41: Motherhood on the Farm with Lorenda Overman & Betsy Roberson

The farm doesn’t clock out, and neither do the moms who keep it moving. We talk with Lorenda and Betsy about life inside a multi generation family farm in eastern North Carolina, where the operation spans row crops, strawberry ventures, and hog farms . What starts as a simple “tell us about your farm” quickly turns into a candid look at what modern agriculture demands from a family and what it gives back in return.

No doubt, farm moms are the backbone of farming operations. 

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Find us on Instagram @raisedonthefarm
Questions? Email us at raisedonthefarmpodcast@gmail.com 

Transcript

Welcome To The Farm Podcast

Marisa 0:17

So thank you guys for being on the podcast Raised On the Farm.

Lorenda 0:22

Thank you for having us. Absolutely.

Marisa 0:26

All right. So let's start maybe with um Lorenda and I mean you can pipe in too, Betsy. Can you tell us a bit about your family's farming operation?

Lorenda 0:37

So we are in eastern North Carolina, about an hour east of Raleigh in a county called Wayne County. We live about 12 miles from Mount Olive Pickle in the southern end of the county. Our farming operation goes back almost 200 years when my husband's family started living here and farming here. So today, as time goes on, you know, the farm morphs and changes with each generation. But right now we're farming about 2,000 acres, mainly row crops with some sweet potatoes sprinkled in there.

Betsy 1:13

So we're not doing sweet potatoes this year. We have been growing sweet potatoes, but not anymore. We've replaced that this year with some cucumbers. Um we've grown strawberries this year for the first time, which has been really fun and lots to learn. It's been an interesting year for strawberries first time. Um but our operation now is mainly a hog operation.

Lorenda 1:37

We do a lot of hogs.

Betsy 1:38

We have seven hog farms. Um we grow contract both for Smithfield and for Prestage. So we raise up somewhere around 100,000 animals annually for Smithfield and Prestage. Um we we have some cattle, some hay, um, but mainly we're a livestock operation with some road crops and some produce.

Marisa 2:02

Um, and then you guys are both on the farm. Are any is anybody else working on the farm as well?

Betsy 2:10

Well, we're mainly in the office, and uh my dad and my husband are the the driving forces that run our operation day to day. They're the ideas guys, they make the big things happen, and we're just kind of the support staff. We work behind the scenes and do whatever we can so that they can be in the field as much as they need to be and doing the things that they need to do. So we're we're mainly I like to consider us the support staff. We keep everything behind the scenes running as smoothly as we can so that they can do the the real, you know, the real work.

Lorenda 2:44

This is kind of like our field, right? This is we get the work done. But we meet in here about once a month, I mean once a week, so that we can, you know, make sure we're all on the four on the same page and make sure that we are working together to get to the common goal.

Marisa 3:01

So uh give me a picture of paint me a picture of you guys' families. So let's start with Lorenda. How many children um did you raise on the farm? Um, and then Betsy will I'll ask you the same.

Lorenda 3:17

So when I got married, I had not been raised on the farm at all. So it was a sharp learning curve for me to learn about you know agriculture. I was all in from day one. I did not work outside the farm. I stayed here and worked together with my husband Harold and his parents. And I will say, out the gate, his mother, when you talk about Mother's Day, his mother was very supportive. She never once said, Lorinda, you shouldn't be doing it that way. She never once offered any kind of criticism to the what I brought to the table, which was really green and um new. She never once said you shouldn't do it that way. She just said, Let me help you. Let me help you do whatever you need to do. And she was very supportive when I started getting involved in agri-support industries like Farm Bureau and the Port Council, and she was 100% in everything that I've done. So I've tried to model my motherhood on the farm after her, um, just as a tap to the former generation and what she meant to me. Um, we raised three children on the farm, and they were involved in daily operations just like my husband was when he was growing up. And so it was super rewarding and challenging for all of us to be working at the same time. When um when there's a problem, we're all involved in the problem. When they're we're sick, we're all sick. When we're we're going to school and trying to get things done, we're trying to juggle work and school, just like any other family. But we're all in the same business, so it affects us a little bit different. I um I hope, and from watching Betsy, I can I can see that she appreciated the way that she was brought up on the farm and being involved in day-to-day activities and working together for the common goal for raising that crop and seeing that harvest and enjoying the fruits of your labor. But um, one of our children now is um a daughter, and she teaches uh anatomy and physiology at a couple of universities, and the other is a son, and he's doing strength coach, uh, strength coaching with uh Pope Air Force Base. And then Betsy and her husband have come back to the farm and uh let her take over her part.

