Homeward Bound

Learning to work

Two nights in a row last week as I drove home, I followed this tractor pulling two trailers of square bales with a row of boys on top. The boys were enjoying the ride and a bit of rest before the job of unloading and restacking the bales. I am sure they were ready for their suppers and beds both nights.

I took this photo through my car's windshield. I was driving so slowly behind that load of hay that it wasn't dangerous to get a few photos. I had plenty of time to imagine the lurching and swaying of the trailer, the feel and smell of the hay, and the itch of hay splinters inside clothing.

Messages from our Mennonite Neighbors

Bible verses along the roads

"Remember thy Creator in thy youth."

"Choose this day whom you will serve."

Over the past year or so, several signs with Bible verses have been posted along local roads by our Mennonite neighbors. I don't know whether the signs are a church project or individual efforts. Some of the signs are similar in size and style, so maybe they came from the same supplier.

The signs are written in English so they can be read by most people who pass by.  But actually, the Mennonites usually read the Bible in German.  Their Heilege Schrift (Holy Scriptures) is/are written in "Bible German," a form of High German that's different from the Pennsylvania Dutch they speak at home. Mennonite children learn Bible German along with English, as part of their education.

"Honor thy father and mother."

A young Mennonite neighbor lady once told me that "sometimes we look in the King James Bible" if a passage in the Mennonite Bible is hard to understand. I am not sure if she was speaking for all or just speaking for her own household.  The archaic English of the King James Version is surely as difficult as Bible German, but the Mennonites probably assign extra virtue to the KJV simply because it is old.

But let me get back to the signs around the neighborhood. I respect our neighbors for trying to "be a good light". (A Mennonite neighbor lady, telling me how Mennonites should live, used that phrase.) But I do wish they'd put the signs on posts instead of nailing them to trees. These trees growing wild in the fence rows aren't particularly valuable, and they'll probably survive the nails, but it still bothers me. I hate to see things nailed to living trees, no matter who does the nailing.

"Repent & be converted that your sins may be blotted out."
"God will judge the world in righteousness."

October in Christian County, Kentucky

Fall pictures

I pulled off "The Boulevard" (Ft. Campbell Blvd. in Hopkinsville) to take this picture of the spectacular colors in the sky. Just a few moments later, the sun went behind a cloud, and the brilliance was gone.

I'm not sure whose horses these are, but I don't think a Mennonite owns them. They're too flashy in color, and besides, I don't think a Mennonite would turn his horses loose in the woods. They'd be too hard to catch if he needed to go somewhere.

I took this photo early in October. Since then, autumn colors have deepened, and many of the leaves have fallen. The maples in our yard have lost nearly all their leaves. The oaks tend to hold their leaves longer.

These fall wildflowers are growing along the "Town Fork" of Little River (as it was called in earlier times) in Hopkinsville. The lavender flowers are little wild asters. I saw the red berries along the banks of Little River, too. If you know what sort of berries they are, please tell me in the comments. I think there's honeysuckle in that tangled mass of vegetation -- it is so terribly invasive, once it gets started.

Keely has been sewing Halloween costumes. I went with her to WalMart one afternoon to help pick out fabric. We didn't see anything there that suited her. A few days later, she came out here, and we looked through my stash and found some pieces she thought would work. I am pretty sure I'll never get all the fabric in my stash sewed, so I like to share it with Keely every now and then.

On the Sundays that I work, I often see buggies going through Hopkinsville at about the same time that I'm heading home myself.  Darkness arrives earlier now, so I wish the families in the buggies would head home a little earlier. I am careful when I see their four flashing taillights, but I fear that other drivers are not.

I think this is a Mennonite buggy, as it has a triangular slow-moving-vehicle sign. The Amish don't like the triangular orange sign -- they recently agreed with the State of Kentucky that they will outline their buggies in silver reflective tape instead. I am not sure if the local Amish use battery-powered headlights or not.

And finally, just a reminder that the holiday season has already begun. I don't remember ever seeing a blue Christmas tree before, but I'm surprised I haven't. The citizens of Kentucky really support the UK teams.

Thirteen Amish Proverbs

Collected from my Amish cookbooks

I've bought several Amish cookbooks at local Mennonite stores over the years. All of these cookbooks are from the "Pennsylvania Dutch" country of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Like many church cookbooks, they include some pithy bits of advice for living, in addition to the recipes. Here's a "Thursday Thirteen" sample of some of the proverbs.

1. There are just as good fish in the sea as ever were caught.
2. A barking dog seldom bites.
3. Bend the sapling before it's too late.
4. A smooth tongue often hides sharp teeth.
5. Easy got, soon spent.
6. It's a poor hunter who does not always have one barrel loaded.
7. Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.
8. The laborer is worthy of his hire.
9. If you swear while fishing, you won't catch anything.
10. Girls with fat cheeks have hearts like flint.
11. It is easier to fall than to get up.
12. The old bull keeps on bellowing.
13. When lost in the woods, look up a tree.

