My house is a working farmhouse – it isn't just a farmhouse style of home, it is a house on a farm that has to earn its keep. No fewer than six times a day do dirty work boots cross the threshold, on into the kitchen, across the carpet in the living room and into the farm office.
I have begged and pleaded for my husband take his boots off, but quite frankly after 22 years I have given up. Just don't tell Chris, because sometimes I still nag (you know, for fun and appearances).
Related: Farmer's Daughter to Farmer's Wife, Now Farm Mom
I hate to clean, I would rather pressure-wash a hog barn than clean a bathroom. Seeing as we had company coming, it seemed necessary.
My sister always told me there were two kinds of visitors – friends and company. Friends know you and accept you and your home the way it is. Company you have to clean for. I choose to consider everyone who comes to my home as a friend but I was pretty sure my Mom would like me to consider the Lt. Governor of Indiana as company!
So cleaning I did, but while cleaning I assembled this list of 5 things I think should be socially acceptable in a working farmhouse:
1. A time lapsed fly spray bomb on the inside of the house above every outside door.
2. Grated kitchen floor with a flushable pit – I often wonder if this family isn't single handedly responsible for soil erosion.
3. Central pressure washing system – I have no use for the central vacuum systems installed in some houses but install a central pressure washing system with controls and hoses in each bathroom and kitchen and my world would change.
Related: A Farmer's Wife and Stay at Home Mom's Bio
4. A manure spreader and dumpster strategically placed right next to my house – Why is it manure stays on boots until they walk in the house? Why is it someone can make 15 trips a day down to the hog barns but never take the trash bags to the dumpster?
5. To find livestock in the kitchen – or on the couch watching cartoons with your children! I once came home to find a kid and a baby pig curled up on the couch watching cartoons because "it was making the piglet feel better!" It might also be true that I got very excited one time when a sick calf peed on my kitchen floor because it meant that she was actually getting nourishment and enough to drink.