Thank you Winnie for your support, it means a lot to me, having you here. And everyone else, Welcome! I would like to have an adventure, lets walk down a trail and see what magic we can find, want to? There may be portals between the hedgerows and the corn fields so keep a good eye open. Whichever path we take let's keep nature close by our side and our hearts tuned to the divine, shall we? I have a feeling it's going to be grand. I'll meet you here by the blue door.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Those Who Make You Wonder
by Trendle Ellwood
Of all of the people that we have had the privilege to get to know this summer at the farm market, Amish Man Dan and his family are the ones who intrigue me the most. Their whole way of living from the land, staying out of the system and adhering to an old, forgotten by the rest of us, way of life makes me long to learn more about them. I have never seen children who love to work like their children do.
To the Amish children work is play. We have seen them compete with each other and scramble to get a job done. They show much delight in doing the best job that they can do. Little John is only two and one day I watched as he piled the muskmelons that his father had put to his care into a display for the market crowd. Every once in a while his chubby little fingers would lose grasp of one and it would roll away and with all his might he would wobble out to retrieve it and then he grasped the round melon with both arms and with all seriousness and firm determination he would get it back to the top of the pile. Later I glanced back and was blessed by the look of pride on Little John’s face when his father came by and smiled at the muskmelons piled high.
We took our wagon to unload at their home after market Saturday and six children came out to greet us. They immediately saw what needed to be done and the little ones climbed into the wagon and started handing produce to the larger ones and us, which we all then placed on the table in the shade. An older Amish girl had gone into the house to fetch a broom and just as the produce was clear from the wagon, she jumped in and swept out the left over scraps. We were there unloaded and gone in less then five minutes time.
Emma the mother of the nine is such a cheerful soul, she says that her time to rest will be here in the winter, when she is sitting by the fire, quilting and watching the birds that she delights in feeding through her window. She put up 92 quarts of tomato juice Tuesday she told me, the day that she cut open a watermelon at market and shared it with us. Still she had the tomato sauce and whole tomatoes for soup to do. One time as we were unloading she was standing there thinking and writing something down on a scrap piece of paper,
“Are you making a list,” I asked her? She handed it to me and it was a recipe for the watermelon pickles that I had shown an interest in when Dan had told me how she makes them. Muskmelon with vanilla, it sounds so good.
We have been around Dan more than any of the Amish, as he is the only one who always comes to market. I have enjoyed his lively sense of humor and quick smiles throughout these three seasons. We got to talking about growing vegetables without pesticides one day. If a vegetable is not sprayed it will be a little bug eaten at times and how people don’t like to see holes in their food even if it is chemical free.
Then he told me about this one fellow who in the spring kept coming to his stand and asking for sweet corn because he had some of Dan’s sweet corn the year before and he had decided that it was the best. So he was watching and waiting for Dan’s corn to come and every market day he would be asking about it. Well finally some corn was ready and this fellow was the first to buy some. Then this fellow came back the next week and he said that there were a few corn worms on the tip of the corn that he had bought from Dan. Amish Man Dan covered his mouth as he told me, “ Maybe I should not have said this to him, but I couldn’t resist, I told him, Well, I guess it is true that the early bird gets the worm!”
Ah yes Dan he is always so funny. One day he stopped by our house to let us know that he would need the wagon, I was setting off towards the berry brambles up alongside the cow pasture and I mentioned my concerns about the bulls. I told him that when I am out there with the cows I always kept my mind on the location of the nearest good climbing tree in case I ever had to dash up it.
Dan then showed me what to do if a bull ever charged at me. He said what you do is you take off your hat and you roar like a mad man, and he preceded to demonstrate this scare tactic to me as he pulled his Amish straw hat from his head and waved it frantically in the air, his grey black beard swaying to and fro and him roaring like a lion. I couldn’t be scared of the bulls as I picked berries that day for the remembrance of Dan roaring at them like lion kept me smiling. But I did keep my eyes on the nearest tree just in case.
Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.
Of all of the people that we have had the privilege to get to know this summer at the farm market, Amish Man Dan and his family are the ones who intrigue me the most. Their whole way of living from the land, staying out of the system and adhering to an old, forgotten by the rest of us, way of life makes me long to learn more about them. I have never seen children who love to work like their children do.
To the Amish children work is play. We have seen them compete with each other and scramble to get a job done. They show much delight in doing the best job that they can do. Little John is only two and one day I watched as he piled the muskmelons that his father had put to his care into a display for the market crowd. Every once in a while his chubby little fingers would lose grasp of one and it would roll away and with all his might he would wobble out to retrieve it and then he grasped the round melon with both arms and with all seriousness and firm determination he would get it back to the top of the pile. Later I glanced back and was blessed by the look of pride on Little John’s face when his father came by and smiled at the muskmelons piled high.
We took our wagon to unload at their home after market Saturday and six children came out to greet us. They immediately saw what needed to be done and the little ones climbed into the wagon and started handing produce to the larger ones and us, which we all then placed on the table in the shade. An older Amish girl had gone into the house to fetch a broom and just as the produce was clear from the wagon, she jumped in and swept out the left over scraps. We were there unloaded and gone in less then five minutes time.
Emma the mother of the nine is such a cheerful soul, she says that her time to rest will be here in the winter, when she is sitting by the fire, quilting and watching the birds that she delights in feeding through her window. She put up 92 quarts of tomato juice Tuesday she told me, the day that she cut open a watermelon at market and shared it with us. Still she had the tomato sauce and whole tomatoes for soup to do. One time as we were unloading she was standing there thinking and writing something down on a scrap piece of paper,
“Are you making a list,” I asked her? She handed it to me and it was a recipe for the watermelon pickles that I had shown an interest in when Dan had told me how she makes them. Muskmelon with vanilla, it sounds so good.
We have been around Dan more than any of the Amish, as he is the only one who always comes to market. I have enjoyed his lively sense of humor and quick smiles throughout these three seasons. We got to talking about growing vegetables without pesticides one day. If a vegetable is not sprayed it will be a little bug eaten at times and how people don’t like to see holes in their food even if it is chemical free.
Then he told me about this one fellow who in the spring kept coming to his stand and asking for sweet corn because he had some of Dan’s sweet corn the year before and he had decided that it was the best. So he was watching and waiting for Dan’s corn to come and every market day he would be asking about it. Well finally some corn was ready and this fellow was the first to buy some. Then this fellow came back the next week and he said that there were a few corn worms on the tip of the corn that he had bought from Dan. Amish Man Dan covered his mouth as he told me, “ Maybe I should not have said this to him, but I couldn’t resist, I told him, Well, I guess it is true that the early bird gets the worm!”
Ah yes Dan he is always so funny. One day he stopped by our house to let us know that he would need the wagon, I was setting off towards the berry brambles up alongside the cow pasture and I mentioned my concerns about the bulls. I told him that when I am out there with the cows I always kept my mind on the location of the nearest good climbing tree in case I ever had to dash up it.
Dan then showed me what to do if a bull ever charged at me. He said what you do is you take off your hat and you roar like a mad man, and he preceded to demonstrate this scare tactic to me as he pulled his Amish straw hat from his head and waved it frantically in the air, his grey black beard swaying to and fro and him roaring like a lion. I couldn’t be scared of the bulls as I picked berries that day for the remembrance of Dan roaring at them like lion kept me smiling. But I did keep my eyes on the nearest tree just in case.
Copyright © 2004, by Trendle Ellwood. All Rights Reserved.
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