Erica Louder

Despite the labor pains of farming, a farmer eagerly lines up to experience it again and again, season after season.

It is like describing a car to a caveman – there is just not a point of reference to build common ground. There is nothing else like experiencing a total solar eclipse.

This year, when my husband began spouting off the old Farmers Almanac adage of “knee-high by the Fourth of July” to describe our corn crop, this history buff had to do some research. A Google search of that phrase brought up a couple of thousand links.

For as long as there have been farmers there have been farm wives. And today, we are not just farm wives; many of us are farmers in our own right. In an occupation where work, family and lifestyle are so impossibly intermingled, a female farmer faces a unique set of challenges.

My granddad’s favorite way to describe his “spare tire” was that he had a bad case of “water on the belly.” Now certainly, this was not a physiologically accurate diagnosis, but people understood what he meant. Grandpa’s extra 15 pounds he put on most winters settled right on his gut.

The Idaho Farm and Ranch Museum holds a Live History Day every September. At this event they showcase the history of rural Idaho, complete with their replica “provin’ up” shed and enough cream separators to supply butter to all of Jerome County.