Vince and a Lesson from the Old Barn

During the days following the dismantling of my old barn, there was a huge amount of clean-up work.  Several large piles of discarded boards lay around, and it was my intention to save a lot of it for projects.  So I could be found most evenings sorting the piles, and thinking, and remembering all the good times that our family had enjoyed in the structure whose remnants were now piled around me.

Thanks to a picture in the daily newspaper, and an accompanying article about the dismantling, a lot of rubber-neckers drove by during this process.  And many times my work was interrupted by visitors--asking if they could have some wood for craft projects.  I usually said yes to the requests, as long as they wanted boards that I had no use for.  Each time I would tell them the same thing.  “Take as much as you want, but do something for me.  As you craft your items, make a little something from it for me too--something to help me remember my barn.”

They all agreed, “Absolutely, yes of course, we’d love to do that for you!  Thanks for the wood.”

Then one evening right after supper, the phone rang.  I was the first one to get to it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, my name is Vince.  Are you the owner of the property where the barn was taken down?”

“Yes.”

“I was wondering if I could get some scrap barn siding from your piles.  I have boys who like to build things.”

“Sure,” I answered, “Come on out, We’ll be here.”

And then we chatted a little--small talk about the things his boys like to build, and how he likes to keep them occupied, and help them with their projects.

Vince spoke very articulately, with an almost cultured voice.   I thought to myself that I must be speaking with a professor, or maybe a preacher.  As usually happens when I hear a person that I’ve never met, an image begins forming in my head of what they might look like.  The picture of Vince was of a neat and trim, well-educated man, probably thirty something.  He was medium sized--a white midwesterner.  And he would probably show up driving a late model SUV or pick-up truck.

I went back outside then, and returned to sorting piles, and as I cleaned and stacked boards, I allowed my mind to wander into other territories--places where some things were heavy on my mind, and troubling me.   

Working away, lost in thought, I completely forgot about Vince and his boys, until I heard a rattling sound slowing down in front of my yard, and pulling into my driveway.  I looked up to see an old rusty pickup truck moving towards me with fenders shaking and threatening to fall off at any second.

The truck shuddered to a stop, and a very large muscular man stepped out of the driver’s side.  “Hi, I’m Vince, and these are my boys.”

I hoped the shock that I was experiencing was not registering on my face, because this man and his boys didn’t fit my mental image at all.  Nothing about my picture was correct.  Not the truck, not the size of the man, and not the color of his skin.  Vince was a large, handsome black man, dressed in a sweat suit, and had the physique of a football player.  I meekly offered my hand to him, and showed him where they could get some boards.  As the boys began loading the truck, Vince and I talked for a while.  He said he had seen the wood on his way home from church.  I asked him where he attended, and he told me about this large yellow house-church in Kidron.

“Yes,” I said, “I know where it is--on Jericho Road.”  And then I told him where I go to church, and as so often happens between Christ followers, our exchange quickly became like a conversation between old friends.

Vince shared how he works at home as a contract engineer, doing design work for various corporations.  His home-employment was a result of wanting to spend more time with his boys.  He wanted to raise them to be Godly young men, and wanted to be there as a father, teacher, and role model.  I don’t remember exactly how, but our conversation drifted to the things that had been troubling me when he arrived.  As I shared with him, I could tell that Vince listened carefully--with compassion.

Soon he went to help the boys load the truck, and I went back to cleaning boards.  But it wasn’t long until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vince walking slowly towards me.  Gently and humbly, he asked if he could pray with me about the things that were burdening me.  I said yes--of course!  And there in the yard beside the piles of wood, Vince spoke a beautiful prayer on my behalf.  I was surprised and grateful for this genuine display of Christian love coming from one who was a stranger not long before.

Then Vince thanked me for the wood, and he and his boys hopped back into the noisy old, flappy truck, and motored on down the road, happy with their load.  And I was left standing beside my pile of wood, humbly thanking God for sending me a messenger of grace.  