Betsy 5:52

We came back, um, we are kind of my husband and I are kind of opposite, so he was not raised on a farm, but um had an interest in livestock and animal science. He went to NC State, um, was considering a vet school, um, a career in veterinary medicine, um, and ended up going to um graduate school at Virginia Tech instead for animal science. And um he came home. I I can't remember if him and daddy had been fishing or something. He came home one day when we lived in Blacksburg and said, I'm thinking about going to work with your dad. And um I grew up here and I knew I thought I knew what that meant. So I was like, Let's pray just pray and make sure that that's really what you want to do. And um, but we felt both felt called to come back, and so um we came back in 2012 and I was teaching public school. Ryan was working full-time on the farm, and then um a few years later, when we had our first child, we made a decision for me to stop working my off-the-farm job and be a little bit more involved on the farm. Um, and um, so we all kind of work together. So Ryan and I have four children. The oldest is almost 12, and our littlest is four. So they are um they're homeschooled so that they can be with us as much as possible and learn all the ins and outs, and they they learn a lot from us. Um, that's a little bit crazy because every year, um, as mom gets more involved in off-the-farm ag ventures like Farm Bureau and the Port Council and American Farm Bureau and things like that, she's out of place a lot doing advocacy work for our industry, which we really appreciate and we see a lot of value in. And also as our operation grows, there is more and more and more behind the scenes pencil and paper and computer work that has to be done that nobody else wants to do that I take on. Um, and I'm happy to I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to work and and be involved with it. Um, but it's just it's an interesting dynamic because you know we're balancing four kids and the farm office work and the farm work that has sometimes unending hours that just one day bleeds into the next, into the next. So it's it's interesting. There's a lot of dynamics that go on. Like my husband works with my dad, I work with my mom, and we all have to be able to sit at the Sunday lunch table together after a long, hard week. So that's uh always an interesting dynamic going on. Um, but our children are very involved on the farm. Um, the four-year-old mainly is just there to keep our blood pressure up because he's too little to be safely involved at any kind of level. Our oldest is almost 12, and he's running the field cultivator all week to prepare land for cucumbers to be planted, and um we're helping get some some other land going for some produce to go into the ground. So um he's learning how to operate the GPS on the tractor, and he is just as happy as anybody could be in that piece of equipment, and he loves it. So we have um the kids are involved at different levels, we're involved 100% all the time. So it's it oftentimes feels just wide open all the time. Um the housework is never done, the you know, especially with strawberries. The last couple weeks, Bom and I have been really involved with keeping we have a roadside stand that we've been manning, and um, we've eaten a lot of chicken nuggets in the last four to five weeks. A lot of chicken nuggets, a lot of fries and pizza.

Lorenda 9:50

And uh the kids have beaten a ton of strawberries. They really have enjoyed strawberries. Yeah, and we've we've also spent a lot of time just trying to keep check numbers straight when we're paying bills because it gets it gets hectic from time to time just trying to make sure you've got all your your work done in a timely manner, and little things can fall away and then but sooner or later they surface again, you gotta do them. So she's right. Is there's times when our weekly meeting is at 10 o'clock at night on speaker phones because they've just put their kids to bed and they've got a minute to talk, but it's um it's so much fun to watch her little four-year-old, her little arm candy, so to speak, um sit and and munch on strawberries while she's doing a promotional video for when we're going to be open, or to go watch her 12-year-old in the field cultivator um while he's learning how to level the ground out to make it nice for bedding. Uh, watch them at the livestock show and sale when they're learning to work their animals and and do the herdsmanship stuff that they're learning in in addition to the row cropping. So it's just super rewarding to do it together. To she's right though, there's a lot of times that we don't share personal stuff because we're too busy sharing business. It's we call each other more than ever, but it's all about what we're doing with the with the berries or who's taking lunch to the field, or when are we gonna get together to pay bills or on Hawkhouse records?

When Work And Family Never Separate

Betsy 11:33

And so there's my sister will call me sometimes and say, Hey, did you hear that did mom tell you this? And I'm like, Nope. See her every day, but never got around to that.

Marisa 11:43

So So would you say that there you guys have a good work personal balance when it comes to working together and being on the farm?

