For Esh, building silos the right way includes family

Jonas Esh was once a woodworker in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

While he didn’t mind the job, once he experienced the tactics of building, adding to or razing silos, he never once thought about returning to his former job.

Esh, owner of Esh Silo, recently visited Ohio’s Amish Country to perform a trio of jobs that took him away from his own homestead for one week, the longest trip he has made since starting his own company six years ago.

“I was 17 years old, and one of my friends worked for a silo company, and I got invited to work on an out-of-town trip to take silos down in New York,” Esh said. “We were gone for one week and tore five silos down. I thought that was pretty cool, being able to travel and have some fun working on silos, and I’ve never looked back.”

This particular trip included adding 30 feet to a silo in Walnut Creek, the most difficult challenge of the week, as well as repair work on silos in Sugarcreek and razing a couple silos in Wooster. From there it’s off to Rockville, Indiana for another job.

The six-hour drive to get to Holmes County first and the additional drive to Indiana is about as far as the company travels in its work, and this marked the first time the team would be gone from home for as long as one week.

“I’ve never been away from my family for a week before,” said Esh, who worked for that company as an employee before starting his own company.

One joy he does get to experience is taking his two sons Steven, 14, and James, 12, with him on his jobs. The two young men are quickly learning the ropes and are quite adept at working alongside their father.

“It has been a real blessing having the two of them working alongside me and traveling with me,” Esh said. “We’ve got to watch that we don’t work him too hard because they both enjoy diving right in and working hard.”

In addition, he has employee Andrew Zook and driver Bob, a longtime farmer who is retired and drives them and their equipment to job sites.

He said they build approximately 30 new silos from scratch each year, as well as doing repairs, additions and razes.

“It’s been very rewarding,” Esh said of the work, which includes scaling to some great heights when necessary.

His effort brings a certain type of elegance to country farmsteads, where silos peak out over barn roofs and add to the picturesque beauty of Amish Country in Holmes County and all over the Midwest and Eastern U.S.