Vince was so genuine that he probably doesn’t even know he was sent to me that evening, but I am grateful that he was faithful and obedient.

The piles of wood are long gone--years now--and we have yet to see a single thing from any of the people who promised to make a memory-item from our old barn.  However, the gift Vince gave me lingers on in my mind--a lovely memory--impossible to forget.

My prayer is this: Lord, help me to be an obedient servant like Vince.  Help me to recognize the opportunities you put in my path, to serve people, and to be an agent of your grace.

"He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul." Psalm 23.   This is how I felt after Vince prayed.

From Kidron, Ohio on a July summer day.  This is an area that God has blessed with honest, hardworking folks who love to work the land and preserve a heritage that has been passed down for generations.  It’s a great place to raise children who often choose to migrate to other areas, but who still consider this their home, and they love to come back with their babies for some of Mom’s good home cooking.

This is wormy chestnut, formerly part of the hay loft floor in the old barn.  

This fun piece is made from red oak, salvaged from the rafters of the old milk house attached to the barn.

Usually this is used as a plant stand.  Today I picked some posies from our garden and displayed them in Juanita's collection of pitchers.

Our Great Old Barn

I still miss our great old barn on Kansas Road.  It was a stately, gambrel-roofed structure over one-hundred-years old.  Hand hewn beams formed the main frame and supported the loft floor, and the construction style was typical for the era, with mortise and tenon joinery and wooden pins.   In our area, the Amish still use this type of construction for new barns.  Most modern farmers have gone to pole-barn construction, as this better suits today’s style of farming.

Forty by ninety feet.  She stood proudly for over a hundred years.

I used to wander about the pulleys that hung at various places in the old loft, and the large metal hooks that were embedded deeply into the beams about one foot up in the doorway at the top of the barn bank.  What had they been used for?  One of my old Amish neighbors stopped in one time and described how he used to help put loose hay into that loft.  He said the horses had a hard time pulling the loads up the steep barn bank into the loft area, and would sometimes slip.  I’d like to have seen how that all worked—unloading the hay, using the slings and pulleys that were still there in the loft.  Well, now I have.

As I walked south on Zuercher road two weeks ago, Jacob and his sons were loading hay into a wagon.  It’s a beautiful sight to see father and sons working together like that, and I took some photos from a distance.  I won’t post another picture of that today,  since one was included with the writing two weeks ago—the one titled, “Melvin and His Horse.”  

I continued walking south, passing them and their farm buildings as they labored in the sun, and at the two-mile mark from my home, turned around and headed back.  This was the moment that Jacob and the boys were pulling the full hay wagon out of the field.  I wondered if they might let me watch them unload it.  So, following the wagon up the barn bank and into the loft, I asked. “Sure,” they said, smiling.  I knew better than to get the camera out.  Much too close for photos, and they wouldn’t want that.  This time, the action would be locked in my memory, and not on a camera chip.

What a treat to see the process!  Suddenly all the pieces came together when I thought of all the hooks and pulleys that had been in my own old barn on Kansas Road.  

