The Making of a Farmhouse

Did you ever stop and wonder why a farmhouse is called a farmhouse?

It has to mean more than just a house on a farm, I think it means farm in a house.

If you currently farm or have farmed in the past I think you'll agree.

I mean what other kind of house save a farm house has had several baby calves come in to get warm by the wood stove a time or two.

Baby pigs in a box with a heat lamp, you know the ones that decide to be born on the coldest night of the year.

What about those new baby chicks you picked up at the post office if you went big time and ordered them from McMurry or even if you just picked a few up at the local Tractor Supply or hardware store.
Did you put them in  a washtub or large box with a heat lamp and sugar water right there in the kitchen or living room?
Did you listen to them peep all night and everyone gather around to look at them in the morning?

Are there various animal medicines in your refrigerator right now?

Do you have syringes and dispensers, razor blades and cat gut somewhere stored away?

How about this one, an incubator for starting eggs or heat pads and grow lights to start plants?

I've had both of those in my house.

In January we could never use our back door because it would have a table pushed up against it and be covered with heat pads and trays of tomato seeds while heat lamps descended from the ceiling held in place with bailer twine.

There's that trail of "stuff " you find on the kitchen floor because he didn't have time to take his boots off when he came back in to get that drill bit he left on the kitchen counter.

There's a farm calendar on the wall with important dates scribbled in along with planting signs.

Stray parts and tools, nuts, screws, washers, nails, gaskets, gloves, caps and workboots

Today farmhouses are a lot nicer than those of yesteryear and granted a lot less farming takes place inside the house than it use to but there is still that one thing that happens at the close of everyday.

The farmer still comes in for the night. 
He still has that place where he hangs his cap and takes off his boots.

He has his chair and the little table near by for his drink, his popcorn, remote control, farm magazines, and the paper.

There are the phone calls about crops and livestock, barns and bills.

The discussion of all he did today and what he wishes they had got done and the plans for the morrow.

It's when all of this is said and done that you know why a house on a farm in called a farm house.

It's more than a house on a farm, it's the farm and the farmer inside the house that makes

an ordinary house into a farmhouse..