Amish trip

The bright, cardinal red barn, white house and windmill set against the lushness of rolling farmland makes this Amish farm look picturesque and welcoming. Also, note the thin tire marks in the lane showing it is traveled more often by horse and buggy than by cars. We visited the family who lives there to take books and school supplies for the new Amish school that was started this year. We also took some small cakes for the family, cakes given to Jerry by one of his Taiwanese students. The parents were as eager to eat one as the three young children; they were fascinated by the way the cakes were packaged individually into tiny boxes.

Unfortunately, the mother, while helping the father plane some lumber a couple of weeks ago, had an accident with the planer and cut off the two middle fingers on her right hand. She stoically commented she was just glad to still have the index and little fingers plus the thumb! Luckily, the day it happened, there was a woman at the house whose large poodles they've been keeping. She was able to take them to a hand specialist in Louisville. I shudder to think what would have happened if she hadn't been there. Her main concern with us is that she hadn't finished a quilt top she is quilting for us. Some of the other Amish women came to their farm to help but they just didn't have time to get it done. Wilma had even tried doing some quilting after the accident but said it hurt too much. That makes me sad.

When we unloaded the books and supplies, they started pulling things out to look at them saying they might take a couple of things -- pack of paper, maybe some markers -- for themselves. John spotted an accordion binder and asked what it was. Jerry took the cellophane off and opened it up; John was very interested in how it would be used. He also commented on a box of varied colored file folders, suggesting that each color could be used for different classes.

We were looking at all the materials in their basement so Jerry and I had a chance to look around a bit and noticed a separate room lined with hundreds of jars of canned goods, everything from peaches and peas to green beans and tomatoes. John explained that was their food supply for the rest of the year until they harvested again next summer and fall. He got into a cooler, the kind you'd take on a picnic, to pull out a head of cabbage/celery they grew in order to "pay" us since we certainly didn't want any money. He commented they still had ice from last winter. They wait until the pond freezes to about 4 inches thick, hack it out into large slabs, then store the blocks in an ice house lined with straw; it was protected that way well enough to last throughout the whole summer! The whole time we were looking at the canned goods and talking, a couple of peacocks were strolling around right by the basement window, looking in at us. :-) Maybe they were as interested in us as I was in them.

After leaving their farm, we spent the night at French Lick then, the next day, drove from there to Jasper, a small town originally settled by Germans. The road between French Lick and Jasper is, as Jerry puts it, "like a fairy tale". It winds up, down, and around rolling hills where corn stalks were being cut down and bundled into fodder stocks. The day was picture perfect; even the clouds looked like they'd been laid onto the canvas of the cerulean sky with a palette knife. Our reason for the trip was the Schnitzelbank Restaurant in Jasper where we ate wiener schnitzel, goulash, saurkraut, red cabbage and drank double bock beer! Yum.