Once the wagon was pulled up into the loft, the horses were unhooked and brought back to the top of the barn bank, facing down hill.  There they stood, waiting patiently.  Then, as Jacob went into the loft on top of the loose hay that was already distributed there, his son Henry climbed onto the wagon load of hay, reached up and got hold of a rope that hung down from the hay carrier trolley that was attached to the rail up in the peak of the barn—a rail that runs full length from one end to the other.  Under the top layer of hay in the wagon, there was a sling that ran the full length of the wagon.  I hadn’t noticed that before. The sling reminded me of a giant rope ladder with each wooden “step” about four feet wide.  The ends of the sling had loops that Henry hooked to the rope that hung down from the peak of the barn.  Now it was all coming together in my mind.  From the hay trolley up at the peak, the other end of the long rope came down to a pulley hooked onto the beam of the barn doorway.  The rope went through that pulley, and was then hooked to the horse’s harness.  Henry slapped the reins a little, and the team walked down the bank, and up went the load of hay.  He stopped them when Jacob shouted, just as the load reached the top of the barn.  A locking device on the hay carrier trolley locked the load from coming back down.  Henry then unhooked the team, and hooked them to another rope and walked the team back up the hill.  This rope moved the sling-full-of-hay along the rail to a place where Jacob wanted to drop it.  When the load was where he wanted it, Jacob shouted, and the team stopped.  Yet another rope was hanging down from the sling, and when Jacob pulled it, the load dropped into the loft, with a huge cloud of dust and chaff.  So that’s how it is done!  Two more slings full of hay were layered on the wagon, and I watched them do the same things twice more.  Now I could see it all in my head.  I could see my Grandpa, my uncles, and my Dad unloading hay.  I could see how the process had been done in my own great old barn.  This little “field trip” made me happy.  I thanked Jacob and the boys, and headed north on Zuercher Road, with a satisfied smile on my face, and many thoughts about the old barn that used to grace our six-acre mini-farm on Kansas Road—a spot that is now a level area of lawn, and belongs to a nice Amish family.

Join me as I reminisce a little.

Our huge old barn was gone.  After more than one hundred years of use that included uncounted animal inhabitants, mountains of hay and straw, volumes of reeking manure to pitch out every spring, cobwebs galore, and a one-hundred-year-old combination of odors related to all the above, it had finally succumbed to old age, neglect, and some tough weather.  No longer would it be home to many varieties of animals, and the people who lived there.  The old barn was like a second home to me—and to many others before me.  Old barns are like that.  As the farmers spend untold hours there milking cows, feeding livestock, pitching manure, and long nights with animals in labor, the barn becomes like home.  I loved it, too.  I loved everything about it.  And I loved having a place to keep some animals.  

When our family moved to this property on Kansas Road, I looked at the barn and recognized the obvious signs.  At first glance, it looked good, but a closer inspection revealed that the tin roof was leaking in many places.  Some beams showed signs of termites and carpenter ants.  The hayloft floor was rotting in some places.  The siding was weathering and taking on a lovely character.  All in all, it was clear that the great old barn would not stand the test of too much more time.  I guesstimated ten years.  It seemed like a long time.  I’ve learned differently.  Ten years is almost nothing.

In those ten years, we made a home for quite a number of critters – “our menagerie” we called it.  My love for animals, and my desire to share that interest with my growing children, caused me to make a home in the old barn for horses, ponies, donkeys, goats, calves, turkeys, chickens, rabbits, and of course, too many cats.  Not all at the same time though.  We spread the fun out over the years, and at any given time had two or more groups of the above-named animals.

And time moved on—and children grew up—and the old barn faced some fierce weather that took off some of the tin roof.  We were at the ten-year mark now, and it was difficult to admit it.  It was with sadness that I had to face the facts.  Six acres of land cannot support or justify the cost of repairing and re-roofing a huge old barn.  Forty feet wide, and ninety feet long—she stood proudly for over a century, but this was quickly coming to an end.  I called a couple barn salvagers, and collected a couple offers.  One guy would give me twelve-hundred dollars.   Another one thought he might be able to give fifteen-hundred.

Both men were planning to harvest the timbers, and sell them for lumber.

So that’s the going rate, I guessed.  Maybe it would be enough to clean up the debris and put in a lawn.

Then out of the blue, a man from a distant state called me.  He had been in our area several years earlier, and said he had his eye on my barn.  He wondered if I might be interested in selling it.  Yes, of course I was.  “In fact,” I told him, “I was in the process of collecting offers.  How much would he offer?”

“Two thousand dollars,” he said.  That was better than the others.  Then he went on to explain what my barn might become if I accepted his offer.  The dream was for the upper level to become a Christian bookstore, and the lower level, a restaurant.  As much as I hated to see the barn go, it would do my heart good to see it resurrected.  Born again, in a sense—or as some say in these circumstances—barn again.

Coming down.  An Amish crew was hired to dismantle it.