Betsy 11:55

I think that's a that that's I don't know, that's a move it's definitely a moving target. Um, there are some seasons that that's easier to do, there are some seasons that that's harder to do, and um, and that's a little unpredictable because you know, even with with me and Ryan, you know, and mom and dad, husband and wife team working together, you're with each other a lot. Um, and as our operation grows and we try to um juggle that that growth and that expansion, um, it's a great thing, but it does keep you very busy, and especially um it's probably different for mom and dad, they're in different seasons of life, but with Brian and I having young children, those moments that we have that we're not talking about business, not talking to a child or about a child, they're pretty rare. Um, and so yeah, our our time that we spend with mom and dad that's completely disassociated with farming is non-existent. We don't ever do that. We sat down for lunch yesterday. Um, get Thursdays are typically the day that I try to carve out to be here in the office the majority of the day. So um I dropped my little one off at preschool, race back home, get my big kids going on their school work, and then I sit down at the computer um and I I pick us up lunch. Um, mom was gone for some um other work yesterday, and so I picked up lunch, brought it home, and sat down. And Daddy and Ryan were talking about a a better issue. The the better is not working correctly. And um, and I asked a question about strawberries, and Ryan said, Can we please not talk about work right now? And it's like we we were just talking about work. So, yeah, it just it all kind of bleeds together. So that is a constant juggling act, a constant balancing act to because you know, we I have siblings that are not involved with our farming operation. So trying to have a family dinner, every time we have a family dinner, Ryan and Daddy are somewhere in a corner talking about a problem at the hoghouse or trying to make a plan for their week, and you know, we have to be like, hey guys, we're about to sing happy birthday, get in here, you know. So it's uh that's a constant juggling act, and there are probably a lot of families that do a better job than we do of juggling. Um, but we all we're trying, we're always trying to do the best that we can in all the ways that we can.

Lorenda 14:29

So it's different on the farm because your personal life is your business life, and there's a lot of stuff that you do off the farm, like go to school programs or go to T ball games or you know, Saturday soccer, but your personal life is your your business. And so when we share business, we're still sharing personal life. It's just from a business point of view, every now and then we'll call each other and we'll say, Hey, what you doing? What how's it going?

Betsy 15:00

Not often.

Lorenda 15:01

But not often. Usually it's it's a question about work.

Betsy 15:04

Yeah. It's uh, hey, the baby has a soccer game on Saturday. Who can run the farm who wants to run the farm stand? Who wants to be at the soccer game? Well, we get the farm stand going, you take them to the game, I'll meet you there, and you can land the stand for a little while, and then we're switching and and while we're at the soccer game, we're getting calls like, hey, we need more berries at the stand. Okay, let me send somebody out to the field. You know, it's just it all kind of kind of bleeds together, and sometimes it's really beautiful. Sometimes it is just it's awesome. You know, yesterday I was I was here in the office with daddy and Ryan at the same time because it was raining, and so they were like having their little catch-up meeting session, and I was working away at the computer, and one minute I'm like, are you guys in a are you guys agreeing? Are you disagreeing? Are you just what's going on? And the next minute they're just laughing as hard as they can laugh about something that happened, and so sometimes it's really great, and and sometimes it is really frustrating because when it's when we're suffering from a drought and the bills still have to be paid, and the investment that was put in the ground has not done what it needs to do because of things out of your control, everybody is stressed out at the same time, and that's that's a whole nother, you know, can of worms. So it's it's just it's a constant juggling act.

Marisa 16:32

Yeah. And I can imagine that, you know, intentionality and good communication is crucial.

Betsy 16:39

Yes, and that's that has taken we've Ryan and I have been a part of this operation for 13, 14 years, and um mom and dad have worked together for over 40 years. And there's still there's a lot of times that I'm over here with the two of them, but Ryan's out, you know, getting managing everything and getting things done. And um, and I'll I get a front row or like a little fly on the wall seat to watch how their relationship juggles work and personal life, you know, like you know, there's there are times that you snap at each other, and that's just part of it. And then Ryan will come in and I'll ask him something, and he'll snap at me because he can, because he can't snap at anybody else, but he can snap at me and you know dad will be like, Hey, I'm like, You just snapped at mom, it's okay. Like, I'm you know, so there's that kind of dynamic is always going on, and we are always constantly working to try to build those relationships, and so I'll tell you something that's been really great for that. Um, is mom and dad are very involved with Farm Bureau, they do a lot of leadership training, and um, there's always opportunities through programs like that to for professional development but also personal development. Ryan just finished the agricultural leadership development program through the Tobacco Trust Fund. That was fantastic as far as having crucial conversations and and just some training for him for that because we have crucial conversations with each other all the time. We're we're dealing with a larger farming operation, we're not huge, but we are not a hobby farm, so money matters.

Lorenda 18:27

Employees.

Betsy 18:28

Um, there's always personnel issues that are going on. There's um big big decisions made every day, and the decisions are all important. So um we do try to prioritize taking the time to work on communicating with each other, um, and even you know, sometimes our our farm farm office is in my parents' home right now, and that that gets tricky sometimes because I have siblings that are not involved in our farming operation, and so they'll come by to drop kids off or to see mom and dad or to do different things, and we'll be in the middle of a of a meeting, and so just trying to we're we're constantly trying to figure out ways to do this better, figure out ways to make life run more smoothly, um, and that's that's a a moving target.

