Associated Press: Farmer Jon: US Sen. spends weekends plowing fields
BIG SANDY, Mont. — Even for a Montana grain farmer, the ripped and greasy clothes worn by Jon Tester on a typical weekend back home are a bit ragged. For a U.S. senator, they are downright grubby.
Tester is a bit of an anomaly in what has been dubbed the nation’s “most exclusive club,” and it’s not likely he would have ever received an invitation to join on satorial considerations alone.
Montana voters sent him to the Senate in 2006, but he flies home almost every weekend to plow his fields, fix his farm machinery and tend to his relatively modest 1,800 acre farm in the rolling hills of wheat country north of Great Falls.
The place has been in the family since 1916. The farm’s dogs keep an eye Tester as he goes about his chores..
The traditional August recess — set up at a time when many in Congress were farmers — is now used by many for vacation, campaigning and constituent work. Tester, who usually has dirt under his fingernails and sports a wrinkled tie when he has to wear one, rushes back to the farm in between meetings around the state.
