly!

My husband and I live in the suburbs and I'm coming to accept what's been pulling at me for years....that I'm a "homesteader," at heart. So, blooming where we're planted, I'm beginning my journey "back"-- back to being more self-sufficient, EVEN IF the grocery store is only about three minutes away (when you hit the lights right, otherwise it could take ten...ahhh, city life!). We have a small vegatable garden and many larger flower gardens. I've wanted to extend the vegetable garden outward into the yard for years, but my husband's grumblings finally defeated my spirit completely. Now he is so happy to see me planning and getting back into them again so, he dares not say too much, lest I go the other way. He's a city guy, loves all the conveniences, but he's also a guy who can weed for hours(yuck) and sit on his porch swing, contemplating, I don't know what, but totally enjoying those moments. He observes the small things in life and finds pleasure in them, like watching the birds or commenting on how he saw three honeybees(a blight killed them off and we're just starting to see their return)! Little by little, I'm rekindling what I also value in life and am planning the gardens again...what to grow from seed, what will go where when spring returns. And, this year, my husband is more supportive of the expansion of our gardens into becoming more productive and sustaining(food), along with "pretty"(flowers, just to a lesser degree). He doesn't understand my philosophical need to be more independent of the mega- corporations that encroach and destroy everything in life. But, I really began to see something in him during the time of my own self- imposed exhile. And, while he doesn't know how he contributed to my previous slide in attitude, his devotion during this "down time", showed me what HE values. I don't feel downhearted anymore about our different visions. He has a good view, if not as far-sighted as mine. We're taking different paths and, hopefully, will someday arrive at the same goal. We don't HAVE to live this way of life....the grocery store is so close by. It's more a matter of not just sustaining a garden, but living a conviction, it is to me anyway. Someday, I hope he will feel that same desire.

Just a different turn on Polly's story.

-- Joanne Schaefer (JoOhio1@aol.com), January 23, 2001.


Polly, you give that man a big hug and plant what ever he wants in the garden! Mine just informed me that after 15 years living in our little house on the ranch, he wants to move to town! Into a place with a little backyard so we won't have so much to take care of.

Most of the houses in our area don't have yards big enough for my patio furniture and the swingset. I'm not sure what's going on with him but I've decided to just sit back and see how serious he really is. So far we haven't even looked at any house.

If what ever your husband has is contagious please send me some. I'd like mine to become infected.

Pray for us everyone. I grew up in a track house and I'm not anxious to go back.

-- Jennifer Schwabauer (schwabauer@aol.com), January 23, 2001.


I loved everyones story ! Polly, you are a very interesting writer. Maybe a career you should pursue in your "extry" time. Jennifer, lay low. Maybe your husband was just tired when he suggested moving to the city. I can't blame you for never wanting to go back. There must be something in the air because my husband - always a country boy at heart but never a homestead type - has recently shown some glimmer of a new way of thinking too. He has become very interested in solar energy. Something I have always thought was the only true hope of the future. He has read all of the available articles in our back issues of CS and has been doing some research on it on the internet. He is even showing interest in our utility bill which he always had the grin and pay it attitude about before. When we started our first garden plot last week he insisted on making it at least double the size I was dreaming of. He said "we" need room for composting, and some vine fruits. The other night he suggested a clothes line! I have been wanting one since we moved out here. He didn't see the need since there were only the two of us to do laundry for. Now he is all jazzed about the pulley system he is going to install for me when the weather is agreeable again and talked a little about building me an inside drying rack out of some extra PVC that we have. He still doesn't help much with the animals unless I need something heavy done but he comes outside more with me when I am working with them and lends advice and help without my asking. I think there is hope there. Now if we can only complete some of these projects that we have planned and started - all will be well with our world !

-- Cindy Palmer (jandcpalmer@sierratel.com), January 25, 2001.

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