Seven Miles from Asphalt: Lessons Learned on a Family Far

By Lisa Laue Moreland

City girl moves to the country, seven miles from asphalt. Lisa was smitten with her now husband, and he wooed her to the farm. She hated Girl Scout camping trips growing up because they were outside. What you do for love!

God really has a sense o

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author Academy Elite
• Release date: Aug 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781647467616

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Seven Miles from Asphalt

Lessons Learned

on a Family Farm

By

Lisa Laue Moreland

Seven Miles from Asphalt © 2021 by Lisa Laue Moreland.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Published by Author Academy Elite

P.O. Box 43, Powell, OH 43065

www.AuthorAcademyElite.com

All rights reserved. This book contains material protected under international and federal copyright laws and treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author.

Identifiers:

LCCN: 2021906719

ISBN: 978-1-64746-759-3 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-64746-760-9 (hardback)

ISBN: 978-1-64746-761-6 (e-book)

Available in paperback, hardback, and e-book.

Names: Moreland, Lisa Laue.

Title: Seven Miles from Asphalt: Lessons Learned on a Family Farm/ Lisa Laue Moreland.

Description: Powell, OH: Author Academy Elite, [2021]

Identifiers: LCCN 2021906719 | ISBN 9781647467609 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Moreland family | Farmers’ spouses -- Kansas -- Biography | Farm life -- Oklahoma | Rural families -- Kansas | Librarians -- Kansas -- Biography.

Classification: DDC 630.92 -- dc23

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to all farmers, especially my husband and sons. Matt, James, William, and David are the hardest workers I know.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section One: Matt Wooed Me to the Farm

Our Extended Courtship

A Good Thing Coming from a Bad

Should I Keep My Maiden Name?

Wedding Mishaps

Are We Sick of Each Other Already?!

Are Those Cattle Branded?

Section Two: Married Farm Life

My Type A Personality

Do I Live in Kansas or Oklahoma?

Culture Shock

Fatherly Musings

My Father and Martin Luther King, Jr.

His First Wife/My Fourth Son

Metrosexual vs. Foodie

Book Smarts vs. Street Smarts

Matt Should Have Checked My Teeth Before He Proposed

I’m the World’s Biggest Klutz!

I Plan to Donate My Body to Science

Riding in the Dump Truck with Daryl

Matchmaking

Car Troubles

How Did We Manage Before Cell Phones?

I Was Late to Join Facebook

I Think We Could Be Friends

This Isn’t the Pillsbury Bake-Off!

Matt’s Grandma Neva, the Matriarch of Our Family

Tough to Find Good Help in the Country

Wildfire

Section Three: Lessons Learned on the Farm

Top Ten List of What I’ve Learned about Country/Farm Living

Trying to Adjust to Farm Wife Duties

Feeding the Farmers Who Feed the World

Behind Every Good Farmer Is a Great Woman

I Am Selectively Meticulous

Strange Things Happen When My Mother Comes to Visit

Should We Buy a Center Pivot and Get a Free Flagpole?

Domestic Animals on the Farm

Dog Diary

The Adventures of Jenny and Blue

Animals on the Farm & Calves in the House

I Am Not a Good Backer

Bed and Breakfast: You Make Both

A Condition Known as Harvest Head

Trans-Atlantic Trail Riders

Dealings with Meth

Farm Expansion

Section Four: Beyond the Farm

Substitute Teaching

Bloom Where You’re Planted

Working as a Public Librarian/Social Worker

My Most Loyal Library Patron

Other Notable Patrons

A Day in the Life of a Public Librarian

Section Five: Raising Three Boys on a Farm

James’ Birth

William’s Birth

David’s Birth

Pregnancy Tales

Three Kids Are Enough for Us

Wisdom from a Good Friend with Older Kids

Mowing the Lawn, No Matter What It Takes

Frequent Emergency Room Visits

Ill-Fated Trip to Hawaii

Bringing Up Boys on the Farm

Holidays

Trombone Woes

Shenanigans of a Three-Year-Old Farmer

The Boys and Baseball

Catching the Bouquet at the Demolition Derby

Family Vacations to Case IH Plants

Farming Is Its Own Occupational Hazard

Playing Chicken with Combines

Changing the Toilet Paper Will Not Cause Brain Damage

Three of James’ Girlfriends Together at State Track

Would You Please…?!

Does Dad Know You Smoke?

The Joys of Grandparenting

David’s Calling Me His Secretary

My Boys Do Love Me!

All Grown Up

Pandemic on the Farm

Conclusion

About the Author

Acknowledgments

My husband Matt has been one of my biggest cheerleaders throughout my life, and this was true while I was writing this book. He is always so encouraging and positive, and for that, I am forever grateful.

Thanks also to my mother, Mariann Laue Baker, for being a constant support throughout the writing process. She, Sally Lebeda, and Shawna Schneider were also invaluable as proofreaders. My daughter-in-law, Aidan Moreland, was a big help with any and all computer questions.

Thank you to my developmental editor, Diana James, who helped me organize my stories, and to Paul Hawkins for writing an endorsement. Finally, thank you to Felicity Fox for helping me navigate the publishing process.

Thanks to you, the reader, for reading my book!

