Last year they walked down to the farmhouse, but Lena is old enough to ride down in a horse and buggy this year.

She came with her sister Fanny. As she did last year, Maria hired them to help her skirt the wool sheared from our sheep a few weeks ago.

Maria puts a screen over a table and shakes the wool. Some of the dirt falls off, some need to be picked off by hand.

I loved seeing the three of them together; the girls are quick learners and hard workers, the wool was cleaned in a record 45 minutes.

Afterward, they all went into Maria’s studio, where the girls were curious to look at Maria’s wallhangings and try out her sewing machine. They are very interested in quilting.

They were fascinated by Maria’s Corona Kimona, her fiber recording of the first year of the pandemic – it hangs on her studio all over every inch of a Japanese Kimono, inscribed with a different writing every day of the year.

This fascinated Leena and Fanny; they wanted to know all about it and asked Maria to read many writings. Fanny,  who loves teasing me, looked at my bandage and challenged me to a foot race.

This skirting with the Amish seems to be yet another new and special tradition at the farm, along with shearing and trimming the donkey’s hooves. Maria and the girls were easy with one another; they talked back and forth like sisters.

This is the reason we are here, this sort of connection to animals and the natural world. The Amish girls fit in naturally.

They were dressed in their travel bonnets and skirts; they came into the house to talk for a few minutes and then hopped in their buggies and rode home.

I heard her hire them to come back and help clean away the leaves. The two charged $25 for both for the work. The Miller family has enriched our lives, their children especially.