As farming technology becomes
more and more advanced, one
Blount County woman is using
it to bring people a closer look at
what farm life is all about.
“I really started the blog as a
way to share photos and updates
with my family and friends in
Anniston and Oxford who I didn’t
get to see very much after Lance
and I married,” Stephanie Miller
said. “Pretty soon, though, I started
putting everything under the sun
on there. So, people who visit the
blog now can see what we do on
the farm, where we go and what I
cook.”
The rising star of her blog is
Henry, a bumbling little sock monkey
whose adventures with Lance
and Stephanie are the comic relief
of www.thelifeofafarmerswife.
blogspot.com.
“I actually won the sock monkey
kit on another blog and I’m
not a great sewer, but I got him
stitched together, and it’s been fun
to take him along for pictures,” said
Stephanie, who also shares recipes
on her blog and refers to herself as
an “Internet cook.”
“I started cooking as a teenager
only because I loved cheesecake,
but nobody in my family made
it. So I started looking up recipes
for cheesecakes, and I took one to
every holiday or other family gathering
we had. So, now, everybody
expects a cheesecake every holiday,”
joked Stephanie. “Lance has
had to endure a lot of weird things
because I get so many recipes from
the Internet.”
While she enjoys cooking and
blogging, Stephanie is more than
the farmer’s wife — she manages
four broiler houses and does the
bookkeeping for the family farm,
which also includes several row
crops.
“We grow cotton and soybeans,
and, usually, corn although we
didn’t plant any corn this year. This
is also our second year growing
peanuts, which is unusual for Sand
Mountain,” she explained.
Stephanie and Lance met in college,
and after she earned her degree
in communications, Stephanie
worked off the farm for a while.
“It seemed like every day after
work Lance was telling me about
someone who stopped by the farm
for a visit or something else that
sounded great, and I felt like I was
missing everything. So for our
first anniversary, I got the chicken
houses, and I’ll take farm work over
my old job any day,” she said.
Her favorite thing about farm
life is being home so much and
being her own boss. “Although
Lance thinks he’s the boss sometimes,”
she quipped, adding that
the two don’t spend as much time
together as some might expect.
“It depends on what we’re
doing. Some days I don’t see him
at all, like during planting season:
forget it. But now, I don’t miss anything
that happens around here,”
she says.
Most of the recipes Stephanie
shares are taken from the Internet
and tweaked to suit her tastes, but
she says Mama’s Chicken Casserole
is from her grandmother, Martha
Gilmer. And she includes one of
her favorite cheesecake recipes as
well.