Lorenda 19:25

Yeah, think about an office when you're working in an office with coworkers, right? And the relationships you build with your co-workers, you don't take that home. You when you walk away from work, you walk away from that relationship, and you walk away from that team building that you've done there, and you've got a whole nother team at home that you're you're working on. We've got the same team, whether we're at work or or at home, and that gives you a wealth of challenges, but it also gives you a wealth of experiences that you've overcome together, that you face together, that you've been succeeded, successful with together. Um, a lot of times when you can laugh at yourself, eventually the situation will get old enough that it's funny. And so we have both teams in the same in the same environment, right? So we're not we don't have separate lives outside of work. Um so that's that's very rewarding. It's kind of like a sisterhood in a motherhood, you know, as we're working together to grow the farm, we're growing our families too, and we want them to be as healthy as possible, have all the advantages that we can give them so that they can be the person that God wants them to be. And we're just working together to try to get all those things done at the same time. So it can get hectic, it can get it can get crazy. The kids can run in here while we're paying bills, or we're on the phone making tax deposits, and they've got a math problem question, and we're trying, we got numbers going everywhere, or or they're hungry, they need a snack. There's a table over here, they color up while we're working. The upstairs is where they play while we're working. Um, outside is their domain. They they're right at home all the time here, but it is like a teamwork, a work environment and a family environment all in one team.

Marisa 21:30

How do you think um generations have changed of being a farm mom? You know, how does raising kids on the farm look different from the different generations?

Lorenda 21:45

Being the oldest one in the room I'll talk first. But um a farm mom traditionally what you think of as a farm mom was my mother in law or her mother in law or her. mother because my mother-in-law was from farming on both sides. But they just they just made sure everybody was fed right three meals a day was fed and then they would go out and they were my mother-in-law would pick cotton that was a story that they told around the the table the dinner table was that he picked her out because she could pick the most cotton in one day and still have a good meal on the table at lunchtime and at supper time and that was one of those little legacy stories that they passed down and they work together but not not on the I don't think they work together as much on the the details of business as we do now. I think the generation now what you would consider a farm mom is more of a an actual partner in agriculture because most farm moms that I know don't consider themselves farm moms anymore. They're farmers just like their husbands are farmers. I know a lot of women that are the major farm farmer in their operation and so I think our roles have become a little more equalized a little more um respected on both sides of the table the financial table as well as the the motherhood table.

Betsy 23:21

Because I think far farming as an industry has really changed over the last 25 even 50 years it's changed a lot but in the last 20 to 25 years it's also changed a lot to where there's less people farming but the farming operations to to have a successful farming operation where you can pay your people and pay yourself and and live you you've got to have a pretty good sized operation to to do it anymore. You know you don't often see my grandparents started this farm they they never they were not growing thousands of acres of row crops they didn't have thousands of heads of hogs they had a couple dozen hogs.

Lorenda 24:02

They started with four and four sows is what they started with.

Betsy 24:05

And were able to provide for their family with that you know my grandmother never had an all-farm job she she was the the caretaker she was the homemaker she made sure everybody was fit and everybody had clothes to wear and they had a place to sleep at night and that worked for them but farming isn't like that anymore. Now you know farming requires um QuickBooks knowledge it requires the ability to run an accounting software program. It requires the ability to manage a great amount of money coming in and even bigger amount of money going out it requires keeping all of your um assets organized and keeping just it's a lot of of book work that's involved with farming now.

Lorenda 24:50

Think about H2A labor paperwork. Think about the restrictions and the regulations that are involved in just running our hot farm he started with four sales and a boar and they were in the woods and nobody oversaw what he was doing.

Betsy 25:04

He had a general permit or a waste management plan and so and you know Ryan and dad could absolutely hire somebody else to do that. They they could absolutely do that but it benefits our whole operation to have the influence of as many people that are invested with skin in the game it just benefits the whole operation so um I think as a farm mom now we still have somebody has to feed everybody and we we have the advantage of chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas and we have the advantage of a dishwasher and a washing machine um I got a speed queen for Mother's Day two years ago and that was the best little plug out there if you're a farm mom just go ahead break down get the speed queen it is awesome. But so we still have to manage all of that but also trying to be involved with the operation trying to help out as much as we can so that we can keep things running and here we go. But I love it I think the NFT mom is you still have all those other responsibilities um taking care of kids taking care of people feeding running all the behind the scenes work but also trying to be involved as much as we can to be supportive of the option it's a just a constant juggling act. I think that's such a great point though that you made Betsy about uh technology helping make some of the burden easier um and more manageable um but it's still it allows you to do more right I haven't really thought about that yeah even like having a having a social media presence I've I've noticed that um so many people that I followed on Instagram now are farm moms and that is a that's a benefit you know social media is is kind of a necessary evil to survival of a lot of farming operations we um and that that requires a lot of time that's something that I can do so that's one thing that I do try to do to to help us out but I see a lot of other farm moms doing that too like oh well you know I can document our life I can promote our farm I can spread ag awareness so that people don't you know run into my husband driving down the road on a tractor and things like that.

