by Heather Lang
I thrive in fast-paced work environments and get a fire in my soul when faced with pressing tasks that drive me to produce to the best of my abilities while proving that I am an asset. Daily task sheets, notes and organization are things that make my head and heart happy and allow me to be successful, especially in accomplishing demanding jobs. That might sound like something recited in a job interview, but let me tell you what a heavy load a person carries being a farm wife, mother, entrepreneur, agriculture advocate and community supporter. I often get asked, “How do you do it all while staying sane?” First of all, I don’t do it all. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “It takes a village.” From where I stand there is no truer statement. My village is solid and resilient! I have the best teammate in life, my husband. We have three children who are now at the age where they are extremely helpful. We are also blessed to have both our families living close by who help at the drop of a hat. Secondly, sane is a relative word and open to many discussions.
If you read my last post you might remember that being organized and having a structured schedule is comforting to me. My real saving grace is my color-coded calendar. Last fall I went to access my calendar on my phone and for whatever reason it was gone, and I couldn’t access it. Panic set in. Thankfully, I have a dear friend who is technology savvy and he was able to help me recover it. In that short amount of time I didn’t have my calendar I was a wreck. My head was spinning. I felt like I was forgetting events that I was supposed to be present at. I no longer had my reminders to take a bathroom break (yes I have to schedule those as crazy as it sounds), and I was sweating trying to remember all the kids’ sporting dates, 4-H events and our volunteer commitments.
With both my husband and I holding full-time off-farm jobs in addition to the rest of the hats we wear it is a challenging juggling act. We have been feeding families our locally raised, healthy, nutritious meats since 1906 and recently I had the dream of being able to feed even more. Our loyal customers cannot be replaced, but I knew there was a part of the market and public that we were missing. Even within our rural local community, we couldn’t legally provide nutritious, cost effective food because people didn’t have the freezer space to purchase our meat in bulk. A couple years ago, our family took the steps necessary to be able to offer our farm fresh individual cuts of beef and pork to the public. A small building was put on our working farm so we could sell the goods from there. We also made an effort to get out to local farmers markets and other events.
According to Forbes, many Americans are struggling with work-life balance more than ever before. So why add yet another job to our list? Because this isn’t just a job for our family. It is our lifestyle. This was a dream and experience I wanted to offer not only to our local community but to the public so they could have a chance to experience a real life working farm while being able to shop for products all of which were raised, grown or made on our family farm. What was shocking to me was how many people I met. If you were standing by listening to me speak to them you might have thought we had known each other for years. But these were people I was just meeting for the first time. Some had followed my story throughout the years and even referred to me by my nickname “the crazy pig lady” and we would carry on a conversation from there. Others were a bit more shy at first and didn’t think we had anything in common. It didn’t take long to get the conversation going, however, because we all have something in common. We all eat. We care about the food we are serving our families and putting in our bodies.
This is not “just a job” for us, this is our lifestyle.
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Heather is the former District 7 Promotion and Education Committee member for NDFB. She is also a former AFBF Promotion and Education Committee member. She currently serves as president of Burleigh County Farm Bureau.