Introduction

I’ve started writing this book and talked about it so many times that a lot of my friends and family know the title already and ask me about it regularly. For years, my reply was, Maybe I’ll write my book once all of the kids are gone. Well, my youngest is a senior in college so I don’t have an excuse anymore. And, as my husband Matt says, Once begun, half done.

I submitted an essay entitled City Girl Moves to the Country to Real Simple magazine when my oldest went to college. I didn’t win or even place because, in my opinion, my story wasn’t tragic or sad enough. I’ve mostly had a really great life, and I still do. My major stressors are handling all of the testosterone from raising three sons on a family farm; running a public library; handling the farm accounting; AND feeding my family plus employees. My first question to God at the pearly gates is going to be Why did you make it that we have to eat three meals a day?

I’m pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADHD, which is another great excuse for not writing this book sooner. Right now I’m resisting the urge to check my phone. My mind went to a library issue -- actually, two library issues. Lisa, be mindful, I keep telling myself. You can deal with those later. But we had the author Kim Vogel Sawyer to our library a while back, and if I remember correctly, she said she tries to write 1,500 words a day. Or was it 2,500? I need to e-mail her for tips… Squirrel! [Speaking of a squirrel, Matt served a college friend of ours fried squirrel when he came to visit because he had been making fun of our rural locale.]

My original (as in 30 years ago) idea for this book was along the lines of city girl moves to the country. The book has since morphed into "I’ve learned pretty much everything I need to know about country living, but I’m still figuring out life living."

I have definitely learned that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but how do you know it’s small stuff when you’re in the middle of it and it seems like big stuff? I once did a book talk on this topic for our women’s group at church, and I had to take a Xanax beforehand because I was so stressed. Are you kidding me? At least I’ve made some progress since then in learning how to put things in perspective.

One good thing about the Coronavirus pandemic is that it gave me time to write this book -- and no good excuse not to. I signed on with the publisher Author Academy Elite at the beginning of the quarantine, and that has motivated me to keep plugging along every day.

For those of you reading, I am hoping to provide some levity to your day. Life can be so stressful, and I believe a good laugh is great medicine for the soul. I think that farm wives, in particular, and parents, in general, will be able to relate to this book. Librarians will also see themselves in my stories. I’m hoping everybody will think the book is funny. Enjoy!

Section One

Matt Wooed Me to the Farm

Our Extended Courtship

Long story short: Matt wooed me to the farm -- which was a difficult task -- given I hated Girl Scout camping trips growing up. [to my Girl Scout leaders: I liked the camaraderie; I just didn’t like the outdoor part!] We met at Grinnell College in Iowa when I was a senior, and he was a freshman. One of his best friends lived on my floor so Matt and I became acquainted through Ben. My first memory of Matt was when he was locked in a closet on my floor. I remember thinking how cute he was, even though he wore cowboy boots and jeans with a big belt buckle, which I wasn’t used to seeing. He had the popular-at-the-time haircut where it was long on top and (almost) shaved across the bottom (he disputes this recollection). Matt has always come across to me as so confident, but not conceited, which is a nice attribute. I was smitten.

One of Matt’s and my first dates was watching what was termed Chugboat in the lounge of our dorm. This was 1986 so the TV show, The Love Boat, was popular, and we college students devised rules that mandated drinking:

Drink whenever the captain takes off his hat;

Drink whenever the full boat is shown;

Drink whenever Isaac, the bartender, smiles and shows all of his teeth;

Drink whenever Julie, the cruise director, …I can’t remember this rule!

The entire viewing audience would get tipsy pretty quickly, and Matt claims that I was throwing popcorn at him. I don’t remember our courtship beginning quite like this, but the rest is history. Matt said his sister warned him against dating a senior because I would graduate and break his heart. The exact opposite happened: he couldn’t get rid of me. I’m now saying that I was The First Cougar! Matt’s and my age difference has really never been an issue, other than when he was still in college, and I had graduated and moved back to St. Louis. Now we’re both ensconced in our fifties.

I was so in love that I would have come back to Grinnell and bagged groceries if Matt would have let me. Instead, we were off and on (mostly off) for three years until he graduated. In the fall of 1989, I quit my job with an urban planning firm to work at a residential children’s home. With time off in between, I went to Iowa to see my mother, who was visiting my grandmother near Des Moines. Since Grinnell College was only 90 minutes from my grandma’s, I decided to stop and see Matt on the way.

We had been broken up for about two years at this point, most of which I spent pining away for Matt and eating Baskin Robbin’s Jamoca Almond Fudge ice cream. We both dated other people, and we would often share our dating adventures with each other. I have to admit that I would call his dorm room on Friday nights and hope that he would answer, signaling that he wasn’t out on a date. I decided that this practice really wasn’t healthy for me, and my decision was reinforced by reading the book Dance of Anger by Dr. Harriet Lerner.

This book taught me how to avoid the dance of trying to get people to change to your liking. Dance of Anger showed how you could end up encouraging unhealthy behaviors by trying to manipulate others’ behavior. Armed with my newfound knowledge, I went to see Matt on Halloween night of 1989, where he and his housemates were preparing for a party. I told him that I had quit my job and taken a big pay cut to work as the assistant to the director at a children’s home.

Matt was a senior now and thought I had lost my mind. He and his friends all