Lorenda 27:29

So when you're um when you're involved on social media when you go to the General Assembly and talk to your legislators or to Washington DC or you do a leadership facilitate a leadership class and you've got skin in the game that she just talked about where you're actually on the farm doing the work your validity level goes way through the roof. I mean you are more of a trusted source when you speak for agriculture when you're actually got skin in the game or boots on the ground I mean there's there's times when we're in the field hauling parts and and holding tools and whatever it takes you know and that gives you the opportunity to speak really legitimately about what agriculture is and means.

Marisa 28:16

So I like I like that I like I like that believability that being boots on the crown gives us yeah that's a good point um in terms of your kids and this I guess is directed more towards Betsy but what do you hope that your kids get from being raised on the farm?

Betsy 28:41

I hope that they never ever feel any pressure of any kind to keep doing this. It is a a lot of constant mental and physical pressure you know to to continue to keep your operation sustainable and viable so I hope that they never feel any pressure to come back to work here to be involved but I also hope that they feel like they are welcome to be part of our operation but as far as like what what they get from being raised in this way I hope that they appreciate hard work and understand what hard work is and the value that that can bring I hope that they are learning responsibility I hope that they are learning um just from watching their dad get up every morning and go to work with a good attitude rain or shine dust or mud I hope that they are they are seeing how to just have intrinsic joy no matter what the season brings to be able to rely on the Lord and there just to to provide them with some intrinsic joy that's not a direct result of your circumstances but mainly finding intrinsic joy no matter what pushing on when things get hard so some perseverance and determination and just a good old-fashioned work ethic sometimes it can feel like we're the only ones that have kids that know how to pull weeds or kids that aren't afraid to walk into a hog barn and get dirty you know I feel like that so many people now they they don't want to get dirty they don't want to be sweaty unless they're in a gym they don't want to do hard work. Our kids over the summer we have a 10 year old and an almost 12 year old so um we want um one of our goals for them for this summer is for them to learn how to check a hog house how to walk through a barn full of pigs and look for sick ones look for concerns look for um malfunctions with equipment and technology in the barn and understand that kind of thing so um I want them to be able to to do that and so I asked them you know what do you think would be a fair price for you guys to to charge me and daddy to help us keep an eye on the pigs this summer and to to understand that that oh well we we can't pay you a thousand dollars every time you go check the barn you know like just because it's hard work doesn't always mean that you're gonna get a huge monetary payoff it doesn't always work like that but that intrinsic payoff and um so yeah just just hoping to teach them some old-fashioned good old-fashioned hard work um good work ethic and responsibility and um to be able to push on when things get tough I think that I think that farm kids make the toughest kids I think that farm kids have just there it's a classroom to teach skills that can't be taught anywhere else just like you know there are some things that you can only learn at public school there are some lessons that can only be taught in that particular environment there are some lessons that can only be taught on the farm my dad used to drop me off in the tobacco field with a hoe and a jug of water and I can remember thinking that he was gone forever and for all I knew he left and went a hundred miles away when in reality he went about 200 yards back to the shop to work on something knowing that we were safe chopping tobacco and I'm better off for that I'm a I think I'm a better human being because I was left in a field with a hoe and so I just hope that our kids can get those same kinds of lessons.

Lorenda 32:53

And a reminder they didn't have cell phones back then so she was solely alone in that field doing her stuff.

Betsy 32:59

Absolutely which is why it felt like he was going so far away because we didn't know where he was going or when he was coming back and we didn't have an Apple watch and let us know you know how in Dora to keep you company no nothing just you and the crickets and the bugs and the birds there's a comedian that does a little skit I've seen several times it's hilarious.

Lorenda 33:20

He talks about kids doing chores and he talks about how when you give a farm kid a chore that if they don't do that chore the bank forecloses on their farm so how important farm kid chores really can be in the scheme of things it's it's just hilarious to hear him talk about the bank foreclosing but I think um I think every farm kid she talked about what she wanted for her children we had the same the same thoughts right we didn't want anyone to feel like if they didn't want to come back to the farm that the farm would die. We didn't want them to feel that pressure but we actually had a contingency plan when they were in high school and college if no one came back to the farm what were we going to do with our 100 year old 200 year old farm right and so there is whether you say it or not whether you whether you continuously say do your own thing to a farm kid be your own person that farm kid sees your parents and your grandparents struggling to keep the farm going he knows or she knows the heritage they all know how long we've been doing this and so the pressure's there right to come back to the farm to do what you want to do. And so kudos to those people who say farming's not for me. I'm not I can't be responsible for coming back to the farm and running the farm because it's just not in my it's not in my my genes it's not in my blood it may be in my genes but it's not in what I want to do. And there's a pressure that you don't want the farm to die on your watch right huge pressure. You don't want to be the last in the line of generations to be on the farm but it happens all the time life life happens things happen beyond your control you just want to do the best that you can do to raise your children to be individuals and to be independent and to follow their dreams and to follow their hearts and if they line up their dreams are to keep the farm going then as a grandparent you want to do what you can do to make those dreams come true.

