Fever Dreams: In Which I Attend The Auction Of An Amish Farm Over Zoom In The Middle Of A Global Pandemic
new york city, may 20, 2020
Don’t misinterpret the title; this actually happened. Originally posted on dancingsausage.net.
There is a farm west of Philadelphia I have my eye on, in the way many of us have our eyes on farms these days, those of us locked in at Ground Zero of the American pandemic. I hear from a number of organic farmers that most of the inquiries they’ve gotten about apprenticing recently have been from New Yorkers.
The farm has a barn and a chicken coop, a run-in stall for livestock, a propane tank; it is over two acres, with a blueberry cage and raspberry canes. RASPBERRY CANES, I pined to my friends online. Don’t fall in love with raspberry canes in Pennsylvania, said a sensible friend who grew up there. Raspberry canes are a dime a dozen. You’ll find your farm when the time is right.
When will I be able to sublet my room in the apartment I’ve been trying to leave since last year? When can I visit this farm? We all ask, when will things open back up? The epidemiologists and the vaccine makers and the governor all say, We don’t know. It might be a while for New York City.
Come right over, said the real estate agent, whose name is Elmer Hershberger.1 We leave the door unlocked, you can just go on in and look.