Busy Days and Quiet Nights

Life is always busy on an Amish farm. On any given day there are cooking & baking projects, firewood gathering for the various stoves, woodworking projects, butchering and odd ball events thrust into their lives by people like me.

There's a long wagon totally covered in gray sheet steel with steel rimmed wheels parked by the house. It looks like a hearse and has caused a few humorous events on the farm. One woman refused to come near the place when she saw the vehicle parked next to the wraparound front porch. Assuming someone had passed over, she was either too timid or afraid. I've heard the story and still look twice at the box like wagon. Inside the wood shop, the Patriarch is assembling benches for Sunday services. The Amish have no church building. Services are held at each other's farm on a rotating basis. The wagon is used to transport the benches from farm to farm.

When one enters the large kitchen on the farm, the black kitchen stove and a table off to the left dominate the space. On the other side of the room are new birch cabinets silently testifying to the expertise of the cabinet maker. The middle room on the first floor is almost empty except for a table on which a quilt is in the works and a few pieces of furniture. On Sundays this room holds the benches for services.

I've warned the Yoders of my visit to photograph quilts for the website. We spent time previously ironing out details for marketing their handmade quilts on Seven Roads Gallery. The most difficult idea for me to express is that I not receive any compensation for the work involved in getting the quilts to a larger market. "Mixing business with friends is a sure way to end a good friendship," I repeat in several different ways. In the end we agree that any compensation received above that going for the quilts goes to the Amish school fund. "My time is worth nothing, "I quip repeating a similar phrase of the Patriarch when I ask him for the cost of time and material in making several short pieces of baseboard for the kitchen.

With the help of mom and several daughters, we set up a bedroom for a shot of the quilts on a bed. Then, three daughters hold up the quilt for a second picture. They're standing on a bench in the large meeting room holding it at the ceiling so that the whole quilt fits in the frame.

My wife often remarks at the speed in which the daughters perform any given task. On a Saturday afternoon, we hire a few of the daughters to help shell dried beans hanging in our summer kitchen. My wife is amazed watching their fingers fly. On the Friday night pizza adventure the daughters take to washing the dishes without any mention from us or the parents. In the short time relaxing after dinner, they've got the dishes washed and dried and in the cupboard. The quilt pictures are no different. In less than a half hour I've got pictures all all but one quilt.

Now I've got to go to work putting them on the website composing text and ironing out a few details like figuring out how to program the "free shipping" in our default settings for pricing artwork.