Betsy 35:41

We we have um you know our four year old doesn't doesn't I I think that he may never consider what he wants to do for a living he's he right now lives in a everybody else does everything for me and I don't have to breathe so he's like not even there yet um but our oldest is is almost 12 in real world days but inside he's like 45 and he want he wants to farm he could care less about school school stands completely in his way between what he wants to do and where he is right now and um so he he is a hundred percent right now I want to farm he's got his own cattle his cattle get a different ear tag so that they are separate from daddy's uh he keeps up with his herd his money he's in it um I don't know how long that'll last but for right now he he's in it and then our daughter is 10 she really wants to be a veterinarian she loves animals she does livestock skeleton she does 4-8 she shows livestock livestock judging she's she wants to go and do that and it fills us with so much pride to hear Wade talk about his cattle word and it fills us with the same amount of pride to hear Logan talk about wanting to go to vet school and um neither one of those is good or bad they're just great both of them. It's them right for what they want to do and to watch them bloom wherever it is that they want to be and so we're just trying to be as you know if if you guys want to be here that's great. But you're gonna need the same work ethic to make it through that school as you are going to be to make it through a drought or a flood or a market crash or whatever you know the next month seems to be bringing for the good people of the ag industry lately. So they're gonna need those skills no matter what whether my granddaddy used to always tell a story about one of his uh one of my dad's sisters she got a job at McDonald's or Wendy's no she was at Wendy's and she was her manager said that she was just so great at her job at Wendy's and he completely attributed that to her weed pooling experience on the farm and they told that story about her working at Wendy's all the time and same is true like whether you want to be an engineer whether you want to be a truck driver whether you want to be a social media influencer whatever it is that you want to do you're gonna have to work hard at it to be successful.

Lorenda 38:24

So you also as a parent in my role want to make sure that the farm is what Bessie and Ryan want it to be because they're the next step right they're the next generation and as her as her boss or her mother I don't care which it is because I feel like we're more partners than we are um employee boss but you want to make sure that her dreams will be fulfilled on the farm and her husband's dreams and so um doing the strawberries this year has been fun but it was all her it's something that she wanted to do to try to open some doors for our farm that Roe Crop Farm and wasn't really paying the bills and so what can we do differently how can we think outside the box and they came up with strawberries and so 100% we're in we're we're all in trying to help with the strawberries and trying to help with the cucumbers that's another new one for us just things that they would like to try to do to make our farm more productive to use our land in a better way and to fit their plan right my husband's plan was to grow corn and hogs all his life and that's what he's done. But hogs are doing good but corn not so good now so Betsy and Ryan's time to step up and we become more of a support in this role as um as her parents and as his in-laws and they're driving the truck now he'll Harold will say all the time they're driving they're calling the shots and we're just we're just tickled to death to still be on the team.

Marisa 40:03

That's awesome and I love that you're open minded about trying new things and and you know keeping it going um you mentioned something earlier Betsy and it made me think is it isolating being a farm mom compared to being like being around other moms. Is it different?

