If you haven’t experienced it for yourself, making deals with the Amish is a fun adventure.
It certainly requires a little more patience on our end, and it frankly wouldn’t work if we were in any sort of rush or rigid timetable.
Typically, we correspond by snail mail, except for the circumstances when someone gets access to a neighbor’s phone and gives us a quick update through our usual mode of communication.
Sometimes, we wait months to hear back from someone. And in truth, there was more handwritten correspondence back and forth this time around due to one of their family members being sick and in the hospital, which, understandably, delayed things.
I find these letters charming, despite knowing full well that they might frown upon, or at least smirk at the thought of me – a woman – engaging so visibly with farm dealings.
The work – felling big hemlock trees, commanding draft horses to pull giant logs out of the woods, and then somehow managing to mill the lumber to our exact specifications, without electricity no less – is something else.
I’ve seen it in action once. Not with the Amish, but on a similar horse-powered farm where Greg trained a few years back near Cortland.
Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe the visual seared into my mind – huge Percheron horses with heavy logs chained behind them, Greg with the reins in his hands, speaking a sort of curt language I’ve never heard before. With a “come gee,” a few “come ups,” and a “come haw,” they were bee-lining it to the barn in perfect unison.
We decided at the start of the year that we needed to get moving on the barn addition so we have more covered space to keep important farm equipment and supplies out of the elements. And I’m hopeful that within the next month or two, the lumber will arrive, and construction will be underway!
Your Farmers,
Jenney & Greg
PS – Did you see that we just introduced a new sausage variety at the Farm Store? It’s FRESH BRATWURST, and it’s absolutely delicious! They’re disappearing quickly, so make sure to reserve yours now.