Hot Couture: Farmers Favorite Hot Weather Gear
Farmers are experts at keeping cool. A few let us in on their hot-weather secrets.
Nikola-Lenivets, Russia
Anna Morozova and her husband, Sergei, run an organic vegetable and berry farm in Nikola-Lenivets, an artists’ village in Russia’s Kaluga region (four hours south of Moscow). In summer, they keep cool in cotton and linen, alternating between pants, overalls and shorts. “Since we have loamy soil, we wear light, waterproof shoes like Crocs,” Morozova says. Up top, they usually go for caps or straw hats – “but when it’s especially hot, we wear white kerchiefs.”
– Joy Neumeyer
Lincolnville, Maine
While working at her Salt Water Farm, owner Annemarie Ahearn wears a wide-brimmed antique straw hat to shade her pale, freckled face from the sun. Her legs don’t get the same sort of protection: When it’s warm enough, you’ll find her in shorts. “There’s something very gratifying about having my knees and my feet in the dirt,” she says. “There’s no other time in my life where I feel like a child, like I’m playing in a sandbox.”
– Gloria Dawson
Perdizes, Brazil
The best heat-buster at coffee farm Fazenda Nossa Senhora de FÁ¡tima isn’t a wardrobe item. Pickers on Brazilian coffee farms often have to walk a long ways to shade at break time. Coowner Ricardo de Aguiar Rezende helped come up with a solution: a picnic shelter that can be towed behind a tractor. Now, tired cafeicultores can find sweet relief from the sunshine as they move around the farm and a whole other kind of relief in the adjoining latrine.
– Sam Brasch
Bangkok, Thailand
When it comes to hot and humid days, Nakorn Limpacuptathavon is usually seen on his organic vegetable farm sporting a mor-hom, a navy-blue cotton shirt with two big pockets commonly worn in the northern part of Thailand. “It’s casual, breathable and UV repellent,” says Limpacuptathavon. His hope for the mor-hom is that someone will combine its oldfashioned wisdom with trendy design and offer a fashionable version.
– Panicha Imsomboon
San SebastiÁ¡n, Spain
Father-daughter farmer duo Patxi and Agurtzane Subijana care for Basque pigs at their farm, Ezkurtxerri. And a heritage breed calls for heritage pants: “We never wear shorts, since we walk through oak forests and pigpens all day,” says Agurtzane. Instead, they opt for classic mahÁ³n pants, blue breathable cotton garments historically worn by Basque baserritarras (country folk) and fishermen, as well as at traditional town festivals.
– Marti Kilpatrick
Cross Keys, Pennsylvania
A fishing vest that Julie Hurst got for her birthday years ago has become a key piece of summer attire for working the sheep pastures on her Blue Rooster Farm. “I carry my pocket knife, a pen and notepad, tags and a tagger for newborn lambs, a dog leash for when the dogs are disobedient, lip balm, sunscreen – you name it, it has a place in the vest,” she says.
– Andrew K. Jenner
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