Love on the Farm

The demands of our busy lives often make it difficult to create and sustain personal relationships. And it’s especially difficult if you live in a rural area...working long hours on a ranch or farm. 

Andy Fry is a hog farmer in Central Ohio. He can attest to the fact that meeting “someone special” can be difficult. So Andy has begun searching for someone online at a special website called, “farmersonly.com”.  Started by advertising executive Jerry Miller, the site operates...not in rural America...but from a high rise building in Cleveland, Ohio. Miller says, “The reason I started the website is that I work in advertising and public relations with some 4000 farms across the country. So I’m talking with farmers every day.”

What Miller discovered in talking with “singles on the farm” is that rural isolation and long hours make it hard to meet people. When they visit other dating sites they don’t find possible partners who understand the demands of farming.  Miller says, “Talking with people that say they haven’t been with anybody in ten years and feel very desperate....that’s why I get so excited when I get emails saying ‘I’ve met somebody’, that means a lot to me.”

Miller says he has about 30 thousand subscribers…10 percent are farmer wannabees, 40 percent are farmers and 50 percent simply want the country life.  Two people, who seem to have found that, thanks to FarmersOnly.com, are Cynthia Johnson and Dan Temaat. They live five hours apart—she in Garden City Missouri –he in Dodge City, Kansas.

Since meeting online in February 2006 they willingly travel back and forth to see each other. Temaat said he just didn’t have any luck with other dating websites.  Dan says, “I did email a couple of women, but they didn’t understand agriculture. If you have a heifer starting to calf and you have dinner reservations, you’re not going to stop that heifer from calving.”

Temaat, who’s a cattle rancher, has never been married. Cynthia says her second marriage failed because her husband wanted her to give up the cows. She still lives in the country but longs to raise cattle again and with someone special.  Temaat and Johnson say their dates are mainly spent working at either his ranch or hers—with an occasional meal out…and that’s the way they like it. What about the future? Cynthia says, “It’s meant to be. And we’re trying to give it time and be wise. But I think we both know where this deal is heading.”

As for Andy Fry…cupid’s arrow hasn’t struck yet…but his online connections have helped him make some new friends who share his love for the simple life.                      

Marriage Fact:
Everybody talks about a “June” wedding, but…in the United States…more couples get married in August than in June. And if you’re wondering about the couple’s gift, a recent survey says that most brides and grooms prefer cold hard cash.