For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 12, 2012

It’s a farm Elle, hats to break it to you but they’re going to get dirty.

Just don’t jump into a wagon load of hay.There could be a sharp pitchfork embedded in it…Saw this once at the Mayo Medical Museum.It was terrible !

Dirt happens. I grew up on a dairy farm. Dirty even attacked you when you weren’t looking. Thankfully attacking cow pies were few and far between. And usally badly aimed.

Dream on.

That’s the kiss of death. Now they’ll get dirty for sure.

Elly has GOT to be kidding!!!!

Auto-nag. I do that with “stay safe” or “play nicely”- the safety thing is a big deal. Farms are dangerous. MIL owns one, and it’s full of animals, rusted farm equipment without safety features, etc- and they don’t even have the animals any more.

The only dirt I really even care about (with 3 small kids) is ketchup/pizza on new clothes because I can’t get that stuff out. If my kids aren’t getting dirty with some real honest dirt regularly, I feel like I’ve failed as a parent.

And after what Lizzie said, all I can think of is “This little piggy went to the market…”(help, I’m regressing to my toddlerhood! :-o)

I spent all of my summers on my grandpa’s farm in Alberta. It was there that I walked into the barn and witnessed a pig giving birth. Lots of indelible memories.

Farm + Dirt = normal childhood. Well, one year, when I was 6, the owner of the property, wanted me to carry a 10 litre barrel of apples. They weighed probably 70lbs. My womb donor went ballistic! L

Skin is easily cleaned. You can be scrubbed, dried and dirty all over again in a quarter of an hour. Clothes take longer, and involve a lot more work!

Read “The Dirty Life” by Kristin Kimball – great romantic story.

Ellie’s on auto-pilot. It just comes out naturally.

When you take 2 kids age 8 and under and put them on a farm, then add a barn filled with kittens, “piggies” and other animals (not to mention all kinds of “fun” farm equipment they’ve never seen before — at least, not in person anyhow), you’ve got dirt . . . lots and lots of dirt!!!!! Since there’s no getting around it, Elly might as well just sit back, let it all “happen” and worry about how to get all the dirt out of their clothes later on.

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I’m a son of a 3rd generation farmer I’ve been married 10 years to a farmer’s daughter I got two boys in the county 4-H I’m a lifetime sponsor of the F.F.A. Hay! That’s what I make I make a lot of hay for a little pay But I’m proud to say I’m a God fearin’ hard workin’ combine driver Hoggin’ up the road on my p-p-p-plower Chug a lug a lugin’ 5 miles an hour On my International Harvester

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Doesn’t look like it, does it? Here… let me check…...Nope… no bra!:-)

Kids clothes should be all brown. :)

@ SUSAN NEWMAN:I didn’t bother with one when I was that age. There didn’t seem to be enough to worry about. Trouble is, when the years gang up on you, everything goes South for the winter.

It’s a farm,Elly!!! Nothing a little Shout can’t fix :)

Staying on a farm and being told not to get dirty…will, that’s like saying you’re going for a swim in the ocean and being told not to get wet!