by Lena Yoder
The girls had the house ready to mop, so I quickly got that out of the way and started making plans for the rest of the afternoon. We put Colleen’s old headboard and dresser into Brian’s room. We pushed, pulled, and shoved Brian’s old mattress down the stairs and out the front door. We emptied my old desk and heaved that out the door to join the rest of the outcasts out there. The drawers in that desk didn’t work anymore, and it was just a place for the little girls to pile their treasures into instead of putting them into their proper places.
Next we brought the chest of drawers down from Colleen’s room and put the desk things in there. Can you just imagine how our house of mix-and-match looks? Very livable, definitely not for show, but I hope visitors view it as inviting and comfortable.
With Colleen and Brian as my helpers, we took our box springs and mattress up to Brian’s room and fixed his bed.
We finished up the cleaning and started supper. Wayne, Brian, and I went back to the sale to get our purchases and pay the bill. How exciting for the children (and their mama) to have something new.
Colleen quickly washed off the wagon dirt from the bedroom furniture, and then Wayne and I carried it inside. We got it upstairs, situated, and discussed. Colleen was tickled with the bedroom suite. It’s a white one, and she wants me to paint daisies on the headboard and dresser. Wayne and I then put the new mattress set on our bed and fixed that. We released a huge sigh of relief. I also eliminated our head- and footboard to create more space in our teeny bedroom.
What a day! We ate supper at 7:00, and everybody was ready to hit the sack by then.
Sitting here at the kitchen table, I can see out the north, south, and west windows and enjoy scenes of the summer evening. I notice the hummingbird feeder needs to be replenished, and the two other bird feeders are empty also. I guess if there’s nothing else to do around here, I can always feed the birds. As if I have nothing else to do.
I can see the green garden. The produce is flourishing with all the sunshine and moisture. The east part is freshly tilled as we planted the potatoes tonight. I decided to plant the potatoes later this year to see if we can get a better crop… and also to see if they keep better through the winter. Last year’s crop was a total failure. Every time I bought potatoes at the store during the winter I was embarrassed. To me, planting enough potatoes to last most of the year is part of our heritage. I realize some basements are too warm and the potatoes spoil, but I really appreciate crates full of potatoes in the basement. It gives me a strong sense of working together with the Lord to supply for my family.
Colleen fertilized both gardens and flower beds this morning as Wayne, Brian, and I chored. After breakfast Karah and Emily were supposed to pick potato bugs. It’s hard to keep them at that job. Karah finally put a pesticide on the plants, but I honestly think that’s a treat for the bugs. We keep on battling.
Next Karah and Emily were supposed to pick up Jesse’s toys and Sam’s debris from the yard. Sam is our three-and-a-half-month yellow Lab-mix dog. He looks like a full-blooded Lab. Colleen and Brian had been watching the pet ads in the papers and luckily noticed this ad. They’d been aching for a Lab, and here were some advertised for $20! Their dog fever ran plenty high. We’ve been pleased with him so far. Of course, he is still in the puppy stage, and I’ve had to replace some plants.
Jesse and Sam are best buddies. Jesse is usually up early and goes outside to visit and pet Sam, crooning “Hey, Sam, hey, Sam,” in his cute two-year-old talk. The two are fun to watch. As a small pup, Sam looked like the puppy on the wrapper of Cottonelle toilet paper.
Back to our gorgeous day. Brian ran the weed-eater most of the forenoon. Colleen baked chocolate chip cookies, which are everybody’s favorite. Then she moved on to mowing the lawn. I sprayed for weeds. Between trying to keep everybody busy, taking Jesse to the bathroom, and applying a Band-Aid to Jolisa’s foot, I deep-cleaned the porch. The porch is a small but vital room in our house. I washed the walls, woodwork, furniture, and rearranged a bit. I also cleaned out the girls’ toy box, cleaned the roller shades, and swept the floor.
Colleen grilled hamburgers, and I made mashed potatoes and sweet corn for lunch. We skipped the normally present garden salad and served applesauce. Fresh strawberries and cookies for dessert.
After our noon siesta, Colleen finished mowing the lawn, Karah swept the kitchen, and I washed the dishes. The four little ones and I took strawberry jam to our freezer kept at our neighbors. They have a freezer from which they sell treats. We took money along and bought pop and ice cream for everybody. The children all loved it, and it was worth the messy faces their mama had to wash.
The next 14 working days will look much like today—filled to the brim with getting ready to host church services here. This is a time of deep-cleaning, which I look forward to. Too bad it doesn’t stay clean for a longer period of time, but such is life.
I’m working on blooming where I’m planted… if I don’t fall asleep on the couch and entirely miss the 9:30 PM milking. This phase in my life has given me a whole new dimension on being submissive to my very loving husband. I feel like ranting and raving about milking three times a day, but I have no right. I need to work on cultivating my small spot in this world every day. I have a hard enough time deciding what to make for lunch, so you know how deep my brain waves go. In all seriousness, Wayne is very supportive of me and my whims. He would never force me into helping him. He makes me want to help him (except the 9:30 evening milking). I feel very privileged to have my whole family home working and playing together. How very, very blessed we are.
