One of my earliest memories was listening to Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. I was in the backseat of a pickup truck, forehead pressed against the cold glass and listening to stories of alien abductions, Bigfoot sightings and government conspiracy theories.

When I was 13, my dad bought a farm. It was a little over 100 acres and was mainly watered with the use of handlines and flood irrigation.

Although there is still a month left of summer, fall seems just around the corner. I know it is the county fair that makes me feel that way. As a kid, the county fair marked the end of summer and the start of a new school year.

Blue Lakes Country Club is a classy place. With its Snake River Canyon location, no jeans and collared shirts dress code, and its “only golf with a member” rule, it caters to the upper echelons of Magic Valley society. Yet, despite all its pretentions to Long Island sophistication, it’s located in the bread basket of Idaho farming country.

One of my favorite sports movies of all time is Field of Dreams. The iconic Kevin Costner stars as Ray Kinsella, a young Iowa farmer who plows up a cornfield and builds a baseball diamond. The words of his deceased father whispered to him have nearly become movie lore, “If you build it, he will come.”

He stayed up past midnight to fertilize the pastures because according to the AccuWeather app, rain was supposed to start by 8 a.m. Perfect timing to dissolve the pellets. My iPhone weather app didn’t show any rain expected until the next evening. But he claims the AccuWeather app is always more accurate. 

I didn’t marry a farmer, but I am married to one now. There is a difference, if ever so slight. When he chose to purchase that first cow, all I could do was shake my head and laugh. I knew he had some ambition to farm life, but I did not realize the depth of that ambition.

If someone were to ask what kind of farm I live on, after maybe a moment’s hesitation, I would have to answer a mud farm. I live on a mud farm.

What is the difference between a farmer and a rancher? The answer may seem obvious – the farmer raises crops, and the rancher raises cattle. But here in southern Idaho, the line separating the two is pretty blurry.

Despite all my pretenses to the opposite, I wasn’t a real “farm kid” growing up. My parents brought home the bacon, but it didn’t come from the farm. I never milked a cow, but my brother told me to not have a cow when he got my goat. As a kid, I didn’t feed chickens, but I was prone to counting my eggs before they hatched and rarely had my ducks in a row. And, if you asked my mom, my room was always a pigsty.