The Schoharie County Sunshine Fair will always hold a special place in my heart.
Growing up, the fair felt like stepping into another world. For a little farm kid, it was pure magic. There were rides that lit up the night sky, shows that drew crowds from all over, and barns full of animals. What more could a kid want? I remember the hum of people talking over the crackle of the loudspeaker, the smell of fried dough mingling with sawdust, and the way the midway lights reflected off the tilt-a-whirl.
In the Ag Barn, you could get a cup of ice-cold chocolate milk for just twenty-five cents. My siblings and I would scour the gravel for loose change, pockets jingling, until we had enough for a cup of the richest chocolate milk you could imagine. I spent my youth in 4-H, showing whatever animals I was old enough to handle—always dreaming of the day I could show a cow.
That chance didn’t come until my senior year of college. The school needed someone to show the campus livestock, and I needed a few final credits to graduate. It felt like the perfect “special project”—a lifetime dream finally checked off my list.
I had no idea it was about to set the stage for a dream I hadn’t even dared to write down.
That summer, I met John.
We were both in the beef barn, spending our days clipping cattle, bedding stalls, and talking with fairgoers. John was helping his nephew show his first calf, a sweet little heifer named Molly—born on St. Patrick’s Day and given an appropriately Irish name.
The story goes that John noticed me first, pushing a wheelbarrow full of manure past Molly’s stall. “Now that’s the girl for me,” he supposedly thought. (Romantic, I know.) Whether or not that was his actual first thought, he came over later to say hello, and conversation just… flowed. He was cute, kind, and shared my love for agriculture.
On the last day of the fair, he helped me load the cattle and haul them back to the college. We exchanged numbers, and he asked me out soon after.
The timing wasn’t exactly simple. I was enlisted in the Army and set to leave for Basic Training in just a few weeks. I figured no guy would want to start dating someone who’d disappear for nine months. Turns out, I was wrong.
John officially asked me to be his girlfriend from the seat of a tractor while we were baling hay on his family’s farm. I left for Basic the next week.
We wrote letters the entire time I was away, and somewhere between stamps and pen strokes, we fell in love. John was there at my graduation to pin on my wings, and when I moved back to New York, our relationship only grew stronger.
When John decided to propose, he took me back to the fair. Back to the exact spot in the beef barn where he had first seen me. It was a full-circle moment—proof that God’s timing is always perfect.
We were married the following year on his family’s farm, the very place we now raise our own cattle, pigs, chickens, and two little boys. Sweet Molly—the calf John was helping his nephew show that summer—still lives here too, now a gentle mama herself.
Five years later, so much has changed—our herd, our land, our family—but every August, when the fair rolls back into town, I’m reminded of where it all began.
It’s a love story better than anything Hallmark could script—because it’s real, it’s ours, and it started in a dusty beef barn on a warm summer day.