My mother planted, tended and harvested a two-acre vegetable garden, not including a further two or more acres of potatoes. She didn't do it for the money; she did it to save money, or more precisely, conserve it. We were a family of seven children and every dollar less she spent at the grocery store left more money for other things that we needed. Her garden was her biggest physical contribution to the family and the farm. Beginning with starting her own seedlings in March and carrying through to canning the last of the tomatoes in October, her growing season was much longer than Dad's, and very labour intensive. Believe me, I know; my sisters and I spent our youths conscripted into her labour force.

Our clothing was another thing she provided at a much reduced cost. My mom sewed everything we wore. As a child, I longed for a "store bought" T-shirt, but I think I was earning my own money as a teenager before I ever owned one. She could sew three shirts for what it cost to buy one ready-made; spending money so lavishly would have meant doing without something else. It was her job to see that the money the farm earned was stretched as far as possible.

That is something we do share: our common goal to help our husbands manage the assets of our respective farms, and hopefully have something left to show for it when we're done. Times change though, and I live in a different world than she did.

I was born in the mid-1950s and grew up in the perfect place and time: rural Saskatchewan in the '60s. Laugh if you like, it was a wonderful place to be. It is, still. My entire education was within the walls of Redvers Elementary and High Schools. Although my parents had hoped that I would go on to university, I chose marriage instead.

The role of a farm wife as we begin the 21st century has evolved to where she is a chief, and cheap – make that indispensable – source of labour during the busy seasons. I don't ever remember Mom driving the grain truck or even fuelling up the tractor, yet these are considered specifically my jobs on our farm. And it doesn't stop there; I have cultivated and harrowed with both two- and four-wheel drive tractors, and I've run the swather and the grain auger. I haven't used the airseeder to plant a crop and I'm a lot more relaxed hauling the grain back to the bins than I am at the helm of a combine, but there are lots of women who do those jobs too, and excel at them.

If there's still a split in the male and female job descriptions it would be that when there's "down time" when we're stopped because of weather or mechanical problems, it's the man who does the fixing and the woman who tries to catch up on meals and laundry.

My parents owned and operated a small (by today's standards) farm. Dad had two quarters of land and rented two more. He and his brother shared some machinery and worked together during harvest, but only part of the land was used to grow cash crops, the rest was hay. About the time I started school, Dad invested in dairy cattle and built a dairy barn; at the time it would have been small, but state of the art. The cheques from the creamery in Souris where we sold our milk and cream were where the family's cash came from, and all of us were expected to contribute to the common good by doing what we were capable of. The younger kids fetched the cows home and we older ones did the evening milking and associated chores. From the time I was 11 I could do those chores alone. In Grade 6 I could arm-wrestle any boy in my class and make him look like a 90-pound weakling. I love that memory.

Although my husband Glen and I set out to farm in the fast lane - at one time we were farming three full sections - circumstances have dictated that after almost 20 years of marriage we find ourselves owning only four quarters and renting one more. Whereas Dad's farm was just a little on the small side in the '60s, ours is puny measured on today's scale. They say that the drive to expand farm size and streamline agricultural operations is a mark of progress: as is always the case, the measuring stick that they're using is purely financial.

When I was a kid, "family farm" meant a family - mother, father, and children - working together to make a living. We were normal kids and complained about having to pick 10 rows of peas in the morning and shell peas all afternoon, but we never doubted we were needed. It gave us a sense of self-worth that I doubt my son gets from his main chore: taking out the garbage. And when I buy my children clothing, do they have any idea how many hours I had to work to provide the gift? When Mom handed me a dress she'd stayed up until midnight sewing, I knew. Now, when they say "family farm" what they likely mean is a huge agricultural business run by two or three adult siblings and their spouses. Chances are that at least half of them work off the farm at full-time jobs and the children go to day care.

I suppose that the word "progress" would be the one used to describe the direction a farm wife's life has taken, although when that word is used, people always assume that the effect being described is positive; I'm not sure it is. It's the same direction society as a whole has taken, though. The lines between "men's work" and "women's work" have blurred everywhere, and we're all better educated - those things are good. On the down-side, family life has suffered because moms work outside the home and the contributions that they make to the family unit are measured more in money than mothering.

Although I still plant a garden, it's not even a shadow of what Mom grew. She taught me to sew, but I never seem to have the time for that either. In the summertime, the afternoons can get long at work, and I get to thinking about all the things I could do if I was only at home, if I could slip back in time and live in my mother's world. I'm never quite sure if I'd really appreciate living her lifestyle, or if it's just nostalgia at work.