Moise and his brother-in-law Jacob and their families have launched another enterprise as Christmas approaches – wreath making. They had a truckload of pine cuttings delivered to Jacob’s barn and another to the Miller’s barn.

Although Jacob’s new cellar concrete was poured today, both families have briefly pivoted away from home building to wreath making.

The two families support each other closely; their carriages go back and forth all day, transforming equipment for pouring concrete and carrying wood forms.

Jacob’s barn had the sweet and soft smell of mine, and a dozen people from both families were already hard at work making them. The families have contracted to someone who sells wreaths and Christmas trees, and they are also permitted to sell some of the ones they make at each of their farms.

Moise came in to say hello; we were joking about my evident frustration at not photographing this beautiful work up close. “If you take photographs of us, Johnnie,” he said, “you’ll explode.”

I shot back, “if that were true, I’d be dead a hundred times over.”

I got a good laugh out of that, so did they. Sometimes it kills me to keep the camera pointed away, and they know it. But I get my licks in, and they know that too. We accept and understand one another.

It did kill me not to be allowed to photograph these people all lined up at their tables, weaving and cutting and pressing the wreath together.

I think I will have to buy one or two and hang them on the front and back of the house. The wreaths won’t be on sale until the week before Thanksgiving. The finished ones looked pretty sweet to me.

Tomorrow, the workers in both families had over to the Miller Farm to work on wreaths there. It might call for a Mountain Dew run from me.

I saw many of the boots I bought on Amish feet; they are a hit; they are wearing them and liking them, even the naysayers who said they didn’t need them. They’ll have to find another way to suffer.

And they will.