Stressed? You're not alone.

I’d like to apologize to anyone who I did not respond to immediately this week. I’m dealing with a family emergency and am simply not at my normal capacity this week. While we’re on the topic, here’s a heads up. The farmer is marching toward Amish wedding season (everyone gets married in the fall), which means staffing will be tricky. To boot, the fall is usually the season with the biggest orders. Between CSAs ending and the fall harvest spirit, it’s a great time for cooking indoors.

I guess I should take this opportunity to explain how the farm works. All the farm staff that work on the farm are Amish. They handle all the farm chores. They milk the cows every morning and night. They move the cows to fresh pasture three times each day. They make all of our fresh cow dairy products from scratch every week. They caught 100 turkeys last week. And they weed the garden, feed the chickens and turkeys, haul skim milk up to the pigs, pack the orders, bale the hay, and so on. It’s a lot of manual arduous work. It’s an all-consuming lifestyle.

Although they do use electricity in various ways, like keeping the milk cool and the meat frozen and lighting their work areas, they do not have a computer or mobile phones. The farmer has a small outbuilding that houses an old-fashioned landline phone with big buttons and a curly coiled cord that attaches it to the base. He also has an answering machine. His connection to the English world is through his phone and his printing company, which delivers printed emails and email attachments to him one or two times per day.

Our web developer and me are the only “English” (non-Amish) people who are employed by the farmer. We are the farm’s computer, the farm’s digital presence. We handle keeping the website working and up to date, sending order reports to the farm staff, answering customer questions, being active on social media, and so on. We are here to communicate with the farmer for you when the farmer cannot. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you need anything!

Amish or not, we all lead busy lives. When life gets hectic, especially in the fall with the back-to-school rush and seemingly endless celebration of holidays, I turn to my freezer for support. This coming week, I am kicking it into high gear and making freezer meals in mass. Think Paleo sweet potato chili and vegan black bean burgers and chicken soup. In the end, I will have 12 pre-made meals ready for the slow cooker or a simple reheat.