Greetings! Today is a
beautiful summer day. Biked from Warwick Woods campground through Amish
country. Saw some of the most well-tended and ordered farmland I've ever
seen. Large farmhouses, larger barns, and tall, round silos surrounded
by acres of neatly planted corn, wheat, vegetables of all kinds. Laundry
hung neatly out to dry; dark, long pants with dark, long pants, dresses
with dresses, shirts with shirts, socks with socks. Roadside fresh fruit
and vegetable stands tended by farm women. Some stands offered well-stitched,
heirloom quality quilts and home-canned relishes, chow-chow, bread and
butter pickles, apple butter, pumpkin butter. In fields, people working
the land; a woman and several boys bending over to harvest, a man working
a plow pulled by horses. We shared the very gently rolling roads with skirted
and hatted women riding bicycles, bearded men young and old pushing along
on scooters, boxy black carriages pulled literally by horsepower. Didn't
bring my camera but the best photo of the day was of three children taking
a buggy ride, passing us as we rested. Driving the open-topped buggy was
a13 year old black-hatted, dark-haired boy holding the reins from the right
seat. An 8 year old straw-hatted, blonde lad sat on the left. In the middle
was a little 4 year old blonde girl, hair pulled neatly back from her face.
Shaine called out, "You have a really beautiful horse!" The children
turned sweet and smiling faces to us, the driver replying as they trotted
along, "Why, thank you!" Words spoken in an accent I can't identify.
Smells as we biked along: pine, clover, manure, and honeysuckle. The honeysuckle
won.
I'd come back.
**Next Day's Journal**
