How Did I Find Farm Life?

I often get asked why I went through all that extra veterinary training to end up being a writer and a mom and living on a farm. Or if I regret spending all that time in school (14 years of college!), now that I practice veterinary medicine very part-time. Or if I miss “being a vet” and working with the animals. Or if I even like farm life.

After I finished veterinary school in 2003, I went on to do an internship, a residency, and a PhD. And now I’m married to a wonderful man (who also happens to be a veterinarian), a work-at-home mom to an amazing little boy, I am running three websites, and I am helping on our family’s farm.

I have the credentials to practice veterinary medicine as a general practitioner, to practice veterinary medicine as a specialist at a referral hospital, to teach at a veterinary school, or to work in a pharmaceutical company helping to develop new medications (or new uses for old medications) for veterinary use.

And yet, I’m “just” a wife, mom, writer, and farmer.

Actually, that sounds like a lot to me!

I don’t regret, for one second, the path I took in life. If I had skipped any single step along that path, I would not have ended up here.

I finished college in 3 years and went straight into vet school. I did a one-year internship after vet school, before starting my residency at Purdue.

Farmer Doc finished college in 4 years and worked for a year before he applied to and started vet school. I met Farmer Doc during his final year of vet school – where I was doing my first year of residency.

So if I had taken the traditional 4-year college route, not done an internship, or not done a residency I never would have met Farmer Doc. If he had gone directly into vet school from undergrad, we never would have met.

It was really a kind of perfect storm. (The good kind.)

I stayed on at Purdue after my residency to earn a PhD so I could keep my future job options open, and still stay (relatively) close to Farmer Doc. We knew he would be working with his father in his hometown, and his goal was to buy into the veterinary practice and become a partner. I knew that moving to this area would mean that teaching at a veterinary school was out of the question (the closest one is 3.5 hours away), and working at a referral hospital was also not feasible (3 hours away for that, too). The PhD would open up some research doors that I might want to use, so it was a good fit for me at the time.

By the time I finished my PhD, Farmer Doc and I were married. And, frankly, I needed a break. (Did I mention 14 years of college?) We are blessed with a thriving family-owned veterinary practice, so I was able to stay home, take some veterinary appointments when they needed my help, take over the social media and website management for the practice, and focus on my writing and our farm (and now our family).

So I went through all that training – not in order to become a writer, a mom, and a farmer – but so I could be whatever I wanted to be. And in the process I discovered my passions.

My family.

Agriculture and our farm.

Learning.

Teaching.

And I don’t regret it – not for one second.

Where else, other than farm life, could I watch the calf in the first photo in this post grow up into the beautiful one-year old heifer in the last photo? Next year Baby Doc and I will get to watch her have her baby, and we’ll watch her raise the baby.

So now that I’m here, why do I love farm life so much? You’ll have to come back next week to find out!

Other posts in this series:

• Part-Time Farmer 
• How Did I Find Farm Life?
• Why is Farm Life for Me?

{I received a promotional item from Indiana’s Family of Farmers for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.}