10 Life Facts Only Farmers Will Understand

As a farmer, I have farm friends and I have non-farm friends.

And while I love all of them, there’s a certain kind of peace I feel when I’m with my country crowd. It feels like coming home. Where I can truly be myself because they understand exactly why my social media feed is nothing but pictures of livestock, fields, and farm life quotes.

The fact that we all come from different walks of life is what keeps things interesting.

But sometimes my non-farm friends have a tough time understanding the rural life.

Here’s 10 life facts only farmers will understand.

1. You Don’t Have Set Work Hours

Even if you still have a 9-5 like me, when you’re a farmer, you also have a 5-11.

When your non-farm friends want to hang out “after work” it’s hard for them to realize your day doesn’t end when the clock strikes 5.

They might hear you say, “sorry I’m late, I had to deliver a litter of pigs”, or “I can’t hang out tonight because it’s gonna rain tomorrow” and think you’re full of crap or making excuses.

When in reality, you’ve been up since 4 a.m., you’re exhausted, and you really did deliver that litter of pigs. And probably also tedded the hay so you could bale it before it rains. If you’re like me you think - “should I send them a picture to prove it?”

2. You’re Not The Life of the Party

I’ll admit, in college, I could stay out til 5 a.m., crash for a few hours and then get back up for that 8 a.m. exam. But that was during the week.

On weekends at home on the farm, if I could be in bed by 9 a.m. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!

Now that I’m in my late 30’s this doesn’t happen much anymore (ok, at all), but on weekends in my early 20’s, my non-farm friends would be heading out at 11 p.m. while I was hunkered down in bed dozing off with a good book.

In addition, your non-farm friends can enjoy the party til 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning and then sleep til noon. You on the other hand, have to be up for morning chores in a few hours.

Cue the expresso machine.

3 . You Avoid Certain Conversations

No, just me?

Sometimes when your non-farm friends ask, “what did you do today?”, or they overhear a conversation you’re having with your partner, it’s best to not go into too much detail.

I’ll never forget the time I WAS buying all those things at the store, and I WAS having that conversation with my husband on my phone standing in the checkout line. I’m pretty sure the lady behind me took a picture of me just in case she needed to submit it to America’s Most Wanted.

On the other hand, if your non-farm friends ask you questions about farm life and how something works, you’re more than happy to give them the entire rundown right then and there.

4 . You’re So Tan!

Ah the perks of not having to spend a dime to get a good tan.

Sometimes I feel my non-farm friends get jealous that I’m golden bronze all summer long. What they don’t see is the long hours spent in the blazing hot sun.

If we switched places, I’m sure they’d rather get their tan from lying down, eyes closed listening to spa music.

5 . You Wear Boots…Everywhere

You have boots for all occasions:

• Work

• Weddings

• Dining out

• Around the barn

• Around the house (though NEVER in the house!)

• Etc.

For you, boots aren’t just a fashion statement, they’re your entire foot wardrobe. In fact, you feel out of place if you’re NOT wearing boots.

And it doesn’t matter how many pairs you already have, there’s always room for one (or two) more.

6 . Your “Clean” Is Different Than Theirs

No matter how much you clean up for a night out, your non-farm friends will always be able to detect the lingering odor of the barn, the feed, or the shop that you’ve become oblivious to.

That smell just lives in your skin and can’t be washed off - like the grease and callouses on your hands.

Or if you’re like me, you did the “quick change” where you change your clothes, splash your face, spray some perfume on and away you go. Only to have your non-farm friends pick out strands of hay from your hair, or point out the penicillin stains you have on what you thought were clean jeans.

Hey, you tried.

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7 . Your Social Media Feeds Look VERY Different

Your non-farm friends find it really weird your social media feeds are nothing but pictures of animals, barns, tractors, and farm life quotes.

Or maybe it’s simply the fact that you take 50 selfies with your favorite cow and post them that confuses them.

Either way, you don’t live (or aspire to) the “Instagram filter” life and you like that your feed reflects that.

8 . You Have Different Life Goals

While your non-farm friends might be busy trying to climb that corporate ladder, or save to buy their dream house in the Hollywood Hills, you’re busy watching that online livestock auction to see if you can get a good deal on some feeder calves, or trying to find financing to buy that adjacent piece of land next to your family’s farm so someone can’t develop it.

Neither of these are wrong by the way, just different.

9 . You Get Annoyed When People Don’t Use The Right Terminology

When my non-farm friends visit and see the baby pigs, inevitably everything is either “a boy” or “a girl”. And while that’s technically correct, I’m always passively-aggressively correcting them saying something like, “yeah that is a pretty looking gilt (or barrow)”.

If your non-farm friends come visit and point out a steer and call it a cow, you’re the first to correct them.

They may not have come from a farm, but you better believe you’re going to make sure they know the difference between a cow and a heifer, hay and straw, a plow and a disc, before they leave.

10 . You Make A Big Deal Over Current Events

While many non-farm friends may watch the news and be concerned over rising prices at the grocery store, you know the issue goes much deeper than that.

You know that a few more weeks of high fertilizer, fuel, and seed prices may spell the end of your 5th generation family farm. The end of a legacy so many worked tirelessly to build.

You know farmers dumping milk and not getting paid for it for even a few days can mean the difference between keeping the cows or filing for bankruptcy.

While your non-farm friends can spend endless hours scrolling TikTok for funny cat videos, you’re watching RFD TV to see what the markets are doing so you can try and stay afloat.

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What are some other facts of life only farmers know? Drop them in the comments and let’s continue the conversation there!👇

Until next time,
Charlie