What can I say…I do love Jonathan! I feel pretty darn fortunate to be married to my best friend. When we met in 1987, we talked for hours. He was going to a college that was about 2 hours from mine. So, we had many phone conversations and wrote many letters. Keep in mind, this was before phone company plans had unlimited long distance calling, and way before email. Those letters were either typed on an electric typewriter, or written by hand, and, well, we won’t discuss the long distance charges we racked up on our parent’s phone bills!
We were married in 1988, and that is when I became a farm wife. Over the past 26 years, we have lived, parented, and worked as a team. I love that we can tell jokes while we’re working, we can discuss farming matters while we’re driving places, and we generally like hanging out with each other.
I have always admired Jonathan’s patience and encouragement when teaching me how to run a piece of machinery I haven’t run before. Since I didn’t grow up on a farm, and I really didn’t want to be the one messing things up or breaking things, I was a bit apprehensive at times. It is due to his confidence in me that I was willing to learn how to operate the combine…and now I love it! Jonathan is also a respected boss to our migrant workers. He always treats them fairly, and genuinely cares about them. It is because of his compassion that we remodeled a shed into a summer apartment for one of the migrant families. He strongly believes that these people need to be treated as…people…not second class citizens based on their heritage or accents.
Jonathan has been a great dad to our three girls. From the time they were little, he played an active role in their upbringing…although sometimes I questioned if what he was teaching our girls was good or bad. When they are around while cookies are being made, the recipe never seems to yield as many cookies as it does when they are not around. In the past year, each of our girls have lived at home for a little while and worked for us on the farm. Even though they are in their 20’s, the parenting doesn’t stop…it just changes. When he walked Anna down the aisle this past June, and handed her over to our son-in-law, Doug, the look of love and pride on his face brought many people to tears…including, of course, me. The song that the two of them chose for the father/daughter dance is one that always makes me cry anyway. They thought it was just great that I lost it when the song started. It was difficult to take photos of them with all the tears in my eyes. I love how much he loves his family!
Life hasn’t always been easy, and I am thankful that Jonathan has been such a great teammate in this life of ours. I love you, Jonathan!
Day 1: Pizza
Day 2: Shoes
Day 3: Shout Stain Remover
Day 4: The Ability to Vote
Day 5: My Heritage
Day 6: NASCAR
Day 7: Black Velvet for Photography
Day 8: Strong Coffee and Strong Hairspray
Day 9: Peacefulness
Day 10: Winter’s First Snow
Day 11: Freedom
Day 12: Dairy
Day 13: Jonathan
Click here to go to Holly Spangler’s blog, and see the link for other 30 Day Challenge Bloggers