Numbers 8 through 13 must be classics. Each one of them appears in several of my cookbooks, with both the "Dutch" version and the English translation.

You might enjoy some of the other Thursday Thirteens around the web today.

WPA tourism poster. depicting an Amish family

Days of June

Summer arrives.

Some of the "Dusty Miller" in the yard has gone rogue. It's popping up in places where it isn't supposed to be. I dug up some of the offshoots last summer and potted them. They endured the winter in their pots, and this spring I planted some coleus with them. I'm enjoying the color contrasts, as a change from the petunias I usually plant.

This stream is somewhere between White Plains and Apex, probably in southern Hopkins County (KY). Dennis and I went adventuring today, and on the way home, we drove through some country I haven't seen before. I love new backroads!

This shot was taken through the window at one of the several produce stands that I patronize. The Mennonite lady who runs this stand put a couple of extra cucumbers in the bag. She said the vines were full of them and they'd be picking again in the morning.

I took this photo earlier in the month after a shower passed through. We could use another rain now. Where the grass has been cut short, it's starting to burn (go crispy).

Here's a sight that I look forward to every day -- the road to home! Our house is at the top of this hill. We've had a lot of 90° days already. The heat radiates from all the concrete and asphalt in town, but out in the country in the shade of the trees, it's always a little cooler.

These bright beauties grow at the end of a big cornfield. It was a nice surprise to see them. I couldn't see the field good enough to estimate how many acres of sunflowers there might be. If it's just a small patch, maybe  the farmer will leave them standing for wildlife.

This year's wheat crop in Christian County has been harvested. In most of the fields, soybeans have been planted in the wheat stubble. Some of the beans have already grown taller than the straw stems that surround them. A passerby doesn't need to guess whether or not that farmer has planted his beans yet.

Mother's Day Rainbow and More

May in Christian County, KY

I saw this beautiful, full rainbow on Mother's Day about

6:30 pm. On the left side, a double rainbow is slightly visible.

The farm buildings here (and those in the rainbow photo)

are Mennonite-built. Their distinctive, consistent

building style is easy to recognize, once you know it.

This crow was perched on one of the big lights in the

mall parking lot in Hopkinsville. If this photo had

sound effects, you'd quickly turn down the volume.

 He was very noisy! When he saw me paying
 attention to him, he flew over to the highest point

of the mall's roofline and sat there -- still cawing!

Sweet peas in a cemetery fence row, and

overhead, branches and cones of Virginia pine.

I took this photo of our neighbor's field in early May.

Now, many wheatfields are nearly ready for harvest.

We are happy for recent rains because we've had a dry.

spring. But heavy storms right now could lay the wheat

plants down, making harvest difficult and reducing yield.

Most of our wild roses are pink, but this one is very white.

There might be a very slight hint of pink in the buds.

"O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green..."

--Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – 1632))

Down in the Ditch

Where the mower doesn't go

Our Mennonite neighbor has several small businesses and dealerships in addition to his farming operations. Along the highway beside our two mailboxes, he has several signs advertising these enterprises.

Every Saturday, one of his sons mows both sides of our shared lane, from their house, past our house, down to the highway, around the mailboxes and signs, and along the highway for fifty feet or more in both directions. One of our neighbor's sidelines is lawn mower repair, so he probably thinks that keeping the grass cut short is a good business practice.

But down by the mailbox, on the banks of the ditch, where the lawn mower doesn't go, all the plants are growing wildly. I enjoy seeing them.

And I like the little pool of water that stands in the ditch in the springtime. It's interesting. When I stop to get the mail or go for a walk down our road, I stand at the end of the culvert and peer down into the shady depths. Sometimes I see a frog or a turtle or a crawdad enjoying the water.

But even when I see something interesting, I don't go any closer. I like to look at all that vegetation on the ditch banks, but I don't want to wade through it.  There's too much poison ivy!

Daffodils in the Pasture

Boy with buttercups

Here in Christian County, Kentucky, it's not unusual to see places where old-time, single-bloom daffodils have naturalized. In this case, I speculate that a few bulbs were planted many years ago, near a house or cabin that doesn't exist anymore.

I call these flowers "daffodils", but people around here often call them "buttercups." Maybe this little Mennonite boy calls them "Osterglocken" as they do in Germany -- literally, "Easter bells."

Related:
Another place where daffodils have gone wild

Looks Like Spring

Feels like spring!

A Plucky Pioneer Woman

Sarah Thorp of Ashtabula County, Ohio

Ashtabula County in Ohio

Ohio in the United States

The following story of "A Plucky Pioneer Woman" appears on pages 527-528 of Historical Collections of Ohio: An Encyclopedia of the State, Volume 1 (published in 1907 by the State of Ohio.)

