First Dawn let me say I can't wait to meet you and and the other wives.  I wasn't able to make it to St. Louis but hope to soon.

As far as your question I don't have a job off the farm now.  When we went no-till hubby let the full-time man go and I quit my job in town.  We have to much ground for one person in the busy time and not enough for a hired man to do in slower time to justify that salary.  I'm like you-not afraid dirty and do most of the time!  We work side by side almost every day.  I also keep the books and other "woman jobs".  But I also choose alot of the hybrids we plant and it took some of the seed salesmen to get the hint that they were talking to the wrong person!

I think "here" it is the norm for farm wives to have off farm jobs.  I have heard it said many time that they do this mostly for the health insurance for their family and I can certainly understand that.  We(hubby & I) had many conversations in the mid 90's about me going back to work because of lean times.  It just didn't make sense for us at the time.  My salary & benefits would have gone to daycare and paying the hired mans salary.  Now that the kids are mostly grown (21&17) and if our son chooses to come home and farm I may go back to "work"

I think it's a very personal choice-what makes sense for you.  I personally wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world but I've been driving tractors since I was 8!