Anniversary of the flood

This time last year much of the Mohawk Valley was under water. Friends, neighbors, and folks all over the state, lost homes, cars, gardens, miles of crops and entire businesses. It was truly a horrible disaster. Response to it made clear though, the sense of community that folks here in the other New York, far from the lights of the big city, share. From an army of blue, made up of Amishmen and women, who marched into our small towns to undertake clean up and rebuilding, to the cars full of just regular folks who showed up to look for ways to help, the turnout of volunteers was amazing. The boss, Alan and I even spent a couple of hours here on July 4th last year, washing merchandise and replacing it on the shelves. I asked the guys if for my birthday they would take me up to Fort Plain to help with the work because it just felt right and I am very fond of the folks at the Agway store. They obliged and pitched in too. I wish we could have done more, but we had to deal with running a generator tractor and keeping the farm going at home so we could only work for a short time. Others spent days and weeks helping out.

The people who run the Fort Plain Agway Farm Store are amazing in my book. They struggled through the first flood, more flooding later in the year, a lightning strike that took out their computers and almost losing the use of their building and still are going strong in this blessedly drier (so far) year. I have never gone into the store to pick up barn calcite, chicken feed or bicarb for the cows and not been greeted with warm smiles on every face, even when things were at their worst. It is always a pleasure to do business with them.


Here at Northview, we are lucky enough to live on a really big hill, so although we lost a large percentage of our corn crop, had driveways washed out and went without power or trips to the store for a while, we came through pretty much all right. Other parts of the valley were not so fortunate and some places are still cleaning up ruined houses and trailers. I am hoping that this year on my birthday we can just stay home and grill some Nathan's and boil up some potatoes for salad. I am getting too old for the excitement.