Erica Louder

I walked into the convention hall a minute late. I checked in at the registration table, got my clicker and sat behind the Jerome County sign. The man sitting by me picked up the cowboy hat that he had set on my table. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I didn’t know if the other delegate from your county would make it, but here you are.” At the president’s call to order, we opened our policy books and began the annual business of the Idaho Farm Bureau.

After the third round of the World Series, our favorite (or is it least?) folks over at PETA proposed that Major League Baseball change the name of the “bullpen” to “arm barn” to “liberate the language of baseball.”

We watched as the chopper made the last pass. In moments, the final strip of corn was eaten up in the teeth of the most fantastic piece of farm equipment out there, a CLAAS Jaguar forage chopper. The best, according to my 3-year-old son.

Every year we see the pictures at the end of summer: kids hugging a 4-H or FFA project animal with tears streaming down their cheeks.

Earlier this week, I attended an activity that my local Young Farmers and Ranchers group put on. Even though we sent out nearly a thousand invites, the turnout was dismal.

Last month, I made the unpardonable mistake of reading Facebook comments on a somewhat politically charged article. Subconsciously, I must have been missing that kind of discord since it’s been a bit drought-like on my Facebook feed since the election.