To promise the rest of your life to someone of the farm is to say that you are, if not of sound mind, then certainly of bold character.

There are certain places that diamond rings can be found in all facets of family life, not just on the farm. They might start out in a photography studio for those engagement pictures, and after that it’s anyone’s guess where they might show up.

They can certainly be found in churches and other wedding venues, hospital delivery rooms, diaper changing rooms, bathrooms during bath time and toddler potty training, hanging clothes on the clothesline and in rocking chairs with hungry babies or sick children.

They are found in doctor’s offices, principal’s offices, work offices and home offices.

They can be spotted while signing children up for preschool and kindergarten, in auditoriums for holiday concerts, churches for Christmas pageants, buses for school field trips and even high on ladders while cleaning rain gutters … or down low cleaning out dairy barn gutters in the day.

Diamond rings show up at the stove and in the laundry room, in every bedroom in the house, placing dandelion bouquets into mason jars, and sweeping out the mud room. They are at funerals and weddings of loved ones and are seen raised in worship. They are at every store that supplies their family and business needs, and are found waiting in line. A lot.

They are seen at daycare centers, parks, preschool graduations, high school graduations, awards nights, Christmas tree lots, church fundraiser and funeral dinners, on and behind lawn mowers, at the CPA’s office and in the homes of family and friends.

For men and women of the farm, they are also seen in tractors, combines, choppers, semis and more as they keep agriculture going. They’re in farrowing houses, calving/lambing/farrowing/kidding barns, on hay racks, in haymows and bent under the load of repair work.

They are in farm shops and machine sheds, underneath the hoods of vehicles and tractors, and at the kitchen table discussing the financial plan before finding those diamond rings at the banker’s office.

Diamond rings can be found anywhere on vacations, and in gymnasiums, swimming pools, golf courses, dance studios, auditoriums, football fields, tracks and other places while teaching or honing skills, or cheering on children as they learn–then excel at–their activities.

An enriched life might even find that diamond ring back at the jeweler’s to be made larger; or made smaller because that same ring showed up at the fitness gym a few times. It might even show up at a pawn shop.

Some diamond rings are found at jails and prisons when life has taken a turn for a friend or family member; and may even be found in a hospice room or hospital chapel.

The diamond ring can be seen in nursing homes and by hospital beds on and near sick family members or aging parents, and in the beauty salon or barber shops. They are found in and next to parents’ caskets, the caskets of friends and family members we have loved and lost, around their family members and maybe even in our own caskets someday.

Estate planning, a failed marriage, the reading of a will or any other legal cause might find them at the lawyer’s office, or they might be found driving heavy equipment, constructing a building or in a restaurant or movie theatre on a much-needed night out on the town.

A diamond wedding ring can be the beginning of so many joys and sorrows for anyone who dares to wear one — so much so that it’s worth the risk they present.

If you’re a woman of the farm who helps outside, you might want to keep your diamond under lock and key. You never know what necessary job will tarnish its beauty.

Especially when four-legged farm mamas are having their babies.

Yeesh.

Karen Schwaller writes from her grain and livestock farm near Milford, Iowa. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net