Bhelliom
08-17-2005, 03:43 PM
CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. (AP) - Nearly 50 years ago, a bachelor farmer with "matrimony in mind" spelled out his desire to meet "a lady with a tractor" in a personal ad in the Indiana Evening Gazette. He had one request: "Please send picture of tractor."
Cattle-crops farmer Pieter DeHond wouldn't "stoop so low" as the classifieds, nor is he looking for extra agricultural machinery. Instead, the 41-year-old divorced father of two planted a lovelorn message in a cow pasture in 50-foot letters made from corn stalks.
It reads: "S.W.F Got-2 (love symbol) Farm'n."
Underneath is a 1,000-foot-long arrow pointing single white females to his house.
"It only took me about an hour - I did it with a corn planter in May," DeHond said Wednesday as he removed weeds from the 18-acre field. "I was just horsing around."
In place of a newspaper ad, DeHond said he decided on an impulse to use up the extra corn seed left after spring planting at his 200-acre Pleasure Acres farm in Ontario County in western New York.
"I was going to clean the corn planter out - instead I went out and wrote a letter," he said.
"I wouldn't place a personal ad in the paper. To me it seems desperate," he added, laughing. "This is more of a fun thing. I put this out in a field where nobody could see it unless you flew over it. The folks here in Canandaigua are always asking me why I don't have a wife, and I was just kinda playing a game with them, that's all."
The message, measuring about 900 feet wide by 600 feet, was easily legible from the air - airplanes frequently pass over between Rochester and New York City - when the stalks reached seven feet tall. But a few days ago, DeHond led his cows into the pasture and they chomped up the field corn.
Neighbour Bob Mincer, a former Delta Air Lines inspector, flies a 1946 Piper Cub and has taken DeHond up for a bird's-eye view of his creation.
"He's a great guy with a good sense of humour," Mincer said. "I've seen some crop spellings before and this is very precise. It came out well."
DeHond was working in a factory when he split up with his wife and went into farming seven years ago.
While life on the farm is "something I've always wanted to do," DeHond said running a business and looking after his children, Nathan, 13, and Amanda, 14, doesn't leave a lot of room for socializing.
"I enjoy being in the outdoors," he said, but farmers often "don't get out very much."
No worries! His corny appeal, featured this week in his hometown Daily Messenger newspaper, has already drawn quite a few phone calls and e-mails.
"I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't a little proud," DeHond said.
Cattle-crops farmer Pieter DeHond wouldn't "stoop so low" as the classifieds, nor is he looking for extra agricultural machinery. Instead, the 41-year-old divorced father of two planted a lovelorn message in a cow pasture in 50-foot letters made from corn stalks.
It reads: "S.W.F Got-2 (love symbol) Farm'n."
Underneath is a 1,000-foot-long arrow pointing single white females to his house.
"It only took me about an hour - I did it with a corn planter in May," DeHond said Wednesday as he removed weeds from the 18-acre field. "I was just horsing around."
In place of a newspaper ad, DeHond said he decided on an impulse to use up the extra corn seed left after spring planting at his 200-acre Pleasure Acres farm in Ontario County in western New York.
"I was going to clean the corn planter out - instead I went out and wrote a letter," he said.
"I wouldn't place a personal ad in the paper. To me it seems desperate," he added, laughing. "This is more of a fun thing. I put this out in a field where nobody could see it unless you flew over it. The folks here in Canandaigua are always asking me why I don't have a wife, and I was just kinda playing a game with them, that's all."
The message, measuring about 900 feet wide by 600 feet, was easily legible from the air - airplanes frequently pass over between Rochester and New York City - when the stalks reached seven feet tall. But a few days ago, DeHond led his cows into the pasture and they chomped up the field corn.
Neighbour Bob Mincer, a former Delta Air Lines inspector, flies a 1946 Piper Cub and has taken DeHond up for a bird's-eye view of his creation.
"He's a great guy with a good sense of humour," Mincer said. "I've seen some crop spellings before and this is very precise. It came out well."
DeHond was working in a factory when he split up with his wife and went into farming seven years ago.
While life on the farm is "something I've always wanted to do," DeHond said running a business and looking after his children, Nathan, 13, and Amanda, 14, doesn't leave a lot of room for socializing.
"I enjoy being in the outdoors," he said, but farmers often "don't get out very much."
No worries! His corny appeal, featured this week in his hometown Daily Messenger newspaper, has already drawn quite a few phone calls and e-mails.
"I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't a little proud," DeHond said.