So we agreed.  It was an experience I will never forget; to see my barn dismantled board by board, and beam by beam.  Three full semi-truck loads hauled it all away.  All that is, except for several large piles of “scrap” wood that was formerly the siding, and hayloft floor.  Those parts were unsalvageable in the man’s eyes, so he left them.  I looked at the piles, and knew immediately what I was going to do with them.  I would sort out the best boards, and use them for my other hobby—building furniture.  You sure wouldn’t think it, to look at those ugly, weathered, dirty boards.  You wouldn’t think that something beautiful lay there in those random stacks of ancient wood.

As I began sorting, I soon found a fairly large quantity of wormy chestnut, white oak, red oak, ash, and poplar—all useful for making the things I like to build—things like book-shelves, dry-sinks, wall-shelves, and coffee tables.  I was particularly thrilled for the wormy chestnut.  It is difficult to find, since the tree is extinct.

Wormy Chestnut salvaged from the old barn.  My favorite piece.  

And looking back, it was a good decision.  As much as we love old barns, one can go driving through the country and see what happens when they are no longer needed.  Many are left to slowly fall to the ground, into mounds of forgotten lumber, no longer home to anything but rats and mice, groundhogs and rabbits.  It’s sad to see, and to think about all the wonderful times and hard work that took place inside those old structures.  It’s a different day today, with large farms, large equipment, and not much need for the standard old barns of yesteryear.  But it is still enjoyable to drive around and view the Amish families and some hobby farmers using them just like our ancestors did.   

From Kidron, Ohio, where the men are homely, but they can still turn their lovely wife’s head as they work outside under the July sun, muscles rippling and glistening with sweat.  It’s a good life here in the country, where children grow strong and healthy eating things that were grown in the family garden; where they go to the barn or shed to help with the animals; and before long, they grow up to be like Mom and Dad—eventually to repeat this wonderful cycle of life.  Let’s enjoy each day with our families, and be thankful for the many blessings.

Family Beekeeping

A lot of people are getting into beekeeping these days.  Part of the reason is that many want to get back-to-the-land, grow their own food, and be self sufficient.   Another element is the loss of bees nationwide.  They call it CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) and blame it on a number of different things, but in the minds of most of us, the primary blame is pesticides.  There are some huge companies that have millions of dollars to prove their pesticides are “safe,” but…. anyhow, not going to go into that argument here.  It will be more fun to share our experience.  We have bees—actually my son has bees, and I help him.

For a long time—probably twenty-five years—I wanted to have beehives to produce honey for the table.  This would fit nicely with our maple syrup project, and various other homestead ventures that have become part of our family’s history.  However…certain childhood memories stood in the way, and it was the fear of getting stung that always tipped the scales to the side of staying bee free.  But the desire was always there.  I envied the guys who had the courage to do it.  I lost my courage over fifty years ago after being a barefooted kid running through the white clover growing in the family lawn.  A few stings will teach you something.  Bees cause pain.  

Then came the day my oldest son said he was getting honey bees.  This was exciting news, and not surprising.  My son has always been a little hard on himself—to my way of thinking.  Must be the Neuenschwander genes in him.  I’ve always told him he loves pain, and he’s always responded by saying, “No, I don’t love pain, but I’m not afraid of it.”  This is a good way to live—conquering the fear that tends to limit some of us.   For him to begin the bee project though, was exciting to me.  I could participate and learn from a close distance without actually being close enough to get stung.  And I could help with the honey extraction, and enjoy the fresh sweet goodness from the bees on the Ross homestead.  

The bee project started with a couple hives about nine years ago, and I soon learned how much of a wimp I am.  Observing my seven-year-old Granddaughter slowly walk up behind a hive, without wearing a bee suit, and then sit down beside it on the hive platform, smiling happily, was a lesson I needed.  This alone helped tremendously with the fear factor.  At that point I knew it was time to become more involved.  I bought my own suit  and began to learn as much as I could.  It’s been a fun education.  The project has expanded over the years to a peak of eleven hives, and now about half of them are on my property, and I have the pleasure of sitting and watching the bees too.

