My Life as An Amish Wife

by Lena Yoder

  Wayne says we need to vaccinate calves again today. I kind of enjoy that. Being outside in the barn, working together, getting fresh air. The exercise feels wonderful to me. Wayne would probably laugh at me. Exercise for me while vaccinating calves? All I do is hold a gate, hand him a syringe that I had filled, and then open the gate to release the calf. Two steps forward, two steps back, fill the syringe, two steps back, on and on. I’ve never danced, but maybe this is kind of like dancing in the barn with my husband.

  Sam, our yellow Lab, enjoys helping out wherever he can. Sometimes, though, he’s better off not being around when sorting cattle is involved, as he gets too excited. He’s very much a part of our family, making us feel safe with his regular search route when we come home at night.

  Recently Colleen didn’t get home until late at night, and Sam was already in his bedroom, thus she was alone to put away the horse. Usually Sam goes with her, and she feels protected. I grew up with a dog like that. A small rat terrier named Tiny. If he would have growled when I was putting my horse in the barn at night, I would have panicked. When he didn’t, I relaxed, knowing as sensitive as he was, he would alert me to any danger. Sam is the same way. A dog worth having—and we only paid $20 for him.

  When nobody is outside to be with Sam, he’s usually on the front-door steps either relaxing or looking in with big, soulful eyes longing to be in the house with the rest of us. He knows if Wayne and I are gone because he’s a lot more aggressive when somebody comes, even toward people he knows well.

  I am sipping a cup of homemade cappuccino. This is the first winter I’ve been able to say I really enjoy cappuccino. I always thought it tasted like watered down instant coffee with a little milk added. I guess my taste buds are changing because I simply enjoy it now. I bought the ingredients to try the homemade, because good “boughten” is so expensive. I made a batch, tasted it, hmmm, not bad, but then added a small tin of my favorite boughten kind, and now this morning it tastes delicious. The bad part of it is the sugar content. That means it’s got calories; I need to be ever mindful of those little things with big results.

  Talking about calories, naturally thin women must have a lot less stress in their lives. Never having to think twice about what they eat, much less use 30 minutes of their day to go on a walk for exercise. You know what though? Walking is good for the naturally thin people too. It’s good for the mind. I love to walk. Walking makes me feel so good.

  Karah, Emily, and Jolisa washed the dinner dishes, and I see there are five empty cans [ jars] to take to the basement again. I know Jolisa took down three cans this morning. I think I do a lot of canning, but it doesn’t take long at all to have a lot of empty cans in the basement again. I’m already looking forward to fresh garden produce. Winter move swiftly on!

  This winter I’ve taken time to do some craft/paint projects again, making signs for family and friends. I dream of having a work/retail shop here on the farm to craft and sell handcrafted items, but I am guessing our path is a little too untrod to make a go of it. Maybe though… I keep thinking about it.

  The three girls are again playing school. Jolisa has been having fun learning to read as a first-grader this year and then coming home and teaching her pupils. She’s quite the teacher. By the time she has her Bible memory verse memorized at the end of the week, the rest of us know it too. She’s smaller than the rest of our children were at this age, but her enthusiasm makes up for her small stature.

  For some reason, having food available for packing five lunch pails has been more of a challenge for me this year. I’m guessing some comes from the number five! The most I’ve ever had before was three. Five sandwiches take ten pieces of bread. Five bowls of fruit swipes a quart in a hurry. It cuts down a cake in a hurry too. And the cookie jars. We very seldom have chips or such snacks because it would take a bag a day. Sometimes I put in celery with peanut butter or something of the sort.

  Today for lunch I made extra meatballs. The children like to wrap a meatball or two in foil, and then heat it at school for lunch. Wayne doesn’t like something to heat, so he keeps eating cold sandwiches or wraps. I’d be sick and tired of them by now.

