The Story

You have to hear the real story.

10 years ago today I got this special email from a lady in Buffalo NY. She was working on a grant for notill for her farmers in Erie County and my name kept coming up on agriculture.com

I had just signed up for an ag singles online group and I must admit I was scared.

It wasn't that at all.

She asked honest questions about notill farming and I gave my best answers. We must have written in a way that was interesting to each other because we just kept writing.

I guess we were new kids at the keyboard.

It turned out that she was divorced with three kids, I was divorced with three kids and one day I got up the nerve to call her, I believe it was in August. We decided we should meet and she asked me to pick a place for that occasion.

I picked Geneva on the Lake, Lake Erie near Ashtabula.

On October 10, 1999, I was sitting on the tailgate of my old 1990 Dodge Dakota, just whiling the time away, kicking my legs back and forth.

Here she comes in brand new shiny blue Ford Expedition and I looked down at the licennse plates.

SOILH2O

I thought oh my God, I have met my match. I knew right then my life would never be the same.

I was so intrigied by her I drove past every gas station on the way home and ran out of gas near SR 38 on Interstate 71. I counted several hundred cars gone by until I guy finally stopped.

It was a wonderful day, long night and prediction of the future. I had to teach school at 7 AM the next morning.

On June 22, 2001, Reverend Fred Shaw performed the Native American ceremony merging of soil and water during our wedding vows. I never saw a dry eye in the place.

I will never forget the look on Uncle Roy's face as dad had just passed away January 3 that year.

You know, a guy just can't make this stuff up.

Kevin, Shannon, Madison, Brynn, Eric, Stacy, Tyler, Tara, Erik, Matt, Rachel, Corbin, Claire, Rebecca, Will, Liam, Caoilin, Mark, Anna. Just from one little email.

As a plus, Becky won the County Beef Showmanship Award that day.

We can both laugh at it now as July 13 had a much larger implication on our family.

Happy Anniversary my friend.

Ed