Ida Hoes Potatoes in Idaho. Oh Really?

In seventh grade, my geography teacher, Mr. Manzi, taught us about Idaho and its major crop, potatoes.   I would have thought, then, that we would see a lot of potato farms.  We had not seen any yet, but the day was still young.  So $135 later and the best possible scenario in Boise, we left for the next adventure.

It was really a good thing we stopped in Boise to get the exhaust manifold fixed, as the drive to Sandpoint was pretty stressful.  Getting to McCall was easy, and after another stop at 2 Sisters for more of their delicious sandwiches, we headed to Coeur D'Alene.  We had heard that drive was slow and winding, but we were not prepared for the long hill before we got into Lewiston. The poor Willie could only go about 25 miles per hour.  We hit another of those hills just outside of Lewiston . . . yikes!

What really astounded us, and particularly Don, was the number of wheat fields in northern Idaho . . . and the hills they were on.

Getting a combine to some of them would be impossible, which is probably why the farmers thresh the wheat.  The other thing we noticed is that the farms are more like those in Wisconsin and Denmark rather than Kansas - we did not see one item of farm machinery, one trashed car, one bit of old, rusted tractor.  Pristine.

The other thing we noticed was that there were numerous other crops, some of which Don could identify, some which he could not.  He thinks one crop was triticale, another was oats.  But we have no idea what some of the others were. We do know, however, they weren't potatoes.  We did not see one potato crop.  So when and where does Ida hoe those potatoes?