WHATELY — After the death of James Pasiecnik in January, his three daughters banded together to ensure the family business, 5J Creamee and Pasiecnik Farmstand, is operating in full force this summer.

Justine Pasiecnik, the oldest of the three sisters, returned home from Florida after her father’s death and got to work preparing the farm stand for the summer season.

“Even the smell of this place is nostalgic,” Justine Pasiecnik said at the farm stand last week. “I forgot how much I missed it.”

With the sisters in charge, operations of the farm stand, located at 207 River Road, will remain relatively the same, although hours will be extended from what they have been over the past few years. The stand will be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., while food service will be open until 8 p.m. and ice cream will be served until 9 p.m. The sisters also said they want to incorporate pick-your-own sunflowers later in the season.

The farm stand and 5J Creamee — named for the five members of the family: James, Janice, Justine, Jil and Joanna Pasiecnik — was started in the late 1990s as a “glorified wagon” where the family sold strawberries before converting the barn into a farm stand in 2003, according to Jil Pasiecnik.

The family came together each May for years to work on the farm stand and sell ice cream, a memory the three sisters all fondly recalled. This is the first time all three of them have worked together since at least 2010.

“It was a huge part of our lives from May until October. … It’s very different from most people’s growing up,” Joanna Pasiecnik said by phone from Georgia, where she lives. “Jil, Justine and I are so business-focused and far in our careers because of all the techniques and things we learned as kids. … Jil and I haven’t been able to work with Justine at this level in a long time. It’s very special.”

Justine took over most of the operations as the sisters are spread across the country, but Jil and Joanna Pasiecnik have taken on an advisory and social media role. Justine will run decisions by them.

“I’m kind of a control freak,” Justine Pasiecnik joked. She said if she comes across a difficult decision, she confers with her sisters and they take a vote on it. “They trust my judgment.”

Taking over the farm stand was an easy decision, though, Jil Pasiecnik said, as it is an integral part of their family’s history.

“Our father passed away suddenly in January and then it was up to us with what to do with it. We were handed the keys to the car,” she said by phone from Los Angeles. “The thought of selling something that we all worked so hard on … it was like, ‘OK, this is something we’re doing because it’s important to keep it in our family and keep it alive.’”

Joanna Pasiecnik said the farm stand was a “way for us and our mom to be a part of the community” with their father and his farm, and she is “really excited” to see the farm stand open up again.

“The excitement of the three of us being able to come back to a business we built, that’s really important for us,” Joanna Pasiecnik said. “We were embraced by the community within this business.”

Jil Pasiecnik said Justine has been working hard on getting a “whole new cohort of ice cream slinging girls” to staff the creamee over the summer and she is “super excited” to visit later this year.

As staff prepared the stand, Justine Pasiecnik said she is ready to welcome the public back to the place she and her family have built up over the last 20 years.

“We have a full staff of hard-working individuals,” she said. “I’m super thrilled.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.

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