I asked Moise when I saw him in the morning what he was doing today. He said without a blink that he was building a new road from the upper levels of his barn all the way down a hill and to the road in front of the farm.

I asked where all the workers that I imagined must be helping him to build a road, and he looked at me oddly and said he didn’t need any workers, his son Jo was helping him when he wasn’t picking corn and the dirt dragger he ordered months ago had just arrived.

He invited me to come and see for myself.

So I did.

I think in some ways Moise is a magician he challenges me to imagine the unimaginable and accept the unbelievable. This is new to me, I’ve never had a friend who could build a road with a 10 -year-old boy and two big draft horses, and a brand new red dirt scraper.

Sure enough, he did.

He would harness the horses and they would drag the digger over the mound of rocks and dirt. It was hard for them, harder for Moise, who maneuvered the digger over rocks and stumps and roots.

What the horses and scraper couldn’t move, Moise did by hand, using a rake. That was brutal work to see.

He was soaked in sweat and covered in dirt.

He was loving every second. “I love dirt and water,” he said, “I’ve always loved both.”

I went back to check on him two or three times and when I came last, around 5 p.m., I saw him walking slowly back to the temporary house, covered in dirt, his shirt hanging out of his pants, a bit of a limp in one leg, heading for dinner.

He even took his hat off, I thought it grew out of his head.

He looked very happy.

“I’m just about done,” he said. “I’ve asked the town highway department to drop some fill behind the barn if they have any extra – they often do,” he said. “Then I’ll dump a few truckloads of gravel over the road and make it flat and smooth. We’ll have a good road leading out to the road and also to the new house we’re planning to build.

He said the road would handle heavy horde-drawn buggies and trucks making deliveries of hay and machinery. Yesterday there was no secure road from the barn to the highway.

He said the new dirt digger was a big help.

I was, for one, sort of speechless. What is there to say, I didn’t know this kind of human work ethic and ingenuity still existed, I only read about it in books.

And you can’t praise Moise, it’s like throwing pellets at an elephant, praise just bounces off him. The Amish believe praise erodes humility and promotes ego.

As with most worthwhile things, the idea is to just show up and show you care.

I am impressed.