My wife and I have taken on the daunting task of building a new home. Currently we live in a sprawling two-bedroom 1200 square foot house. Two years ago we decided to have another baby. We thought we could manage in our small home with two children and that we would build a new home sometime in the distant future. A few months after we decided to have the baby we found out that we were going to have two babies. Two babies plus a three year old equals a house full. Our distant future plans had to be put into motion sooner than expected. After a year of searching we have finally found a house to build that we both can agree on.

We met with a prospective builder this past Sunday. I really liked the guy until we started talking about agriculture. He made the comment that "farmers don't do anything in the winter." I had to bite my tongue to keep from letting him have it. Instead of giving him a tongue lashing, I replied that we do enjoy the winter because it cuts hours down to about 40 per week depending on the unexpected. After he left I began to reflect back on our conversation and try to figure out what would make him think that farmers do not work in the winter.

I am from rural West Tennessee where row crop farms are most prevalent. My family and I have a diversified farming operation for the area. We raise corn, soybeans, vegetables, hogs, and cattle. I think that my builder associates warm weather with farm work. He needs to visit my hogs, cattle, and equipment shed for a few days this winter. Here on our farm we spend about three hours a day caring for our livestock. It has been an unusually cold winter this year so that number is very conservative. The barns that house my hogs are older structures and require maintenance daily. We have close to two hundred thousand bushels of grain housed in our grain bins that we are delivering currently. In our spare time we are preparing our equipment for the upcoming season. This preparation includes cleaning equipment (wash and wax all tractors and planters), planter preperation (instalation of specialty attachments for no-till and callibration of seed meters) and general maintenance (oil changes, fluid checks, removal and replacement of worn parts).

I spend a lot of money in the winter. This is the time when our farm purchases inputs such as fertilizer, seed, and crop protection agents. I usually spend a week or two negotiating the best deals for these inputs with different companies. During this time I deliberate on which variety of seed I will place on each farm and how much fertilizer we will use. We farm 3,000 acres and there are close to 100 different varieties of seed to choose from. Usually when I come in for lunch I will get a sandwich and sit in front of the computer screen to see what the grain and fuel markets are doing. I also use this lunch 'break' to catch up on missied calls and text messages.

I do not punch a time clock or keep up with the hours I work. I have often thought about keeping up with them to calculate how much I make per hour but decided that this would be depressing and I have elected not to do so. The work that we do on our farm is ever changing, often difficult, but always enjoyable. I enjoy being a farmer and producing food for a hungry world in the winter, spring, summer, and fall. I often wonder if this enjoyment is translated by non-farmers as 'not working;' if so then I am guilty as charged in that I never work.