We stood around a football tailgate last month, everybody in orange and blue. Teenagers bounced back and forth between their own tailgates and ours. Three families’ worth of farm dads relaxed and caught up, with crops safely tucked away in the bins — some less than 24 hours before.

I thought back 24 years, when three couples sat around a big table together at the Illinois Farm Bureau annual meeting: Ted and Julie Mies, Allyn and Amy Buhrow, my husband, John, and myself. The guys were joining IFB’s state young farmer committee, and we were all newlyweds. Some of us knew each other from college.

We didn’t know a lot that day; none of us were over 27 years old, and all of us were farming with our parents. But we’d heard good things about the friends we could make on this state committee. We liked that.

It turned out to be exactly right. Over the next four years, we had babies together, went on vacations together, and traveled between western, northern and central Illinois to visit each other. The guys farmed thousands of acres together on the phone. We took our toddlers to Grand Bear Lodge in the winter and Lake Michigan in the summer.

We were three Illinois farm families, and we grew up together. 

Between us, we raised seven babies, and now they’re teenagers and young adults. One is still in high school, two are gainfully employed, and five count themselves as Illini. One went to Kansas State, but we still love her. Two are college roommates, and when they lean in for bestie jokes and giggles, it makes the mamas teary.

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It’s a small agricultural world

The beautiful thing is, we’re not alone. Again and again over time, groups of farm families have become friends through IFB’s state young farmer committee, and it led to lifelong friendships.

Steve and Phyllis Hess farm just up the road from us, near Bushnell, Ill., and encouraged us well in those years to prioritize our young farmer friendships. They formed a similar set of friendships in the ’80s, and they still get together.

“Make time. You won’t regret it,” Steve told us. He was right. We’ve learned a thing or two.

Long-distance friendships require intentionality — and commitment to drive two-plus hours with a baby, a toddler and a preschooler, but that’s another story. But we’ve worked to make it happen.

Nothing beats spending time with people who understand exactly what it means to farm with your dad, or to live next door to your in-laws, or to simultaneously work and raise kids and help your husband.

Back when we first met, every December meant a trip to Chicago for IFB’s annual meeting. We sat around the young leader suite in Chicago and bounced babies and swapped just as many stories about potty training as we did about dads “sitting on their throne in the combine” and how we couldn’t wait to do things the way we wanted. Now, those babies are on the threshold of farming with us and we’re about to be the old guys.

Will our kids say the same things about us? That’s not a rhetorical question. Frankly, I’d be disappointed if they don’t. The generational circle of life is never closer than on a farm.

Mostly, I hope these kids grow up and seek out the same kinds of friendships, because they remember the chaos and joy of making homemade pizza with seven kids on New Year’s Eve — and parents who loved time together.

Doing life

There’s a phrase that gets thrown around urban settings about “doing life together,” which is both hokey and accurate. The folks you intentionally spend time with will, in fact, do a lot of life together.

Among our three families, we’ve buried parents and celebrated high school graduations. We’ve counseled each other’s kids on career advice. The kids have given each other college tours and volleyball tips.

I owe my favorite pizza dough recipe to Amy Buhrow, and my favorite lasagna recipe to Julie Mies.

In the end, we’ve made each other’s lives better, far beyond pizza and lasagna.

Because at the end of that day of tailgating, after we’d gone to the game and come back to the tailgate, packed up and headed out, we picked up barbecue and took it to 4-H House, where two of our girls live together. They shoved tables together. We gathered around and ate and listened to our kids’ stories. And we laughed long and hard.

Together. Around a table. With your people.

I have to think, as we head into the holiday season, that we have much to be thankful for. And this? This might be the real Christmas spirit.

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