Amish Cookbook Winner

And the winner is....drum roll please....
Osage Bluff Quilter
Please use the "contact me" link in the right sidebar to email me your mailing address and I will get your cookbook in the mail!
I hope you enjoy it!

Hop on board with the Google Friend Connect or Facebook! When I get 500 followers on GFC or 200 on FB, I'll have a G.R.I.T. magazine (1-year subscription) give away! Go invite your friends!

Amish Cookbook Give Away!

I haven't had a give away in ages!

Big, thick, 360-page, Amish cookbook I picked up while shopping at the Amish Trading Post last Friday.

I got one for you too! Be a follower and leave me a comment to enter! I'll post the random winner on Friday morning about 9:00!Good luck!!

Hop in Our Buggy

Well okay it's a truck but we saw lots of buggies! And you can still hop in and come along on our trip with us.
We took a trip out to the Amish community yesterday to pick up feed for the chickens and goats.


We made a few stops in town first. I needed 2 more 4 x 4's to finish my new clothes line poles. My clothes line was a little longer than I planned and needed a middle pole.

We grabbed a few things at the new Dollar General.


Had bite to eat at DQ,


then headed for the country...


Everything is turning green and the trees are on the verge of bursting forth with life.


The Amish folks are busy preparing fields and planting already.


I love the barn pictured below.


The old boards have been replaced on the original support structure of the old barn and it looks great.

You can see the feed mill in the distance in the photo below. It is owned and operated by Lester Stutzman and his boys. They also raise pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens and guineas. I also get my strawberries from them a little later in the year.


On our way out we stopped and said hi to these beautiful ladies...
Miss Holstein


Miss Holstein #2


and Miss Brown Swiss


The roads were busy with buggies on Saturday afternoon.


We saw them coming...


and going...


We turned on this road and stopped by the greenhouse which is also side by side with the bakery. No trip to the Amish community is complete without a stop at the bakery!


I didn't buy anything at the greenhouse but the bakery was a whole other story. These doughnuts followed me home.


Well some of them followed me home,


some of them didn't make it all the way home! They are SO good! If I knew how to make these I would weigh 500 pounds!
I also picked up seed potatoes and onion sets yesterday!
The temps have dropped again but all the green and the flowering trees let me know that Spring will be here very soon!

Hope you enjoyed taking our trip with us!

A Beautiful Saturday

Took a ride to the Amish feed mill this morning to pickup chicken feed, shelled corn, chick grower, goat feed, a mineral block and birdseed.
I love this log home on the way there.


This side of the county is BEAUTIFUL!


Especially this time of year...


Did I mention BEAUTIFUL??


The Ohio River is out there somewhere. When the leaves all fall you can see the sun sparkle coming off the water.


I could spend all day just driving and looking.


but it's time to go home, feed the critters and work on the fence around the front pasture. It needs to be finished by spring so we have more room and more grass for the new babies!

I love beautiful Fall Saturdays like today!

The Honey and Almond soap has been unmolded and sliced!
Check in tomorrow for photos.

Amish Shopping

When my husband asked me what I wanted to do for Mother's Day, I said "Go shopping!" He said "Where?" I said, "The Amish." So that's what we did today. We stopped by the feed mill first to pick up some chicken feed then we went to the Greenhouse and Bakery....

Apparently I wasn't the only one who wanted to go shopping here. The parking lot has cleared a lot in this pic but it as pretty busy.

I picked out a couple of grapevines, a black raspberry bush and a red raspberry bush. I also got 2 deck railing planter boxes. This is the same greenhouse I bought my fruit trees from earlier in the spring. Then we went to the bakery and just opening the door was enough to make me gain 10 pounds. It smelled so wonderful! I didn't carry my camera inside but there was a table about 10 feet long covered in pies and cakes and donuts, yummmmmmm! I let the boys pick what we would get and we ended up with these...

They were huge!

and delicious!!!!! (that's my Honey without a shave - hey it's the weekend!)

J said they were, "Tasty!" His new word for the day. I ate one too, but no, there's no picture!

We decided to drive for awhile and stop at a few of the shops. We ended up at another greenhouse and I got a beautiful hanging basket of petunias (photo tomorrow, I promise!) and then at the rustic log furniture store I bought a bird feeder and I might just call back and have a custom rustic log bed made for our bedroom. It would look perfect in our log home and the price can't be beat!

I would have loved to take pics of the Amish men and women working or even the adorable little barefoot Amish boy sitting on top of a generator but we (visitors, patrons, customers, whatever we are) are not allowed to take photos of their faces or to have them pose for pictures. They feel that it is showing self pride and vanity to have one's photo taken. So instead of people, I snapped a few other things like Amish Britches hung out to dry in front of the outhouse!

and Amish buggies...

Then we drove on and saw this nice little lady lying in a field of flowers chewing her cud!

It was an absolutely beautiful day and I got lots of goodies! I also found a beautiful cedar trunk that would have followed me home if I hadn't already loaded the back of the van down with chicken feed, dog food, 3 huge hanging baskets of petunia (one for me, one for mom, and one for my grandmother) and vines. I have a birthday in June. I'm trying to decide if I want the trunk or a new camera (or both - hey I'm working now, right??)

A Trip the Amish Community

I have been going to Yoder's Feed Mill for the past 2 years since we moved here and started our farm. The man who owns the mill is frequently described as "a pretty good ole boy" by my Dad. In this part of the country, and from my Dad, that is high praise.

As we made our trip there today, I was a bit saddened by the fact that the equipment and contents of the feed mill are listed for auction in the local newspaper this week. I have talked to this man, Ray, on a monthly basis for 2 years. Listened to him talk about his wife, her pregnancy and their new baby girl, as well as, their 3 other children. We have discussed caring for goats, guineas, chickens, dogs and rabbits over the course of my visits. The first thing I asked him today was if he was really selling out. It is true. He and his family are moving to Illinois, about 150 miles away. Ray Yoder and his wife, Kathryn, are Amish, a society with a different background and what some consider strange beliefs and customs, but they are people whom I consider friends. They will be missed. The feed mill will remain open under new ownership, and I will continue to call out, "Two hundred pounds of layer chicken feed, please!" as I step through the loading dock door, but it won't be the same as before without Ray and his border collie, Sissy, there to greet me and the boys.

We took a little ride through some of the back roads and I snapped a few photos today.

This guy was grazing until we disturbed him.


(Used my burlapped action on this one.)

He decided he didn't want his picture taken anymore so he strolled off to go make these. Hi Baby!


Then there was this guy. He was just too pretty to pass up.