Amish family

Yesterday, on the way home from French Lick, we drove off the main road into what we call Amish country in southern Indiana. As soon as you leave US 150, you can immediately feel a difference; it's like stepping back in time about 100 years. There are "English" who live on the road but most of the road traffic is black, horse-drawn buggies or work horse drawn wagons.

Our friends John and Wilma weren't at home so we opened the back door and left a bunch of empty egg cartons and plastic strawberry baskets, listened to the plaintive wail of their peacock, petted the overly friendly dog (poor watch dog, sweet pet), and looked over the healthy garden. On the way back out, we stopped at another Amish farm where we regularly buy apples, blueberries, rhubarb and bought about 6 pounds of pinkish-red and green rhubarb. Yum. It's delicious with hot biscuits.

Jerry thought he'd spotted John waving at us from a different farm when we drove by so we stopped there on the way back out to 150. We knew the farm had been empty for a while because the family had moved. Not this day!! The place was swarming with many from the Amish community, sweeping, scrubbing woodwork, scouring windows, working in the barn yard. Wilma's sister is moving into the place and they were all helping get it ready for her. We talked to one of her other sisters (There are 12 in the family!) and she said that indeed John had spotted us but he and Wilma took baby Viola into town to do some shopping and that they had left when we were at their farm. We had just missed them.

As we stood talking to her, a buggy pulled up with two young girls, Wilma's sisters, and Perry, John and Wilma's son. We wanted to buy eggs so they got back into the buggy and drove just a short distance down the road to their parents' home to "rob the hens' nests". We ended up with 4 dozen big, brown, fresh, tasty eggs; you know they're fresh if they were just pulled out of the nest!

Every time we go visit their farm, we take some kind of little treat to the kids. We also add two more for John and Wilma since they are very childlike in their enthusiasm for the treats, too! Their little sons, Perry and Benedict, and daughter Laura, now know us and aren't shy about peering into the car trunk when we open it to pull out candy, packs of gum, cookies, a ball, or whatever we've taken that time. I wouldn't feel right going there now without something for all of them.

Being among the Amish gives me a sense of peace knowing that people can live and work closely together, willingly help each other and do it all joyfully.