  The schoolchildren don’t want too many things in their lunches because it takes too much of their precious recess time to eat a lot. By the time they come home from school they are half starved, so it takes more food again. We have several picky eaters in the family. I am trying to teach them to eat whatever we prepare for them at the time, not just whatever suits their taste buds at that time. Why do we eat? To nourish our temples of God or because something tastes good? For nourishment. I try to keep that in mind, but my selfish desires are fighting to be known also.

  Jolisa is telling me it is time to wash her hair. She and Jesse are the only ones who still need my help to do so. They grow up so fast, and I want to treasure each step of the way. Sometimes I find out some very interesting things while we are washing hair. Peering into their sweet faces and conversing one-on-one is priceless. Thank you, Lord, for every good thing.

  February 1, and everybody had been predicting a ferocious snowstorm. It should hit us today, they say. Probably around 5:00 PM. At 2:00, Wayne, Colleen, Jesse, and I went to Goshen to do some business. It hadn’t started snowing yet. I was afraid the stores would be bombarded with shoppers trying to stock their pantries yet before the blast begins, but the stores we were in weren’t bad at all. While we were in the last store, Wayne told me it was beginning to snow. And snow it did. That was probably around 4:00. On the way back we could sometimes barely see more than 100 feet in front of us. I was glad once we were safely home.

  Our house was freezing cold—or so it felt. With the wind blowing strong from the northeast, it hits the oldest, coldest part of our house. We stoked the coal stove, turned up the gas stove, and put on more layers of clothes.

  Wayne and Brian fed the heifers, horses, and Sam the big spoiled dog. The girls and I cleaned up the house and made supper. Colleen made chili and sloppy joes. That helped warm us from the inside out. Meanwhile, it was seriously snowing and blowing. The schoolchildren were already rejoicing. They were pretty sure they wouldn’t need to go to school in the morning.

  I went to our east porch door to look out, and without opening the door I got snowed on. That strong, cold wind had a mind to enter wherever it wanted. Enter it did. I took a bunch of napkins and stuffed it into the cracks as well as I could. Wayne then wanted to look east before he went to bed. He looked out that door window, and still felt the snow blowing through the cracks, so he stuffed another rag into the cracks.

  We had a grand evening. We munched on popcorn, sipped on grape juice, played a game that got our blood pumping and the air moving throughout the house. It took a while to get everyone to bed because the girls decided they needed sweatpants, sweaters, and socks to survive. I didn’t discourage them. By the time I went to bed, it was sleeting. I couldn’t figure that one out because it was so cold. I prayed for everyone’s safety and promptly fell asleep.

  On February 2, Wayne got up at 4:00 AM and checked things out. I woke up to the sound of the skid loader pushing snow. It was the time I usually get up, so I forced myself out of bed to put the coffee on. I watched Wayne push some snow and immediately doubted anybody with a healthy mind would try to traverse these roads this morning. Still, I decided I’d prepare Wayne’s lunch bucket. Who knows? Men do think differently than women. I put the clean supper dishes away, finished a batch of yogurt, and tidied up here and there around the kitchen. All at once I heard that someone was stuck somewhere. The milkman, trying hard to do his job, was stuck at the corner a little east from here. Wayne went to help him with the skid loader. It actually didn’t take long to get him going.

  By then it was 5:00, and I had just snuggled up in front of the coal stove when Wayne came in. We both napped a while. Brian got up at 6:00 to do his chores. He also checked messages at the phone shack and came in saying there was no school. They all like school, but there is something special abou
t having your school canceled for a day.

  The children were all amazed as they came downstairs, proclaiming about the drifts of snow. This was definitely the biggest snowfall they had ever seen.

  I made a brunch of pancakes, sausages, and eggs. Colleen did the laundry, and the little girls washed the dishes. Wayne, Brian, and Jesse went outside to push more snow and finish the chores. I had started two shirts for Brian, so I thought I’d finish those really quick, and then I’d put a quilt in frame. What a joke! I did finish those shirts, but not really fast.