Hives at our place.  The one on the right is a top-bar hive.

Honey collection has been around for a long, long time.  It’s mentioned quite a few times in the Old Testament, including some good advice.  Proverbs 25:16 warns about eating too much at one time.  Many other places honey is used as a symbol of “plenty”, often speaking of a land flowing with “milk and honey.”  It certainly is a substance of goodness, and not only for flavor.  It has nutritional and medicinal benefits, and also contains natural antibacterial elements.

We have this current nationwide problem with honey bees disappearing, and that’s a bit frightening since we’ve come to depend on them a lot to pollinate our crops and trees.  It is interesting to note, though, that honey bees are not native to the United States.  They were imported from Europe by the early settlers.  Will we still have food if all the honey bees disappear?  Yes, but not nearly as much.  The importing of honeybees has greatly enhanced our ability to raise large quantities of food, so losing the bees hurts.  One answer to this problem is the growing interest of many families to have their own hives.  Small apiaries seem to have a much better chance of survival, so it is heartening that so many folks are getting started in this fascinating pursuit.  In fact, a recent poll shows that seventy-six percent of beekeepers have been doing it for two years or less.  This is not limited to country settings either.  Many people have bees in urban settings—even putting hives on roofs of buildings to keep their flight paths above any nearby people.

Swarms are one of the most interesting and enjoyable parts of beekeeping.  Perhaps you’ve seen a football-sized cluster of bees hanging on a branch or post somewhere.  If this happens near your home, you may be terrified and tempted to get out the spray, or the torch.  Please don’t.  Instead, call a beekeeper.  He or she will be happy to help you.  Let me describe what is happening when you see a swarm.

This is a typical swarm.  Most often in trees, but also seen just about anywhere else--fence posts, bushes, mailboxes, etc.

An average beehive has around 60,000 bees in the middle of summer.  This number dwindles to about 20,000 during the winter.  In the late spring, when the hive is expanding rapidly in population, it will often split naturally as a way of propagating the species.  When this happens, the existing queen—only one in each hive—will first lay several new queen eggs, then take about half the population, and leave for new location.  The swarm that you see clustered on a branch is the preliminary location for the queen and her group  while the scouts are out looking for a new home.  You might think they should have that figured out ahead of time, but no.   In the meantime, this is something that excites a beekeeper.  Catching a swarm is fun and free way to start a new hive.   Sometimes the swarm will hang there for only a couple hours.  Other times it may be a couple days.  The idea is to not waste time when a swarm is discovered, and get there as soon as possible with an empty brood box to catch them.  

When swarming, the bees are not defending a hive, so they are very docile.  In the middle of the swarm is the queen, and the rest are intent on surrounding her while waiting for directions to a new home.  It is possible to put your bare hand slowly up against a swarm without getting stung.  I’ve done it.  This amazes me.  To go from fear, to knowledge and respect, to actually enjoy working with the bees.  However, when working the hives to inspect the bees and check the frames for mites, brood, and honey, it is advisable to at least wear headgear that protects your head and face.  That’s all my son wears, and he gets an occasional sting on his hands.  Me?  I still don’t like to get stung, so I wear a full suit that covers every part of my body.  

Working the bees goes better when a smoker is used.  This calms them, and some believe the bees think the hive is on fire, so they go inside to load up with honey.  Whatever the case, it works, and the bees are easier to work with.  When smoke is not used, they tend to get stirred up and begin dive-bombing the offending intruder—almost always going for the head and eyes.  That’s why you want protection at least in that area.

Beekeepers and Bee-havers.  There is a big difference.  A beekeeper will work with his bees, provide care and intervention when necessary to combat varroa mites, tracheal mites, wax moths, and hive beetles.  Occasionally a queen will need to be replaced as well, if it appears that there are not enough brood cells.  A bee “haver” has bees, but doesn’t want to spend the time necessary to keep a healthy hive.  