Overwhelm Moments And Real Fulfillment

Betsy 40:25

Yeah yes um when we when we first had our our oldest child was born um I left my public school teaching job um and that was kind of like on a trial basis for us okay let's see like can we survive with if I let go of that full-time income and the benefits and all that stuff can we make it um and we ended up having our second child really quickly after that and um so I just for a couple of years I had a few responsibilities on the farm but I was more of a stay-at-home mom than an employee of Overman Farms and um and those were absolutely glorious years in my life they were short uh and sweet and fast and um I spent a lot of time going to story time and play dates and you know anything that we could do to get out of the house and connect with other moms and um and that was really really great and as we started transitioning our farming operation really rapidly expanded about the time that our third child was born um our our hog operation got really big really fast and I needed to be somebody needed to be more involved and um so when other moms were going and and doing play dates and things like that I was like well I I can make it because you know I have one child that's begging to go ride with daddy. Daddy needs someone to go get parts and then somebody needs to be delivering lunch so that the planter can keep going and someone needs to be doing this and so kind of gradually over a couple of years I started having to say no to a lot of things that would connect me with other moms. We're not able to run the travel ball schedule that other parents can do we're not able to run the rec sports schedule that a lot of other parents can do it's just too much. I'm one person I can't drive four kids in four different directions by myself and sports happen in the fall and the spring and farm life is just completely wild in the fall and the spring and so there's a lot of things that we have to say no to socially for ourselves and for the kids because the farm comes first in some cases that's a constant juggling act and over time like a lot of those group texts with me and other moms kind of I would notice well I didn't I see everybody is getting together for lunch today. I didn't get that text because they just they know I can't go anymore. So it it can be really isolating we Ryan and I were on the North Carolina Farm Bureau State Young Farm and Ranchers committee for two years and that was life giving to be able to connect with other parents of young children who are juggling parenthood social life work balance to hear that we're not the only ones that aren't able to do things and as a matter of fact we have some friends that live um close to Myrtle Beach and we last summer a couple times we drove to meet them for dinner because they understand that dinner time is 8 30 p.m because you know a lot of a lot of our friends from church or friends from our community they get off of work at five o'clock so they're ready to meet up at 5 30 Friday night to go out and and you know get together and hang out or they're all meeting up at 6 p.m to their kids are Playing on the playground and they're having dinner and stuff and at 6 p.m. is the sun is still out and the tractor is still rolling, and so there it is very isolating. And I I did not realize that it would be that way. Um that that has been kind of a surprise. So having those other connections, we'll we'll meet farming friends from Rocky Mount or from um Bladen County or Columbus County or even the other side of the state, and we'll we'll drive and meet them somewhere because they're okay having dinner at nine o'clock, and everybody else, you know, is like, okay, can can you guys meet us at six? I'm like, no, we can't do that. How about 6 30? We can't do that either. So that that is a that's a great point. I don't think about that a lot, but it is. And mom and dad, in their season of life, they're able to do a little bit more of that now because Ryan is here. So Ryan being here gives dad that freedom. Um, and and we want him to have that because he definitely has put in his time where he's still daddy's still he's in his 60s and he still puts in plenty of 14, 15, 16 hour days. Um, but we try to be here as much as we can so that they can kind of be free to go and do other things and um and enjoy some time off the farm because it's it's important to step away. Everybody needs to step away. There's just certain seasons that it's easier to do that than others. I saw somebody um, a friend of ours that farms in the Greensboro area, she posted to Instagram, give me your favorite vacation destinations for a January vacation. And I was like, I'm following this because we that is our that's our time to shine. Yeah.

Marisa 45:48

Yeah. So talk to me about when do you feel most fulfilled as a mom and when do you feel most overwhelmed.

Betsy 46:00

I definitely overwhelmed. I can tell you all about being overwhelmed. We could do a whole hour long uh I I and my kids understand what the word trigger is and what it means. And you know, I I told one of them this morning, I was like, you are triggering me right now. Um because yesterday um I dropped our I I started making strawberry deliveries at 7:30 in the morning, dropped our little list off at preschool in the midst of those deliveries, and trying to make sure that I had the right amount of strawberries for every order, and that every order went where it needed to go, and that every basket had perfect strawberries in it, and that the the online invoices had gone through the right way, and then I show up at the office, get the kids going on school. I'm doing office work. Mom called had a something she had to be at in town, so you know, can you stay? Yep, no problem. I got it. Um, and it was just like constant all day long, and the kids had a um the kids had a thing they had to be at for school last night, and um I showed up at our house with 40 minutes to get everybody reset to go to school. And when I walked into the house, the there were some strawberries that had been left out on the counter from that morning, which means that there were fruit flies out in my kitchen. There was a sink full of dishes, the dishwasher was clean, but it was full, so I had nowhere to put the dirty dishes, the laundry was overflowing, the clothes from the dryer this morning were still in the dryer, and you know, it's that balance right then. You know, it's just like your your brain just completely um starts to self-destruct because you start thinking, I can't do this. I there's not enough of me. I I cannot continue to do this. This I'm failing, I'm failing at everything right now. I didn't get my office work done. I still have more to do, I didn't get this done. This the house is my one main responsibility, and look at it, it's a disaster. So it is just so easy in my season of life to be very overwhelmed by that. And then this morning I was driving over here to the office with the kids, and my kids are in the back of my car singing Forest Frank about it's a good day, and there, and I look back there, and I just none of that other stuff matters. It doesn't, it mattered in the moment yesterday. But in the in the grand scheme of life, what matters way more is that the kids are singing Forest Frank and loving each other, and that we're building relationships with them, and that we are instilling values and things in them that will outlive us, and that is what matters. So trying to that is what fulfills me. That is when you feel fulfilled as a mom. The clean kitchen never makes me feel very fulfilled, but it does help with the overwhelm.

Lorenda 49:18

I came home one day, I ran to get some stuff for the hog farm, and when I got on the way home, I stopped and got two chickens, raw, you know, two whole chickens to cook. And I brought them home. I dropped off the parts, I dropped off whatever it was. I came in, I put the chicken on the floor, and I got busy working, and the next day I woke up and chicken still on the floor. Oh no. So, you know, that's when you feel like I'm not have I'm not handling this very well. That's when you feel like you know, things are not going well. But she's right when you watch a child bloom or a farm kid find his niche, or you you watch a crop get harvested and your husband's super excited that you've you've done something right because they identify success with doing it right. You know, if it's not a good crop, they did something wrong, and it's that's not the case at all when it comes to weather. But those are when you feel like there's a bigger point here, there's a bigger goal here, and that is the bigger goal right there.