  I did have a very good day though. The girls decided they wanted to learn how to embroider, so we got out the needles, thread, transfers, ironing board, and the iron, and went to work. Emily embroidered a cute little duck with a lavender flower at its feet. Karah worked on a bear but didn’t get it done as she also made her Aunt Leanna a birthday card. Jolisa used Crayola crayons that were made for transferring pictures on fabric. She did a picture of a little girl pushing her kitten around in a little cart. Jesse also started coloring a picture, but he was too easily distracted with all that snow. He spent most of the day outside.

  You should’ve seen the kitchen! There was laundry hanging above the coal stove, my sewing machine, the little girls’ projects, the newspaper, plus Wayne wanted smoothies at noon. Okay, that would be good since we’re not making lunch anyway. He peeled three oranges, and when I left the kitchen those peelings were still on the counter. I peeled a banana, and we added some black and red raspberries, about 24 ounces of fresh homemade yogurt, blended it really well, and mmmm, that was delicious! Now we had those glasses on the table too. The children ate some crackers before they left the house, and I noticed those wrappers didn’t all make it to the trash can either. Get the picture?

  Brian, Jesse, and the three little girls left the house to go play in the snow. We have hills of it in the barnyard. We have a circle drive, and Wayne pushed most of the snow from the driveway onto the grass area in the middle. It made a wonderful playground. They also played with sleds. Sam, the spoiled dog, loved every minute of it. He ran and played just like the others. I think he thinks he’s one of them!

  Bless Colleen’s heart. You can guess what her job was this afternoon. Yes, we all left the house, and she was left to do the cleaning. I know for a fact though that she was glad we all left—peace!

  I hinted pretty loudly to my sister Ida, who lives across the driveway, that she could invite us for supper. She graciously agreed. She treated us to chicken, cheesy potatoes, and a salad—a corn-chip salad, which made our children cheer.

  After supper Wayne wanted to go to the church hymn practice for the men. I decided the children and I would walk to visit a neighbor lady who has been laid up of sorts and spend the evening with her. Hopefully tomorrow we will have our regular routine back.

  February—the month of romance. It puts a smile on my face and a song in my heart. Who doesn’t like to think about love… always remembering true love comes from God, and how blessed we have been.

  Once upon a time, back in the late 1980s, I went to church with my sister Sue and her husband, Lavern. On the way to church, we passed this handsome fellow who was walking to church. In my premature, girlish mind I remember wondering if he would someday be my husband. We passed this fellow on CR 43, just north of CR 16. The interior of our buggy was a medium green. Church services were at Bill Bontragers. Some significant details tend to stick to my mind.

  Several years later I was at my sister’s house again for several days, and they were invited to one of their friends’ house for supper one evening. The man of the house was a brother to this fellow. I did not care to stay at home alone, so I decided it would surely be safe to go along for the evening. We weren’t there for long when he joined us. Oh misery! I wished I would have just stayed at home alone. It turned out to be safe though because he sure did not seem to notice me at all.

  Another six months or so and I was at my sister Sue’s house again. Lavern was building a silage bunker and had asked him to come help him for the day. He had on a dark-brown shirt, quite ugly for sure, but I still thought he was kind of cute. Not immature cute, but I admired his ways. He was almost four years older than I and a lot more mature. He sat on the west side of the kitchen table to eat lunch that day. I was on the east side. I remember I gave my nieces a lot of attention at the table because I really didn’t want to look at him more than I had to. At least not when he knew I was looking. He didn’t notice me anyway.

  All at once he started coming around to the places where I was spending time with my friends. He even started talking to me. Finally he asked me out on a date—and that is when my life with Wayne began.

  We could talk for hours—and still do. Communication is very important to both of us. One subject he always talked about was his desire to raise his family on a dairy farm. Inwardly I had to come to grips with that, hoping it would never mature. Wayne kept talking about it to me, and finally he had me just as enthused as he was. That’s what love does! I ended up loving to dairy. Now our operation has changed again, but it has been okay.

  Before we were married, my mom and dad’s little dog did not like Wayne at all. Wayne tried his best to get on this dog’s friendly side to no avail. The first time we came back to visit after our wedding, this dog decided he might as well like Wayne because he was friendly from then on.

