Ah farming...the only business where you buy retail and sell wholesale...(I grew up on one, too.) Or as an old custom-combining partner of my dad's used to say, "98% of farming is fixing things..." (imagine it in an Oklahoma twang...)

I always enjoy your posts, Austin! In re: Fingerspitzengefuehl, do you know the book "Old Books, Rare Friends" by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern? They were two of the grandes dames of the antiquarian book business after the war (Rostenberg specialised in the printers of Strasbourg and Stern was an Alcott scholar)--they go on about Fingerspitzengefuehl at some length, in a book of great charm.

peace
minnie