The last two months I’ve filled in every once in a while for Wayne at the 1:30 milking so he could work in the fields or get the hay in. Brian usually helps me, and I really enjoy it. Except on the day when the feed man stops in and everything goes wrong. By the time he leaves, the milking parlor* looks like an outhouse, and I feel like a failure. Oh well. I have no desire to try to impress him, but why do things always go haywire when someone else is around? Such is the life of a farmer’s wife.
One day last week Wayne and Brian went fishing. A first-time experience for Brian in his almost 12 years of living. He thought it was pretty grand. They drove 12 miles to my brother Jay’s house, and then he took them another four miles to the lake. Karah, Emily, and Jolisa rode along to spend a day with their cousins Lisa and Anita. The house was quiet here at home with just Colleen, Jesse, and me. We could’ve easily just had sandwiches and chips for lunch while sitting on recliners, but Colleen wanted fresh red potatoes, cucumbers, and kohlrabi, and I wanted fresh green beans.
It would be easy to eat as a vegetarian these beautiful summer days with all these delicious garden goodies. We’ve been eating yellow summer squash—lots of it. They produce like crazy, and we can’t eat them fast enough even if we ate some every day. We love them with bread and butter or just as a vegetable. The little ones eat them as fast as we fry them.
Our romaine lettuce has been so-o-o-o good this year. Sinking my teeth into a huge piece of homemade bread thick with Miracle Whip, romaine lettuce, and salt is so good! I pile the lettuce on about an inch thick with absolutely no guilt.
I have a long, thick row of rooster-comb flowers in the garden. Their bright-red color adds dimension to the green foliage of the vegetables. There is a patch of voluntary sunflowers in the midst of the potato patch cheerily showing their faces to passersby. They too add character and color to the garden, making it a joy to look at.
The keeper potatoes need fertilizer. I used dry fertilizer when we planted, now I need to spray them with a foliar*. We did that with the red potatoes, and they look really nice. Hopefully they’ll produce whopper potatoes and not just be all show with beautiful foliage.
We’re really enjoying the blooms of the miniature hollyhocks we can see from the kitchen window. I’m convinced I’ll save those seeds and plant them for years to come.
The other day I went to the garden to gather our noon meal with Jesse tagging along. He
wanted to help me pick green beans. He had his own pail and wasn’t impressed at all if I picked too fast. He wanted his own share, which took long.
I’m also canning green beans, and I want to do the red beets and start on the pickles pretty soon. Next week we want to go pick blueberries. What we don’t eat fresh, I will make into pie filling and can it. This week I’ve canned 30 quarts of black raspberry pie filling. That was fun because I know what a treat that is to prepare in all kinds of delicious dishes—pies, cheesecakes, and Long Johns*! Remember me saying I’m changing my eating habits? I really do watch what I eat and only fix these treats occasionally—tasting only a little to satisfy my sweet tooth.
Yesterday Colleen, Brian, and I went out to the west garden to clean it. We have two gardens and call them the “east” and “west” gardens because of where they are located. What fun to go out together! The work didn’t take long at all with three of us. We don’t need to clean the east garden this week. With the corn so tall, it pretty well takes care of itself. We also have raspberries and asparagus in that garden. I’m discouraged about the raspberry plants. I’m afraid one of these times I’m going to reach the point of just getting rid of them. I really don’t want to, but I’m tired of cleaning the patch without greater returns. Most of the raspberries I canned this year I got elsewhere.
Saturday night we had visitors for the night. We were having a meaningful chat close to midnight, when all of a sudden the noise level went up several notches. We had us some high-strung excitement! I guess we’d outstayed our little furry friends’ regular visiting hours. Talk about embarrassing, but they definitely created some memories. Just that day Wayne had replenished their “feed” supply in the basement because we had spotted some evidence of their presence. Hopefully they experienced some pretty bad tummy aches since. We haven’t seen them since. I guess that’s part of the joys of living in an old house with crumbly, old, stone basement walls and easy entry holes all over for pesky field critters. We usually do have pretty good control over them, but seemingly in the fall they search for warmth… only to meet untimely deaths.
In reality, our house is quite cozy and inviting, although small compared to most residences in our community. It is quite functional for our family. I love keeping my home clean and inviting to all who enter—especially to those who live here every day. I want it to be a place of quiet and clean refuge from the world surrounding us.
Year 1
Fall
We have been enjoying our beautiful North Indiana August. In all of my 34 years of living, I do not recall ever having such pleasant August weather. Fifty-degree nights in the dog days. I could live with these all 12 months of the year. I’m trying to enjoy this week to the absolute fullest because school will start on Monday. We’ll have to change our schedule again for the next eight or nine months. The summer flew by. Too bad we don’t have school for four months and summer vacation for eight months.
The sweet corn is in the freezer. The job was made sweet this year because two of my friends came and helped me. We did corn two days in a row: one day at Esther’s house, the next day for me. Every year the children can help more, and the responsibilities change. Sometimes it takes a whole lot of bossing, and it would be a lot easier to do it by myself, but I’ve decided I want to teach them while they are young. Now, to keep myself disciplined and focused on my goals.