  As a young married wife, I sometimes struggled with coming up with enough different menu ideas. I made chicken-and-noodles and pancakes way too often. There came a time when I really didn’t feel good in the mornings. Frying an egg and toast at 4:30 AM was torture. Finally it became torture for Wayne also because the eggs had extra protein in them. After crunching on an eggshell once too often, he volunteered to eat cereal for a while.

  Colleen was born a little before our first anniversary, so Wayne volunteered to cook supper on our anniversary. We dined on toasted cheese sandwiches. I didn’t mind. I was thankful he made us supper.

  About the only time we have a hard time supporting each other is when we’re sorting heifers. I don’t imagine that will ever change. We manage not to eat each other up and we get the job done, but I never feel as dumb as when sorting heifers. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often, and we remain to be best friends.

  One day while hanging out the laundry, a trucker came to load up the last of the little steers. It kind of irked me that I had to leave my laundry, but I thought I had better go help him. I wished I would have known he was coming, so I could have prepared before he came. I emptied the laundry basket and then trotted out to help him. I ended up getting Colleen to help us, and we got the job done. Sometimes I wonder what stories these trucker guys have to tell about us women.

  Wayne cleaned out the shed where these steers had been, and then later one day I went out and sprayed the walls, feed bunks, and water troughs with pure bleach to rid of any germs. Now that barn is full of heifers. The dairy barn is also full, so it takes a while to TMR-mix feed for all these, but Wayne loves doing it. We are thankful for this opportunity and already anticipate putting out the crops to feed again next winter.

  Jesse is here beside me practicing writing his name. He’s pretty tickled to be able to do it. He’ll be glad once spring is here again, and he can go outside to lower his energy levels. He gets pretty bored with Colleen and me. During the day he often asks us when the schoolchildren are coming home from school. Several years ago I thought we’d never get to the point where the children could all dress themselves to go outside to play or do chores. Now we are there already. Sometimes Jesse needs help with his gloves, and I gladly help him with that.

  February is the shortest month, but it feels like the longest to me. The holiday festivities are past; it’s too cold to go out much. I ache to go on a long, warm walk, hang laundry outside in warm breezes, and eat fresh produce from the garden. I have to keep myself motivated even though I stay plenty busy with my motherly duties. This year I will try to stay focused on the joys of the coziness an
d closeness our house provides for us, even though it can sometimes be quite cold when the frigid north wind is blowing and the curtains sway a bit in the breeze.

  We’ll enjoy our popcorn and grape juice, and Wayne and I our occasional Pepsi once the children are in bed. We read books and play marbles with the children. I guess February isn’t so bad after all.

  Year 4

  Spring

  I brewed myself a cup of Plantation Mint tea, and now I’m ready to sit and relax a while. The house is quiet, warm, and cozy. Wayne is home from work already, so he and Jesse are taking a nap. I enjoyed a bit of a siesta myself but nary for long. It did refresh me though. Even though Jesse is now five, he still takes a nap each day. If by chance he skips a day, like yesterday, he cries easily and doesn’t enjoy the evening with the rest of the family. Last night he fell asleep on the recliner with me while he was waiting for Brian to shower. They always go to bed together. Jesse just could not stay awake any longer. I guess he is still the baby.

  Even with the February blahs, I have really enjoyed this winter. Weather-wise it has been almost perfect. We’ve had gorgeous, sunny days bright with all the snow on the ground. It’s beautiful being inside and looking out. The children have made plenty of snow angels and come in with wet clothes. I admire people’s yards that are perfect, the snow left unblemished. Then I think of those rosy-cheeked, happy-faced children as they enjoy playing in the cold white stuff. I am glad for the way our yard looks. The children come in totally exhausted and wet, with sniffling noses and exciting stories of all they have been doing. We hang their dripping clothes on the drying rack above the coal stove. Usually by that time it’s time to set the table for supper. No, I do not mind a messed-up yard. Our children are in a grand age.