For family honey, one hive is enough.  Better to have one hive and manage it well, than a dozen that you don’t have time for.  My niece Jessica lives in Georgia, where her husband has only one hive.  He just harvested two gallons of honey.  This is great!  Plenty for them for the year, and some to give away as gifts or sell to friends.  Yes, the initial investment in the hive and protective gear will take a couple years worth of honey to pay for, but who can put a price on the education and value of doing this yourself.  The satisfaction is immense, and the enjoyment of the honey multiplied with each bite.

This has been a short introduction to our experience with bees.  Many books have been written, and are available to learn from.  It really is a lifetime learning experience, and one that rewards us with pollination, knowledge, and honey.  If you are considering keeping your own bees, or want to learn more about it, there are many excellent sources of information on the internet too.  I enjoy a blog written by David Burns, a certified master beekeeper.  His information is well organized and illustrated with pictures and videos.  Check it out at  www.basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com.

My collection of books.

It’s time to go for my therapy session with the bees now.  Watching them coming to the landing board with legs loaded down with pollen, while other workers are at the entrance fanning and guarding; listening to the steady hum and smelling the honey as it is being fanned and evaporated to just the right concentration of moisture—this is nature’s calming and relaxing music.   If you’re headed east out of Kidron on Jericho Road, keep an eye on the right side of the road—down over the bank under some trees—you’ll see the Ross family bees.  So long.

Melvin and His Horse

Melvin has been gone for a few years now.  His health failed, and he died much too young.  His horse has been gone for a lot longer.  But I remember those times we spent together as teenagers—me, a Mennonite preacher’s son, and Melvin an Amish lad that I worked with in a local factory.  Melvin was about my age, and we had a lot of fun.  We’d go places together in my first car, a ‘69 Dodge Dart, and he’d take me along with him in his buggy.

We met at F. E. Schumacher Mfg. in Hartville, Ohio, the first full-time job for both of us, and it was a friendship that quickly developed.  Mel Coblentz and his brother Ray, were my first Amish friends, and there have been a lot more since then.  Their older brother Nelson was still experiencing rumspringa in those days, but since that time, has lived an exceptional life as a preacher and musician with Gospel Express Ministries.

Mel had a fast horse.  Can’t remember it’s name, but it loved to run.  In fact, that’s all it wanted to do.  That lean old equine still had the juice, and Mel was afraid it would give itself a heart attack, since it was well over twenty years old.  We’d line up sometimes with other young men, and hit the gas (a kissing sound and a slap with the reins).  The old horse was not going to let another one win if it could help it.  I’m still puzzled by how this works, but after takeoff, Mel would start a strong steady pull on the reins, and the horse would pull with his head.  The harder he pulled on the reins, the faster it went. I still remember the day we almost had a head-on with a car.  We were headed down a long grade on Market Street while attempting to pass another Amish young man, and he decided we were not going to pass.  Neck and neck we streaked down the road with a car coming at us, first at a distance, but ever closer at a rapid rate.  Neither horse or driver wanted to give in.  I saw myself dead and buried before the other guy let up and we pulled around him in time to make passageway for the car.  After the fact, we laughed.   Whether it’s a car or a buggy, we’re all the same.  Young men looking for some excitement.

Mel began dating a local girl about the time we were running around together, and he’d stay up too late sometimes.  Monday mornings he’d come dragging his butt into work a little slower than other days, and I’d ask him about his date.  I once asked him if he ever goes to sleep in his buggy on the way home in the wee hours of Monday mornings.  Yes, he said he sometimes wakes up with the horse standing in front of the barn.  That’s the thing about horses.  They know the way home.  We’re working on cars that can do that now, but the artificial intelligence is still no match for a horse.

Mel ended up selling his horse, bought a car and joined a more progressive church where a lot of other former horse-and-buggy Amish were attending.  And he married the girl who used to keep him up late at night.  A sweet young lady named Beth.

