Farm Camp for Young Couples

I'm going to open a pre-marriage boot camp for engaged couples, all designed around common farm chores. It would be like the marriage counseling churches require before the ceremony, but based on testing yourselves in real life situations versus spiritual ones. If you are able to survive loading hogs, fixing fence or backing a trailer without wringing each other's necks, it bodes well for your future together.

Like putting on slightly ill-fitting tractor snow chains-This requires exacting team work, deciphering nonverbal communications and knowing the moment in which to keep your thoughts to yourself.

While working in total unison grappling 150 pound chains onto 6 foot tall tires, you must be able to properly translate your husband's grunts and nods as to where to push or pull while at the same time not taking his barked cuss words personally, recognizing that they are indeed directed at the chains themselves.

You have to be able to read facial expressions perfectly so as to know the exact moment in which his strained face is indicating you squashed his finger in the chain vs. the simple strain of hoisting the chain into place.

You must also learn the value of keeping your thoughts to yourself when your spouse finally tries the method you have pointed out 20 minutes ago (and of course it works perfectly), realizing that gloating now can derail all the whole show into a senseless argument. If you must gloat, save that gloating for suppertime--full bellies take such low blows much better.

If you can manage all of this successfully, you can then bask in the sweet glow of having conquered the chains as a team...until that sad moment when you realize you still have one more tire to chain and must do it all over again.