Few things in my life exude the amount of pride I feel in saying "I'm a farm girl". Its something I am never afraid to exclaim. Occasionally a situation will present itself wherein I get dirty or there is a rat or snake and I loudly / proudly announce to ANYONE within earshot that its okay because I grew up on a farm. I also apply my farm-girl title to situations where something takes a lot of work or heavy physical labor. I grew up on a farm so apparently this automatically lands me in the category of hard-worker. [Note: I am beginning to realize how condescending this sounds to city girls. I can see why they would feel/think that I was implying they had, in fact, not done an ounce of work in their lives because they grew up surrounded by sidewalks and paved streets.]
I lived in an old farm house - not necessarily air tight. I remember one winter where I woke up to find my stuffed animals covered in a layer of snow. So anything that was outside didn't have much trouble finding its way in. I had many cats - farm cats. They all lived outside and each day I would go outside and lovingly stroke them. (Tom, keep your stories of our cat-torturing days to yourself.) My dad planted corn and beans. One of my chores would sometimes be to walk beans, pulling out weeds - getting up close and personal with them. Our house didn't have central air. We had one window unit on the first floor. My bedroom was on the second floor. The only way to survive at night was to open the windows as far as possible and stick a large box fan in the opening in hopes of sucking IN some of the cooler air. For years, none of these were a problem...until...
The allergy monster showed up in my life. Suddenly I became this snot-nosed, red-eyed, sneeze-prone shadow of my once proud farm-girl self. Each fall it strikes me with a vengeance. I call it "the revenge of the weeds". Its ugly. All my farm-girl toughness flies out the window as I hunt down medications and buy kleenex boxes by the dozen. I essentially do anything for relief. And I know people will no longer be impressed when they hear "I....achoo...am a fa....achoo...farm...achoo...girl...sniffle". Thankfully, the horrible weeds succumb to hard freezes and blankets of snow. But those 2 months of the year - September and October - the battle rages.
Interestingly, since I am with child, my doctor and I have decided that it would be best if I avoided allergy medications as much as possible. When he told me this I immediately agreed saying, "whatever is best for the baby!!" This coming from the woman who was on two prescriptions last fall - one of which was a "steroid" because nothing else was strong enough. At any rate, I am 100% drug free. I am sure in ordinary circumstances I would have given in to medications by this time, but by sheer force of will I have refused to acknowledge the revenge of the weeds.
A few things help my cause - one of which is, ironically, living in town. Hubby keeps the backyard free of weeds as much as possible. When he mows the lawn or spends the day at the farm, he immediately showers and washes his clothes. I work in an air conditioned office all day. Our home has central air. We do not open windows. I do not spend time outside during these two months. I don't touch cats. I am constantly reminding myself that I CAN do this. And so far, so good. Yes, I sneeze. Yes, my nose runs. Yes, my eyes are irritated. But my main secret is to not think about it. I refuse to admit that I cannot do this. And that makes me wonder if I just had more of a farm-girl tough-it-out mental attitude every fall if I could get by so well.
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