If you’ve read my first book, you may remember reading about Floyd and Margaret. Today, I’m sharing their story once again. We first met Floyd when we stopped by his farm to inquire about his enormous junkyard on the back side of his property. He was walking up the dirt road to his house from the lower pasture where he’d been tending to his cattle. His old flannel shirt was worn and dotted with scrap patches that had been meticulously hand-stitched into place. His face was deeply creased, almost scowl-like, and his eyes were dark and full of wisdom. His voice was gruff when he spoke, contradicting the small bouquet of wildflowers he was carrying, which he had just picked for his wife, Margaret. Margaret stood with eyes twinkling and beamed as Floyd handed her the flowers. In seeing her reaction, Floyd’s face erupted in an ear-to-ear grin, erasing the years of hard work reflected in his face. He told us that he always picked flowers for Margaret and said he felt like they were married just yesterday. He grinned boastfully and asked, “How old do you think she is? Isn’t she beautiful?” Floyd bragged that he felt like he was 18 years old and attributed that to 80-something years of “no booze, one woman, and the love of God”. Needless to say, we’ve learned a lot from Floyd and Margaret, a lot in part just by watching the two of them interact. We’ve purchased truckloads of old goods and salvage from their property over the years, and on every occasion, Floyd is as ornery as ever. He doesn’t like to part with anything that could be of future use on the farm and likes to know what we’ll do with each of the items we buy. One of his favorites is the necklaces we’ve made from his vintage wallpaper. On one occasion, we found a pile of license plates, and Teri was interested in one that was from our neighboring state of Idaho. He set a high price, explaining that the license plates were useful and that he could do something with them someday. He gruffly asked her what she wanted it for. She told him it bore the year of her birth, and that she’d hang it on the wall in her house. He looked at her, smiled, and the price went down. Recently, Floyd has found it difficult to mow the lawn on his own. In true-love fashion, he and Margaret now push the lawnmower together.

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After the book was published, I surprised Floyd and Margaret with a copy of their own and wrote about it here. I’m re-posting it now:

March 16, 2009