White House’s Pifer: Glad to Get Back to ‘Somewhat Normal’

Debbie Pifer, owner of White House Fruit Farm in Canfield, is hanging tough. You can learn more about her and her family-owned business at its website.

What are some ways the COVID-19 outbreak has changed your work life?

Well, at the end of March we decided that we would rather not be open to the public for a while, so we spent 32 days doing curbside only. We had to learn a whole new business model in one day.

After a little while, we figured it out. We were actually very happy with how it went. We were processing many orders a day, Monday through Saturday, and folks were very appreciative of it.

We were also fortunate to be able to continue to employ our full staff for 40 hours a week.

We opened back up to the public on May 7. We’re very glad to get back to somewhat “normal.”

Our customers seem appreciative to be able to shop again. People just want to get back to some sense of normal and do things they used to do. We’re especially noticing older folks who really just want to get out of the house.

We’re very appreciative of the people who come to shop with us. We’re extremely happy to see our regular customers and we’ve even seen some faces we’ve never seen before.

Sometimes you get stuck in a ho-hum routine, so we’re glad to be open and see folks again.

Through this pandemic, we’ve noticed that the average person has really come to value local and small businesses. We’re very grateful for that.

How about your personal life?

I’ll be honest, I work all the time. I work seven days a week and I never really go anywhere anyway. It hasn’t affected me much outside of work. It’s kinda sad, but it’s true.

What steps are you taking to hang tough?

One of the things that I’m focused on doing more is getting a good amount of sleep. The whole month of April has been mentally difficult for all of us. It was really tough to focus in April. Now that we’re trying to get back to our new sense of normal, I feel like I can plan ahead more. It has taken more of a mental toll than a physical one for me, so getting more sleep has helped.

I’m also trying not to watch a lot of news. I’m getting outside more. I live on the farm, but sometimes I don’t get out as much as I should. When you can get outside and see what spring looks like, you can sorta relax and forget what’s on the news.

What advice are you sharing with the people you love?

Appreciate nature. Appreciate what you do. Appreciate your job and your routine. The hard thing for many of us was having our routines totally disrupted. It’s amazing what a toll that has on you. Getting up, going to bed, doing the same things during the day – make sure to appreciate it. Routine is good.

Anything else to add?

Make sure to appreciate your local food supply. As we’ve seen in the news recently, when we deal with national food supply and things are very concentrated (for example, the meat packing industry), we see that in our little corner of Ohio, we have such wonderful local meat, fruit, eggs, honey, poultry and more – we have access to local agriculture. It’s so important for folks to realize that and to patronize and look out for local food producers. In a pinch, those are the folks who can feed you.