Moise spends almost every afternoon with his son Jo, plowing, planting, sawing, and rock picking. This weekend, they’ve begun work in earnest preparing for the barn-raising scheduled for next month.

A crew of Amish workers showed up and are helping Moise and Jo pick up the rocks. Today, they were leveling the ground, getting it to read for a concrete delivery next week.

We are in the middle of a heatwave, but most of the family, male and female, young and old, worked in different ways to clear the ground.

It was too hot for me to stand out there long, but the family, all dressed in Amish clothing, didn’t seem to notice. I was glad for my Amish hat.

I didn’t want to interrupt Moise; we waved and watched closely to see if the leveling was working. It seemed that it was.

I’m seeing a powerful bond developing between Moise and his son.  Jo handles the horses easily and is learning to love plowing as much as his father.

Most days, he invites one or more of his daughters to come along; they love plowing with the big horses as much as he does.

The ground is staked and being leveled, there were nine Amish workers there today, plus some grandchildren watching and Tina keeping an eye on things.