Johnny's "Luck", and Sorghum Cookies

KIDRON, Ohio - A 17-year-old Amish boy was shot in the head Thursday morning while plowing a field near Kidron.  The Wayne County Sheriff's Department reports John Hershberger was struck with a .22 caliber stray bullet just after 9 a.m.  He was using a horse-drawn plow when he felt something strike him in the head.  He noticed he was bleeding and, leaving the horses in the field, walked to his home to tell his father about the injury.

The Amish family does not have a phone so they went next door where a neighbor dialed 911.  John was taken to Aultman Hospital in Canton and X-Rays showed the bullet lodged under the skin on his head.  The bullet was removed Thursday afternoon and the boy was released from the hospital.  Authorities believe the bullet may have come from as far away as a mile, perhaps from someone hunting squirrels.

Johnny is lucky to be alive.  That’s what some would say.  Personally, I’ve never liked the word “luck.”  It’s definitely puzzling though,  when a freak accident like this happens.  Why was he hit in the first place?  What kind of luck is that?  Just a few inches difference, and he wouldn’t even have known that a bullet whizzed past his head.  Makes you wonder how often we are so close to death, and don’t even know it.  As a God-follower, it is comforting to know that He is aware of all the details in our lives, and He can prevent tragedies, or allow them.  And He can make good things happen out of tragic events.  It takes a lot of trust, and that’s tough sometimes.

What about the Amish girl that died a couple years ago in the same type of stray-bullet event?  She was more than a mile away from the shooter who, by the way, was identified, and must live with this the rest of his life.  Only God knows the whys and why nots.  We’re just thanking God that Johnny was not seriously hurt.

I spoke with Johnny last evening as I went past.  I thought he’d probably be out there working in the field again, so copies of the news articles were in my pocket.  Thought he might like to read them.  Sure enough, he was in the same field harrowing the plowed ground, preparing it for planting winter wheat.  He had no idea how “famous” he had become in one day.  He will probably enjoy seeing his name in print, but likely feel embarrassed at all the attention.  

So that’s the big news in our neighborhood this week.  Again, so thankful that the injuries were minor.  For those who hunt and target practice, it is a lesson to always keep in mind how far a bullet can travel, and what can happen when there is nothing but air beyond the intended target.  BE CAREFUL!

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Sorghum.  At last the project has reached completion.  From mail-ordered seeds that arrived in May, to sorghum syrup in my jars on the counter, to molasses crinkle cookies.  It was a fun, educational experience, but like the okra we mentioned last week, I probably won’t raise it again.  Sorghum syrup can be purchased from a local Swartzentruber Amishman for $5.50 per quart.  That makes the effort of raising, stripping, taking the stalks somewhere to get them squeezed, and cooking down the sweet juice into finished syrup, more costly than buying it from him.  Still, there was value and fun in the experience, and I’m glad I did it.

The first seeds were planted mid-May, but apparently the ground was not warm enough, and the germination rate was low.  Planted two more rows the first of June, and the germination rate was nearly 100%.  Then, it was just a matter of weeding, cultivating, and waiting.  The stalks grew over twelve feet tall, with large seed heads on top.  As previously arranged with Jacob’s brother-in-law, Ammon, I stripped the stalks and cut them down on Wednesday, and took them for squeezing on Friday.  I had no idea how much or how little juice I should expect from my roughly three-hundred stalks.  That isn’t much of a crop, but I wanted to do it in a small way while learning.

My stack of sorghum stalks

Friday morning found me pulling back a long, dusty lane to Ammon’s place with my bundle of sorghum.  He was there at his machine, running a few sample stalks through it to make sure it was operational.  My sorghum would be the first for the year.  His boiling operation was not yet going, but since I was going to do my own boiling, he started with me.  Next to the building were large stacks of stalks already there, waiting for him to work his magic.

An end-view of the crushing wheels, and the collection vats where the juice is strained and then rolled into the building where the cooking vats are located.

Ammon uses a diesel engine to power the rollers and a silo chopper/blower that the squeezed stalks are carried into.   As the stalks come out the backside of the rollers, they get chopped into bits and blown onto a pile where they will later be used as compost on his fields.

The crushing wheels.

The juice running from the spout into my bucket.

Ammon’s set-up is really geared for a lot of production.  The squeezed juice runs down a pipe into vats where it is strained, and from there into steam-heated boiling vats.  Two of them.  The steam is created by a wood-fired boiler that actually looks like an old steam engine.  Steam lines run from the boiler to the insides of the cooking pans.  Ammon said when he is up and running, he is squeezing, boiling, and finishing all at the same time.  He said the squeezing mill can barely keep up with the boiling and finishing.  When I was there, this process was not started yet, and he invited me to come back later next week when he will be running full bore.  Really looking forward to that.

My squeezings amounted to about six gallons of juice.  That’s all.  This would not be enough for my maple syrup boiling pan, so I cooked it in the house in a two-burner pan--the original maple sap cooking pan when we were just starting out many years ago.  Ammon figured I’d get maybe two quarts of sorghum syrup from that amount of juice.

This is the juice in a two-burner pan on my kitchen stove.  

Now here is another reason I probably won’t do this again.  All was well for the first four or five hours.  Just let it boil and occasionally skim off the green froth.  When the syrup reached 220 degrees, it began to foam up in the pan.  It needed to get to at least 226 degrees to be finished.  Because of the foaming, I had to cut the heat a lot.  For the next three or four hours it was necessary to hover over the stove and watch it closely.  This was painful and boring.  My feet hurt, and my eyes wanted to sleep.  Finally, at 11 P.M. the sorghum had reached 226 degrees and tested at 78% sugar.  That’s the correct sugar content according to most information that I could find.

After several hours of cooking, I moved it into this smaller, finishing pot.  This illustrates how hard it was to keep it from boiling over.  There were only about three inches of syrup in this pot, but it foamed up to the top--about eight inches.

The finished product was darker than anticipated, and somewhat tangier as well.  Still, it was delicious!  That’s the way it works when we do things ourselves.  The pleasure and appreciation is greatly multiplied.

Before cleaning up some sticky droppings, and crashing into bed for the night, there were just over two quarts of thick, sweet, sorghum syrup sitting on my counter.  Ammon guessed correctly.

Molasses crinkles cookies were mixed up this morning using our fresh sorghum, and baked this afternoon.  Talk about delicious!  Best cookies ever!  Can’t say it enough--when you put your own sweat equity into something, it is always so much better.

Molasses Crinkles

And that’s all for today from our little home town of Kidron, Ohio, where fall is in the air, and the homely men are wrapping up the summer projects and dreaming about deer hunting.  The beautiful Swiss women are busy putting away tomato juice, salsa, and applesauce, and in their spare time, making quilts and comforters for the cold winter months.  The children are back into the swing of things at school, coming home starved and tired, and ready for a glass of milk and a handful of molasses crinkle cookies.

So long.