We canned a lot of garlic dill and kosher dill pickles this summer. We did the kosher dill first because we didn’t have any left in the basement, and the children can hardly wait to have some again. What are grilled hamburger sandwiches without kosher dill pickles? We eat them with any hot or cold sandwiches.
We’ve also canned green beans, red beets, blueberry pie filling, and black raspberry pie filling. I’m not halfway through canning season, and my big helpers will be off to school.
Today we were off on an adventure. We all went to the Shipshewana Flea Market. There weren’t as many people on the grounds as there are sometimes, so it wasn’t too bad with the children in tow. I learned a valuable lesson, and it still grinds me to a T. The first row we went down included a stand with good bedsheets for $20. I thought it was a good price, and I’ve needed a set for quite some time already. I always thought the good sets at Walmart were too expensive, and that next time they might be on sale. Now here they were for $20. The guy said he was the only one here selling these… blah, blah, blah. So I bought a set. Well, we hadn’t gone too far when we came upon another stand with the exact same sheet sets for $14.95! We probably saw six to eight different places that were selling them for $14.95. I know I could have taken mine back and gotten one elsewhere, but I decided I’d just take this as a lesson. The next time I’ll go several aisles before jumping for a deal.
I see all types of people at the flea market. Pale, dark, big, small, happy, unhappy. I always feel very conscious about being courteous, cheerful, and friendly. I try to let my light shine. A lot of people there know little of us [the Amish], and I wish to convey a Christian attitude.
We got our winter supply of booties for the girls and Jesse to wear in the house this winter when the snow flies. We also bought watermelons and peaches—some of our favorite fruit. Our watermelons in the garden aren’t ripe yet.
I treated the children to pizza, which we all greatly enjoyed. We crossed the road to Spector’s Dry Goods to buy a bonnet for Colleen. It was deemed very necessary as she says she’s been wearing the same one since second grade. She’s ready for the eighth grade now! We got our money’s worth out of that one. It was a black outer bonnet that she wore to and from school. It’s actually still in good shape, and I’m sure one of the other girls will wear it now.
After coming home, Colleen and I did the laundry. It looked like rain, and it did sprinkle for a while. We could easily use a good soaker, so I wouldn’t have complained had our laundry gotten wet.
Wayne milked after Brian had prepped the parlor. Brian mixed some feed in the TMR or mixer wagon.*
I gathered some tomatoes and cucumbers for supper, peeled peaches, cooked filling for fresh peach pie, and did other odds and ends. While walking through the garden to gather vegetables, I had a hard time accepting how fast it is emptying. Made me sad.
After supper the three little girls and I went on a walk. Actually, I walked and they rode their bikes. I’d prefer to go alone, but for some reason they love to go along and talk and talk and talk. Sometimes I long for quiet, but they won’t be little for long so I try to swallow my selfishness.
We’re anticipating the Honeyville Consignment Sale this weekend. Emily and Jolisa get to go along on Friday for a while, and they are excited. Our private school has a lunch stand there on Friday and Saturday. With a team effort, we sell several thousand sandwiches, plus French fries, root beer floats, soft-serve ice cream, and drinks. We see a lot of people—unless we’re bent forward making sandwiches like crazy.
Our yellow lab, Sam, is such a people dog. Jesse likes to play horse with him. He puts a rope in his mouth and leads him around pretending Sam’s our Belgian horse Jordan. Jesse says Sam’s a high-stepper.
On August 17, my mom had a stroke in the buggy on the way home from church. We summoned the ambulance, and they took her to the hospital. From there she was life-flighted to a bigger hospital. She was unresponsive for a couple days.
“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him” (James 5:14-15). We actively practice this by calling the ministry to gather to pray, anoint, and sing together (if requested). So on Thursday evening, August 21, she was anointed, and it was a miraculous experience. We had been unable to awaken her, but about halfway through the ceremony she woke up and seemed to know what was happening. Later she didn’t remember, but that didn’t matter.
We were at the hospital in Fort Wayne fo
r 10 days, and then she was moved to a rehabilitation facility in Goshen called The Maples. During this time Mom would fall into a deep sleep, a result of her stroke. Some days she knew who we were; other days it seemed she didn’t.
On August 30, one of our beloved neighbor ladies died. It was a very emotional week for me, especially because Mom didn’t seem to comprehend. The lady and her husband were neighbors for all of Mom’s 72 years of life. At the same time, our closest neighbor lady was in the hospital gravely ill with an infection, and their newborn son was in another hospital. On August 27, a neighbor man fell at work, but he was treated and released. Still caused us a scare. On September 8, another neighbor man fell at work and was in the hospital until September 18, when he passed on to eternity. He was 44 years old and left a wife and six children.
Mom had more strokes and seizures from September 10 on, until her passing on September 14.
The past month has been such a sad time for us, but we have countless blessings to thank our Lord for. I cannot imagine living without community and church support. My heart is broken, as are my family’s hearts and the hearts of the rest of the church people. Three funerals in three weeks’ time. I trust the Lord in all his ways, and he will heal our broken hearts.