Life can twist and turn in ways that we could never imagine, especially within agriculture. For FarmHer Meredith Bernard of This Farm Wife, life on their North Carolina family farm has fallen into place exactly how it should.
The Heart and Passion of This Farm Wife
Meredith Bernard’s role on and off the farm has evolved over the years, growing into several different passion projects. As This Farm Wife and FarmHer, Meredith stays busy with the family’s day-to-day operations, ensuring the farm stays in the family for generations to come.
She is also a professional photographer and writer, featuring her work in local publications and on her blog, This Farm Wife. Meredith also has a YouTube vlog, as well as a shop with farm-related prints, t-shirts and more.
Carolina Roots
Throughout the FarmHer team travels, one thing is always certain – we will meet some amazing women. Meredith Bernard is no different. Meredith didn’t grow up on a farm but found her love of agriculture in a different way.In college, she worked with livestock, and then went on to a career in feed sales throughout the state of North Carolina.
After a nasty spill off her horse, she found her way to her husband, Lawrence, who she heard was a miracle worker with problem horses. He helped her realize it wasn’t the horse, but her fear that she needed to overcome. That advice has played out through her life in more ways than one. She has had to push herself to overcome her fears in everything she has tackled, especially with her passion projects turned successful business as a Mompreneur.
This advice and help she got from Lawrence was the beginning of their adventure. As Meredith tells it, after the first time working cattle together he said he just had to marry her. So, that’s what they did. Over a decade and two kids later, Meredith and her family are loving life on their family farm in Milton, North Carolina. They raise about 110 cow-calf pairs, as well as grow corn and silage for their operation.
A Day in This Farm Wife’s Life
While visiting Meredith for an episode of FarmHer on RFD-TV, we started the day checking cattle. This is an extra important activity when farmers are in the thick of calving season. Here’s a #FarmHerFirst – we got far out in the pasture, enjoying our morning and conversations. All of the sudden, the skies opened up and started POURING.
Luckily, we had an umbrella, but not just any ol’ umbrella. We had Meredith’s daughter little pink Minnie Mouse umbrella with us! The perfect for any little FarmHer, right? We convinced her to let us share it to try to keep a little bit dry. It didn’t work, but we got some great laughs out of it.
We headed back to the house, a quaint cabin built from trees right there on the farm. We enjoyed a warm cup of coffee on the sprawling front porch before heading out to the barn. It was time to give a bottle to a calf they were keeping. We felt right at home. The kids argued over who was going to feed the cute little calf – they both won, taking turns.
We went back up to the house to finish up the night enjoying another one of Meredith passions – cooking. She fixed a meal featuring what was quite possibly one of the best steaks we have tasted. The beef was good, but pan frying them in a cast iron skillet was the kicker. In her cozy kitchen, surrounded by beautiful photographs of her family, we could feel the genuine love.
The Ultimate FarmHer and Mompreneur
Meredith’s passion for photography steamed from wanting to know how to use a camera to document life on the farm. She self-taught herself everything. Once her knowledge began to grow, she expanded into a photography business, shooting weddings, family photos and more. Meredith is a firm believer in keeping it simple and utilizing what you have – if you have love, passion and a willingness to learn, it doesn’t take much to go from there. She even started her YouTube channel with just an iPhone and the free iMovie app she already had.
Meredith Bernardis a mother, farmer, photographer and overall one of the sweetest women we have met in our travels.She is the ultimate FarmHer and Mompreneur.
Watch videos of Meredith and her familyhere.
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