Thursday, August 9, 2012

Mr. Wilson

After 15 years of posting and emailing, I finally got to meet Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson is Hay Wilson or better yet, Bill Wilson from Texas. He is a retired military man who has spent his time since raising alfalfa and grass hay. He became active in the American Forages Council activities and has become extremely knowledgeable on the production of forage.

Bill has sent me more soil chemistry via email than any other person. If I would have printed out each page, I would have volumes that would be priceless to a novice or experienced hay producer. I would say he has forgotten more than most people understand about alfalfa and hay and calcareous soils but I don't think he has forgotten one thing. He is still learning.

He and is dear wife Jean stopped by for a visit yesterday on the way to their B-52 reunion at Wright Pat. I asked him when was the last time he flew one and he quickly answered 33 years ago. I am sure he knows the day and the hour. That became his life while Jean raised their daughters and worked the farm while he was flying.

We talk to a lot of the same people so we had lots to talk about but we pretty much focused on their lives and our place. Our place has a lot of history and we were sure to look at the barn quilt on the old barn so I could tell them the story how that happened.

We went to the Lynchburg diner as I take many of my visitors and we had a really nice lunch before they headed off to Dayton. Time goes so fast when you are talking to interesting people. It was like we had known each other for years and were filling in the dots by actually being together in a new place. It was quite wonderful.

LuAnn was at work so she didn't get to meet them. We are going to have to take a camping trip through Texas some day and pick up some of those National Parks down there we have not visited. Wow, I didn't realize there were so many!

The Internet is a wonderful thing if you use it. The technology we get from activities from the Mars rover is amazing if we apply it. Bill at not one but two GPS sitting in his Ford Fusion.

It was great to finally meet in person, Bill and Jean and we hope to do that again someday!

Ed

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to meet Hay Wilson. He has always been one to give excellent advice. One of the people I enjoy reading on NAT.

    ReplyDelete
  2. He's a keep that is for sure, Budde. Blessed to know him and meet him, cantankerous old Texan that he is but all done in the right way. We need more men like that, are we a dying breed?

    ReplyDelete