Essay | 150 Pairs of Boots

AMISH COUNTRY’, IOWA — In Buggy Land, cattle sometimes break through fencing and wander out onto the road. But cattle don’t fly through the air here the way they do in Ireland. They don’t make eye contact, then jump off of cliffs and come crashing down on top of the car. For one thing, we have no cliffs. We have no ocean to wedge us up against a cliff.

No, I usually encounter livestock here on the road, on level, flat ground. After my encounter with a flying Irish heifer, I’ve learned not to make eye contact with critters in Buggy Land. They amble along, nudging the next critter’s butt. They eye my car. They eye me. I turn my head away, and then more often than not, they calmly follow me home.

I have some sort of magnetism for animals. I know, that sounds silly but it’s true. Stray dogs and cats take up residence under my garden shed. Foxes live in my windbreak. Eagles circle above when these critters have no interest in other neighboring farms.

One of my neighbors once had a beautiful, large, tri-colored Australian shepherd named Gus. Ella, Gus’ owner, worked in town and left every morning at 7:30 a.m. By 7:35, Gus was sitting on my porch.

“You have to stop feeding Gus,” my neighbor Donna said.

“I haven’t given Gus a bite,” I said.

I went through my days working in the garden, trimming the bushes, painting the woodshed with Gus at my heels.

At 5:00 p.m., Gus raced down the road to be ready to greet Ella when she pulled into her lane at 5:15.

Once during the 1993 flood, I opened the door and found the neighbor’s bull standing next to my stoop, ring in his nose, pawing the ground.

Whoa, I backed up and called Bob.

Bob said the bull’s favorite cow got hit by lightning and died. The bull was bereft and bellowed and cried for days until he trotted up the road to my place. Then all was quiet.

Herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, piglets, a pair of beagle puppies and more have all found their way here. I simply open the gate to my pasture, and they walk in, their owners soon locating them.

Whenever a neighbor is missing livestock, someone usually asks, “Have you looked at Mary’s?”

Buggy Land critters seem to understand the lay of the land and how, with a little cooperation, their world might be re-arranged. They try out their own configurations, fence or no fence.

At first, I thought it all had to do with geography. I live on top of a hill, a great vantage point. From here, a critter could see a predator from miles away.

But over the years, I’ve become less convinced that I’m hosting a predator/prey relationship. I’m more convinced that there’s some kind of vibration to this place. Whatever charge I carry, I carry it into the magnetic field surrounding me that seems to know no boundaries.

A variety of outbuildings, a barn and a house make up a typical southeast Minnesota Amish farm in early autumn. (Photo by John Torgrimson)

So, I wasn’t too surprised one cold January day when I was driving home from town, and I saw a white, forty-cow, wooden barn cruising straight toward me in the left-hand lane. I was so used to critters heading my way, I thought, oh, look at that, there’s a barn. Surely forty cows will soon follow. Anticipate the problem.

Then I realized there were no cattle. Just the barn floating down the road. Wow, what does this mean? Surely, cattle are coming soon.

Wait, I thought, the Amish are moving a whole barn on a flatbed truck. The barn inched closer and I got a better look.

Now wait just one second, there was no truck—just a lone buggy out in front of the barn. The barn must be on wheels, I thought. But could that one buggy be pulling the barn?

I looked again. No, the barn appeared to be drifting down the road all by itself!

Oh, boy. There had to be cattle here somewhere. Then I looked at the highway pavement. And saw the boots. 150 pairs of men’s work boots. No cows, just the barn walking down the road!

Okay, this was too woo-woo for even me. Was I hallucinating? I slowed my car and pulled off to the shoulder of the road to give the barn room to pass. For goodness sake, I’m waiting for a passing barn, I thought. They never taught us this in driver’s ed.

The barn took up both lanes. Some of the roof and siding had been taken off the structure, and when I peeked inside, I saw all the men in the neighborhood carrying the barn. By hand.

Oh, hi, Joe, Henry, Eli, Mahlon, Max, Elmer, and Alan, I waved. They nodded at me and smiled as if to say, “Can’t wave now, Mary. Kinda got my hands full.” Biceps and triceps flexed, their thick hands wrapped around the two-by-four braces that had been screwed to the inside walls.

An elderly Amish foreman marched behind the buggy, carrying an auctioneer’s cane, keeping the beat as if he were leading a band.

“DOWN.” He yelled, and in perfect unison, the men lowered their arms and the barn came down to the pavement.

The men shook out their hands and chatted with each other, taking a break. My eyes followed the lines of the road and I spotted the empty foundation about a half-mile away. The men had taken down a fence and carried the barn out onto the highway.

Then I glanced in the rearview mirror of my car to catch sight of the new foundation. The Amish men had at least another half mile to go. And the path was all uphill. The men were moving the barn from a farm whose owner had died, the place sold for development. That patch of land was to become our own little bit of urban sprawl. The men were moving the barn to a working Old Order farm where it would provide extra storage and shelter.

A white-frame farmhouse stood on top of the rise. Inside, all the women of the neighborhood—Martha, Sarah, Miriam, Fannie and Lydia, and more—were busy making a big dinner for the whole community.

“One, two, three, lift!” the foreman called, and the barn rose up into the air again. Away, away, away, up the rise, one hundred and fifty pairs of boots in sync, ankles bending, then straightening, soles touching the pavement at exactly the same time, the foreman keeping the beat, the men puffing from the exertion.

My imaginary cows trailed through my mind. I kept my eyes closed and head down.

I spent the rest of the morning watching the men complete their mission: the barn placed on its new foundation, the siding and roof replaced. The women pulled pies from the oven. They carved beef roasts and hams. They filled platters with fried chicken and put out bowls of corn canned right out of their summer gardens.

“Mahlon,” I said later that spring when we were out morel hunting. “How was it possible that you carried a barn down the road?”

Mahlon shrugged.

“That is what happened, right?”

“Oh, we do that sometimes,” Mahlon said. “It’s not that uncommon.”

In our English world, we wouldn’t be able to even think about such a thing. Not enough muscle power. And even with our phones and internet, we wouldn’t have been able to organize the event. Everyone would have had an excuse. Sorry, got a doctor’s appointment I can’t miss. Sorry, gonna be out of town. Sorry, got to play tennis.

“Oh, that part wasn’t so bad,” Mahlon said. “We just sent home notes in the kids’ lunch buckets from school.”

And with that, the map of the world was changed.