Borium.  Now there is word that most people will need to look up.  But ask any Amishman, and he will know, I guarantee you.  The substance is used by blacksmiths like Joe Schwartz of Hartville, Ohio.  He’s been gone for quite a few years, but he made for himself a reputation as an excellent horseman and blacksmith.   One day Melvin and I paid him a visit to get new shoes put on Mel’s horse.  That’s when I learned about borium, and how it is used on the bottom of horseshoes so the horses don’t slip on pavement and ice.  

Borium is a combination of brass and tungsten carbide chips.  It comes in sticks, and can be melted onto the horseshoes with a torch.  Usually, a patch of it is located on the toe of the shoe, and more patches on the heal.  In hardness, the carbide chips rate right up there close to diamonds, and it is used for many other applications as well, like saw blades.

Borium on the horse shoes.

   *      *      *      *      *

Seems like all roads lead into Kidron, and over a period of time, we see cars from every state of the union.  Often, it’s Lehman’s Hardware on the square that draws them in, but that’s not all.  The Amish population, and a quaint town that has not been overtaken yet by the tourist industry, makes this a pleasant, relaxing place to visit.

But speaking of the roads leading into Kidron.  My goodness, the last two winters have been really hard on them, and a lot of repairs need to be done.  Further damage is done by the borium on the horse’s shoes that wears a groove into road.  Along with the potholes and cracks, this makes for a slow and careful drive around here.  Hoping that our taxes will soon be put into road repair.  

Just one of many that go past our house everyday.

We see a lot of horses go past our house.  Some are work horses pulling wagons loaded down with feed from Sommers or lumber from Gerbers.  Some are bringing pigs or cows into the Thursday auctions—incidentally, the oldest livestock auction in Ohio—and others returning home with the same.  The Swartzentruber Amish use mixed-breed horses to pull their buggies.  They’re big and stocky and don’t run as fast as a lot of the horses used by the other Amish sects.  This keeps them humble I suppose.  They don’t need to show off with speed.

This is not the case for most of the Old Order and New Order Amish.  Almost all of them use Standardbred horses for driving, and a lot of those have been on the track at one time, and didn’t make the cut.  But they are still fast.  You can go to the once-a-month Mt. Hope horse auction to buy one if you wish.  There are a lot of horses there, some draft horses, some ponies, a donkey or two, and a lot of Standardbreds ready to be road-horses for the Amish.  When these horses come into the ring, the auctioneer will announce the details, and often note that “this horse is fresh off the track.”  This is where the Amish teenagers prick up their ears and their hearts start beating faster, and they’re no different than any other teenager trying out a Mustang or Camaro.  

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Neighbor Jacob and his sons gathering the hay.  See the dog running along in the shade of the wagon.

It’s been a good week around Kidron.  Finally, my neighbors are able to put up the hay that has been laying in the fields.  We’ve had so much rain.  Now we’re getting the sunshine, and as I walked Zuercher Road, every neighbor was busy in the fields using the methods our Great-grandparents used, to put up hay for winter feed.  A child will usually be driving the team pulling the wagon, with an adult or two on the wagon, stacking the loose hay that’s being fed into the back of the wagon by a hay lift.  I found a short clip on U-tube showing how my neighbors do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSOURuEJeyk

And here comes the fruit of our labor.  We picked our first green beans yesterday.  Always love beans straight from the garden to the stove.

The corn, that is supposed to be “knee high by the fourth of July”, is at least five feet tall.  Seems like the old saying might mean, if your field corn is not at least knee high by the fourth of July, it may not completely ripen before the fall frosts.  

Neighbor Lloyd put up some signs to measure the corn growth.

From my bench on the front porch, with a card table holding my laptop and coffee mug, we leave you with hope for a pleasant holiday with family.  May I suggest that we walk humbly and gratefully, loving our neighbors as ourselves—remembering to be thankful for the freedom we have in this nation, and especially thankful for the personal peace and freedom we experience in knowing Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the one who came not as a warrior, but as a servant.  Blessings to all.