Marisa 50:24

Well, let's um let's wrap up this with one final question. You both are at very different stages of motherhood, um but both very much mothers. What is your favorite part of this stage that you are in?

Lorenda 50:42

My favorite part of this stage is to play all the time if I get a chance to play. If she wants to go have some personal time with other farmers or other friends, then I get the privilege of being her go-to person. Um, but that's just with all that we have 11 grandchildren, and so that's a great part of my stage right now is to be able to just play, develop a relationship with that next generation, and hopefully love on them enough so that one day they'll look back and they'll say, Hey, I had a pretty good gammy one time. So that's that's my goal, and that's the favorite part of being a mother, a grandmother, and a mother at this point.

Marisa 51:26

Well, don't you do a pretty awesome gingerbread house day?

Lorenda 51:31

We do, we do. Every Christmas well, we do it usually the weekend of Thanksgiving. Everybody gets their own gingerbread house, and I buy way too much candy, and we we just mess up the whole house and we build 11 little gingerbread houses at one time, and we've all got matching pajamas, and we do a candy cane hunt outside, just like you would hunt Easter eggs. And so I want to create those little memories that that they'll go back and say, Hey, I remember doing that, or they see the pictures scroll across on the frame, the framing O frame, you know, oh that was gingerbread day years ago when we were little, right? Um yeah, it's it's it's all about making memories and and making making a legacy, but a relationship too, that that we can grow with them as they grow.

Marisa 52:21

Yeah. How about you, Betsy? What's your favorite season?

Betsy 52:25

Uh well your favorite part of this season, sorry. The the my favorite part about this current season is the kids. They're all at different ages. Um, if anybody else out there has four kids, you understand that if even if you have two, even if you have one, trying to soak up that one season with that child is, you know, it can be overwhelming, but just um living in the moment, trying to enjoy each season that each kid is in. Um, you know, our our youngest is four, and trying to soak up the last bit of those like baby little days with him, preschool drive-off, preschool pickup, you know, that he still wants to snuggle with me is so sweet. Um, but also getting to watch the older kids kind of become their own people and talk about who they want to be and sort of um become more independent and all that stuff. We we have a good time together, um, watching them play, watching them develop relationships with each other. And so um the kids are at a at a fun age. Um, I meet a lot less physical needs every day than I used to when they were all toddlers and babies at the same time. Um that was wild. There's a lot of lot of diaper changing and bottle fixing and water cup finding. And um so I do less of that now and more um watching soccer games and watching baseball games and basketball and listening to them talk about their friends, and um, so that's it's just a fun season to to be in. It's a fast season. It feels like you are trying so hard to watch it and you're missing it because you're trying so hard to watch it. Um so but that's fun. We me and the kids are watching, we're really in American Idol this season. We have really enjoyed watching American Idol together. That's been so something that we are all like, okay, if we can get all this stuff done and we can at least get dinner by eight o'clock, we can watch American Idol together while we while we have dinner. So just trying to enjoy the kids in there at season, um, trying to enjoy the season that Ryan and I are in. Um there were a lot of years when the kids were really small and he was trying to build his cattle herd and start a cattle operation here on the farm that he was working just outrageous hours. Um, and now we're getting to a season where we are able to see some of the fruit of that. Um, and like he he sold his biggest group of calves to date. He sold that a couple weeks ago, and that was so exciting to watch that and to kind of see, oh hey, remember when we had nine cows and you spent an entire night, you stayed up all night one night taking down someone else's dilapidated fence to get free fence supplies to increase your herd. Remember that? And now, you know, we see some fruit from that. So uh that's a fun season, too.

Lorenda 55:34

One thing that I've enjoyed doing is telling the grandchildren what it used to be like days before cell phones, days before uh internet TV, days before air conditioning in the car.

Betsy 55:47

Back in the 1900s.

Lorenda 55:49

Well, it's really only like 30, 40 years ago, but it was when she was little, but it's a whole new world for them. So I've enjoyed doing that a lot too. And they've gotten to the point where they'll say, Tell me a story, tell me an old story, right? I want an old that's oh cool. So that's been a lot of fun, too. Yeah, we've enjoyed that. Yeah, it's important to keep those memories alive, right? Well, it's fun for them and it's fun for me too. It it just reminds them what what it was like.

Marisa 56:19

Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Y'all have been amazing.

Betsy 56:25

Thank you for having us.

Lorenda 56:27

Yeah, we appreciate you asking us.

Marisa 56:28

And happy Mother's Day.

Speaker 2 56:30

Happy Mother's Day.