As an extension to the blog post below, I DID attend a business trip with Grant last weekend in Chicago. It was the IL Farm Bureau Annual Meeting where we stayed at the Palmer House, enjoyed a day of hanging out in the city without kids, and met up with friends. Grant mentioned that it was obviously a conference for farmers with our parking deck in the Chicago loop FULL of pickup trucks and Wranglers (jeans) and cow boots galore in the Palmer House lobby and along the Magnificent Mile. Anytime he wants to take me to Chicago for a conference where I can shop, eat, and see friends, I'm game!
Sometimes, I was lucky enough to accompany my dad on his business trips: Florida, San Diego, Hawaii, and Las Vegas were my favorites. My first father-daughter trip was to Atlantic City when I was 7 years old. I have such special memories of being alone with my dad on that trip. Many years later, imagine my excitement when I was in college and my dad called to ask me if I wanted to join him in Las Vegas and we’d spend a few days hiking in Utah before his conference began. I was beyond thrilled! Hawaii was pretty awesome too!
My husband has recently offered to take me to far-off lands of Oklahoma and Texas where I’d accompany him at pig shows, but I’ve respectfully declined. However, when we were dating (and I was eager to impress him), I did join him at the Illinois State Fair for two days where I hung out in a very hot hog barn in the middle of summer. I remember wearing cute jeans, a black tank top, and adorable sandals. I learned my lesson quickly as my blank top turned the color of saw dust, my jeans got all dirty from being sideswiped by pigs multiple times on their way to the ring, and my toes need protection from who-knows what on the concrete floor. When my kids are a bit older, we will go along with my husband to pig shows to experience the excitement of raising livestock. Although we won’t be going to Hawaii or Las Vegas anytime soon, the pride that comes from raising pigs from birth can be pretty awesome, and I want my children to experience that too.
These days, I don’t welcome home a man in a suit and tie, but a husband who is still in his dirty show clothes from the early morning of selling and loading pigs. He too is exhausted from a long day and night of driving and many days away from home. And although he is eager to get out of his “business attire,” I always steal a kiss to welcome him home…even if he smells faintly of pigs.
Kristen Strom
Brimfield, IL
Illinois Farm Families Blog
Business Trip
Illinois Farm Families - Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Last night, my husband left on a “business trip”. Not the get-in-a-limo-wearing-a-suit type of trip, but a jump-in-his-pickup-truck-with-a-hog-trailer type of trip. My husband is a farmer and also raises and sells show pigs as a hobby. His “business trips” entail packing over night bags full of jeans and collared shirts, not suits and ties, and driving a trailer of pigs to a neighboring or far-off state for a hog show.
Growing up, my dad and step-dad both left on business trips frequently throughout the year. They would wake up, dress in their suit and tie, and wait for their taxi or limousine to pick them up and take them to the airport before sun-rise. They’d be gone anywhere from just a full day (flying out early in the morning and back late at night), a few days, or even a week. They’d return exhausted carrying their briefcase and suitcase through the door wearing what seemed to be the same suit they left in. We’d greet them at the door with hugs and kisses to welcome them home. No sooner, they’d loosen their tie and get out of their suit and put on something more comfortable.
Sometimes, I was lucky enough to accompany my dad on his business trips: Florida, San Diego, Hawaii, and Las Vegas were my favorites. My first father-daughter trip was to Atlantic City when I was 7 years old. I have such special memories of being alone with my dad on that trip. Many years later, imagine my excitement when I was in college and my dad called to ask me if I wanted to join him in Las Vegas and we’d spend a few days hiking in Utah before his conference began. I was beyond thrilled! Hawaii was pretty awesome too!
My husband has recently offered to take me to far-off lands of Oklahoma and Texas where I’d accompany him at pig shows, but I’ve respectfully declined. However, when we were dating (and I was eager to impress him), I did join him at the Illinois State Fair for two days where I hung out in a very hot hog barn in the middle of summer. I remember wearing cute jeans, a black tank top, and adorable sandals. I learned my lesson quickly as my blank top turned the color of saw dust, my jeans got all dirty from being sideswiped by pigs multiple times on their way to the ring, and my toes need protection from who-knows what on the concrete floor. When my kids are a bit older, we will go along with my husband to pig shows to experience the excitement of raising livestock. Although we won’t be going to Hawaii or Las Vegas anytime soon, the pride that comes from raising pigs from birth can be pretty awesome, and I want my children to experience that too.
These days, I don’t welcome home a man in a suit and tie, but a husband who is still in his dirty show clothes from the early morning of selling and loading pigs. He too is exhausted from a long day and night of driving and many days away from home. And although he is eager to get out of his “business attire,” I always steal a kiss to welcome him home…even if he smells faintly of pigs.
Kristen Strom
Brimfield, IL
My grandfather and his siblings grew up on a farm in rural Iowa in the 20’s and 30’s. Throughout my childhood in the Chicago suburbs, holidays, birthday parties, and family gatherings were full of stories of the farm. My grandfather and his siblings would sit around the dinner table, card game, or birthday cake retelling stories of their farm days. As a Chicago suburban girl, I had only those stories and children’s picture books to understand what farm life was like. I imagined a farm to be a dirt road leading to a white house surrounded by corn, wheat, and livestock. I assumed every farmer had chickens, pigs, cows, hens, and sheep, just like Old MacDonald. 
As a little girl listening to their farm stories, I never would have thought that nearly 20 years later, I would fall in love with a farmer and live on a farm. What I knew of farming was only what I had heard as a child and what I saw on I-57 while attending the University of Illinois. During those drives to and from college, I marveled at the beautiful sunsets, the golden colors of the changing crops, the farmers out late at night harvesting or planting their fields, and the wide distance between farm houses. In the years since I met my husband, I’ve watched multiple sunsets from the porch of a white farm house, drove down countless dirt roads, taken tractor and combine rides late into the night, and learned about the crops they tend and the pigs they raise. Although my husband’s family doesn’t make their own sausage, stomp their own grapes for wine, or have close encounters with gangsters or aliens, I appreciate the stories of the good ole days on the farm whether they are from my family or my husband’s relatives. Even though I grew up in the suburbs, farming and country living is in my blood, and I like to think that I’ve returned to my roots, where there is always a good story waiting to be told. 
