American Countryside Farmers Market

Moments ago, I departed American Countryside Farmers Market. It is quite an inspiring place!! During my stay in Northern Indiana, I missed other opportunities to visit--and browse. Yes, that's my KIA and Little Guy in the parking lot but the facility was closed. Today I browsed every inch and visited with many of the vendors. There are so many beautiful things for sale but I repeatedly said "I don't need a thing; I'm just looking." In reality, I bought three apples, two bell peppers, and two tomatoes that I assured are locally grown and only hours off the plant or tree. I'll enjoy them on my return trip to North Carolina.

Perhaps the same information is on the American Countryside Farmers Market web site but some bears repeating: "Welcome to the largest woodpeg barn, Amish-built, in the World! This three story structure is constructed in the old-world tradition using wooden pegs to hold the mortis and tenon wood joints together. The expansive building, longer than a football field, features hundreds of solid heavy timber beams, columns and braces that are prepared with mortis and tenons, cut and notched together for the framing of the three-story barn structure. It has three towering cupolas with the center cupola topping out at 84-feet high.















"High clerestory windows provide natural lighting and ventilation for the large open interior spaces in the barn. It is air-conditioned and open year-round. The columns, slope beams and braces were harvested locally and sawed earlier this year [2006?] on an Indiana Amish farm. The logs are from white and red oak, hickory, beech and poplar trees. Most of the beams are from seasoned Douglas firs from Idaho. By using seasoned, dryer timers, less shrinking occurs. For the main structure of the barn, over nine truckloads of Douglas fir timbers were shipped from Idaho. The largest timbers, making up the center court, are a gigantic 16'X16', and came to the building site over 40' long!!

"The American black walnut found on the wooden staircase railing and trim came from a 96 foot tree which fell during a 2003 storm in a forest preserve behind architect LeRoy Troyer's home. The wood was harvested, cut up and air dried for three years before being used at the Farmers Market.

"The hardwood pegs are made by pounding them through a short, one-inch round steel pipe. They are then pounded into pre-drilled holes in the timbers to secure the mortis and tenons. The timbers and wood pegs continue to dry throughout the years to ensure a tight wood-to-wood bond that is virtually impossible to take apart. Once cured, the only way to remove the timers is to drill out each of the wood pegs that hold them together. This barn is a very sturdy building, as The Troyer Group, and architectural, engineering and construction management firm, designed the heavy timber from to withstand winds up to 100 miles per hour.

"Four Amish construction crews worked together, totaling about thirty workers. Orie Lehman, of Lehman Carpentry, Shipshewana, IN, was the construction coordinator for this project. David Bontrager and his son Rudy, of D.L. Bontrager Construction, Middlebury, IN, led the barn raising which began in June 2006. David's father, Joe, deceased, was a barn builder since the 1930's. He passed his barn-raising legacy on to succeeding generations beginning in the 1980's. Rudy is the third generations barn raiser."