GARDNER: Step onto the grounds of Miss Effie's Country Flowers and Garden Stuff outside Donahue, Iowa, and it's hard to miss what makes this small farm cultivated by Cathy Lafrenz distinctive.
Flower beds spread to the edge of a cornfield in evenly-spaced rows, filled with vibrant blooms and the drowsy humming of bees. In the middle stands the summer kitchen, a small building stocked with hand-sewn aprons, jars of jam, embroidered tea towels and other crafts.
And then there are the chickens. Lots colorful, clucking chickens.
LAFRENZ: We have about 20 different breeds of chickens. I have my first golden-lace cochins, and I'm really excited. They're just balls of fur and fluff and feathers. We also have buff orpingtons. And barred rocks. And cuckoo marans. A lot of variety.
I only wanted 12 to start out with, but chickens are addicting. We have 70, and I sell fresh eggs. We say we have pretty eggs from pretty chickens.
GARDNER: You might call it the feminine side of farming, part of our agricultural heritage that Cathy seeks to celebrate on her farm.
According to the most recent census data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, women comprise 30 percent of all farmers today.
But women have always played an integral roll on family farms, says Cathy. Those tea towels and jam jars may seem whimsical, but they're serious business.
LAFRENZ: I like to focus between the 1930's and the 1960's, the early 1960's, and tell the story of what women did to support themselves on a farm or to add income to the farm. We do that by showing quilt blocks on our barn to tell the story of women's sewing and quilting, we do that by selling jam and eggs, and by selling flowers on the farm.
GARDNER: It's a history Cathy knows well. Both of her grandmothers were hardworking farm wives.
One helped bring in income during the Great Depression by selling baked goods, chickens, butter, cream and eggs produced on the farm. The other raised flowers for her church. Their efforts helped make ends meet for their families.
At her farm, Cathy not only continues these traditions, she invites visitors to experience a bit of farm life themselves.
LAFRENZ: We offer customers a chance to come out to the country and just stroll through rows of flowers and pick whatever they want. And we invite them to bring picnic lunches. What we want people to do is connect with the countryside.
GARDNER: Her interest in sharing and celebrating the role women played on the farm, and the role agriculture has played in American culture, is part of what led Cathy to have her farm become a registered site in the Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area.
LAFRENZ: The national heritage areas have been developed by the national park service, and they are a partnership of private and public places. Different organizations and different individuals can tell a particular story of a region. And here in Iowa, in a 37-county area, we are lucky enough to be part of Silos and Smokestacks, the national heritage area for agriculture, so we tell the story of American agriculture.
