Oh good, I'm not the only one who needs to vent!

LOL I love how everyone is flipping out over the castration thing, while I immediately assumed you were a vet/vet tech or worked on a farm. As a city kid who seriously considered veterinary school and spent a lot of time in animal shelters, I know how simple a procedure that really is.

I've been literally bursting out laughing at the responses...it really is pretty quick, and we actually ring the calves and lambs so it's only pigs that I do surgically (we take the horses and dogs in).

I'm starting to wonder if perhaps people don't realize that intact mature males can be extremely dangerous and don't make for good eating, so pretty much every male mammal in the north american food chain is castrated, either within days of birth or before it reaches sexual maturity. (This Rural-Urban Education moment of the day brought to you by: ...)

Just tell him like it is! You are getting yourself into shape to be healthy, and if he doesn't like it then that's his problem to work through.

I'd consider that an option if we were just dating, and not married...but the reality is that the decisions I make are going to directly impact him, so it's only respectful to take his feelings and concerns into account and serious consideration, in the same way I appreciate him taking my views into account when he's making decisions that affect me.

Maybe it's something that's lost in rural/urban perspectives but for me to commit to a gym membership isn't just a matter of running across town, or going there on the way to work or school or whatever. It means I take our only vehicle (the truck he also uses for transporting livestock, hauling feed, fixing fences, getting parts, etc.) 20+ miles, to the nearest town, leaving him unable to have access to it for a minimum of 2hrs at least 3x/week...which might not seem like a big deal, unless you consider that if the baler breaks and I have the truck, 2 hours can be the difference between getting fixed and rolling, or getting rained out and losing part of the winter feed supply. It also means the added expense of running a 1 ton 4x4 diesel truck for an otherwise unnecessary trip to town...adding a minimum of $200/month in fuel costs (before tacking on the cost of a membership...) It also means me being gone at least 6 hrs a week....which is nothing, unless you consider that we rely on each other's help to pull calves when a cow is having trouble, or when a fence is down, or a piece of equipment breaks and one person needs to hold up some random, heavy, in the way piece of steel that's blocking the other person (who's usually bent in some awkward and uncomfortable position, halfway under and half inside said equipment) from accessing the one seized bolt that needs to be changed...(if you've never been up in the junk of a combine or baler you can't understand the teamwork that's required.)

Don't get me wrong, I have reached the point where I'm GOING to get in better shape no matter how much ice cream he eats or whatever...and for the most part, he's on board...he even bought me a new bike for my birthday because he knew how much I enjoyed it last year (using his very old and not entirely functioning one)...But the thing I love most about being married is that it isn't about me doing my thing and him doing his thing and "we'll all just get along if we don't get in each other's way"...If I wanted that I could have stayed single...marriage is two lives intertwined...maybe living on a farm makes a person more aware of it, because there are some things that are just exponentially more difficult and dangerous if you try to do them alone, but when working as a team they can be easy, even enjoyable.

And all that said I don't feel like his resistance is because it will inconvenience him, but rather because he worries about my safety (which I find admirable, but have a hard time with because I'm hardly some doe-eyed, timid flower...what I was trying to convey with my gun toting, castrating, skillet wielding woman comment...I might be flabby, but I'm far from weak, vulnerable or easily intimidated...if I was I wouldn't spend my days working with 1000 Lb+ animals.)

I also suspect, whether he realizes it or not, that after 12+ years of chasing dreams together, he worries about me casing dreams where he can't follow. We've spent our entire relationship working together to make our goals come to fruition...from being town-raised, city dwellers, to starting a family and moving 1000+km onto a farm (first time for both of us), buying cattle and horses, sheep, pigs, 600 chickens, turkey's and layers, and learning to milk cows, pull calves, hay and seed and combine and bale...we've done it all side by side. When I wanted to go into the restaurant, we worked on it together too...but this is one thing he can't do with me...in his "younger days" (before we met) he used to hit the gym all the time, but in the past 11 years he's broken his back (with permanent issues from it), torn his rotator cuff (he was SUPPOSED to go for surgery last fall...) and his knees are giving him grief. He pushes his body to keep the farm going, but there's no way he's going to be hitting the gym with me. I suspect that's very difficult for him...for the first time in our relationship I'm pursuing a dream that he can't really be involved in...and that has to be hard. And I may need to be a bit more sensitive to that fact...

Anyway, this has turned into a WAY more serious conversation than I anticipated...but it's been fun. Thanks for the laughs and I look forward to getting to know you guys more over the coming months (glad to see I'm not the only farm girl on here). I promise I'll try to keep my "castration" jokes to a minimum... Time for me and the family to head off to a heavy horse field day to watch some Clydes, Percherons and Belgians break ground. WooHoo! Happy Saturday Everyone!