Joel Thorp, with his wife Sarah, moved with an ox team, in May, ‘99 [1799], from North Haven, Connecticut, to Millsford, in Ashtabula county, and were the first settlers in that region. They soon had a small clearing on and about an old beaver dam, which was very rich and mellow.

Towards the first of June, the family being short of provisions, Mr. Thorp started off alone to procure some through the wilderness, with no guide but a pocket compass, to the nearest settlement, about 20 miles distant, in Pennsylvania.

His family, consisting of Mrs. Thorp and three children, the oldest child, Basil, being but eight years of age, were before his return reduced to extremities for the want of food. They were compelled, in a measure, to dig for and subsist on roots, which yielded but little nourishment.

The children in vain asked food, promising to be satisfied with the least possible portion. The boy, Basil, remembered to have seen some kernels of corn in a crack of one of the logs of the cabin, and passed hours in an unsuccessful search for them. Mrs. Thorp emptied the straw out of her bed and picked it over to obtain the little wheat it contained, which she boiled and gave to her children.

Her husband, it seems, had taught her to shoot at a mark, in which she acquired great skill. When all her means for procuring food were exhausted, she saw, as she stood in her cabin door, a wild turkey flying near. She took down her husband’s rifle, and, on looking for ammunition, was surprised to find only sufficient for a small charge.

Carefully cleaning the barrel, so as not to lose any by its sticking to the sides as it went down, she set some apart for priming and loaded the piece with the remainder, and started in pursuit of the turkey, reflecting that on her success depended the lives of herself and children.

Under the excitement of her feelings she came near defeating her object, by frightening the turkey, which flew a short distance and again alighted in a potato patch. Upon this, she returned to the house and waited until the fowl had begun to wallow in the loose earth.

On her second approach, she acted with great caution and coolness, creeping slyly on her hands and knees from log to log until she had gained the last obstruction between herself and the desired object. It was now a trying moment, and a crowd of emotions passed through her mind as she lifted the rifle to a level with her eye.

She fired; the result was fortunate: the turkey was killed and herself and family preserved from death by her skill.

Mrs. Thorp married three times. Her first husband was killed in Canada, in the war of 1812; her second was supposed to have been murdered. Her last husband’s name was Gordiner. She died in Orange, in this county, Nov. 1, 1846.

And here is a little more information about Sarah Thorp, quoted from Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve,  July, 1896.  This publication (a magazine?) was edited by Mrs. Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham under the auspices of the Woman's Department of the Cleveland Centennial Commission (source.)

The first settlers [of the Dorset area of Ashtabula County, Ohio] were Mr. Joel Thorp and wife, whose name was Sarah, and three little children, who came from North Haven, Conn., in a pioneer wagon, drawn by two yoke of oxen. An uncle of Mrs. Thorp in Pittsburg gave her a horse, which she rode the rest of the way, and which the wolves soon destroyed. They located on a beaver dam, near the center, and built a log house in May, 1799.

Towards the first of June, Mr. Thorp started to the nearest mill in Pennsylvania, twenty miles away, with only a pocket compass for guide, and staying longer than expected, the family were famishing, when the mother’s watchful eye saw a wild turkey pass the door. Waiting for it to wallow in the dirt, she shot it with the last charge of powder in the house.

Another time she shot a large bear in a huge, wild cherry tree near their house, and “the bear tree,” as it was called, is still kept in mementoes in the county, in cabinet specimens, furniture, and canes. Mrs. Thorp died in Orange, Cuyahoga county, November 1, 1846, then Mrs. Gardiner.

Stories like these makes me laugh a little about one of my Mennonite neighbor ladies. She told me that she and her husband had been "pioneers" of the Mennonite community in Christian County, KY.  Well, yes, they were some of the first Mennonites in the area, but her life as a "pioneer" of the 1980s in Kentucky did not include the hardships and dangers that women like Sarah Thorp faced.

New Order Amish Tractor and Wagon

Family transportation

I suppose I've posted a dozen photographs of Mennonite buggies on this blog, but this is my very first photo of a New Order Amish tractor and wagon. We see these rigs around Guthrie and Crofton, Kentucky, where we have thriving New Order Amish communities.

I saw the tractor and wagon above at a restaurant in Hopkinsville. The owners probably drove in from Crofton to pick up farm supplies and to shop at WalMart (which is just a short distance from this restaurant.)

The man of the family drives the tractor, and the passengers ride in the wagon along with any freight. The wagon is always made from the back-end of an old pickup truck.

Around Guthrie and Elkton in Todd County, I've occasionally seen tractors with a man and woman riding together in the cab. I've even seen a woman driving a tractor down the road, with a couple of small children in the cab. However, I've never seen a woman driving a tractor that was pulling a wagon.

The use of the tractor, the use of normal tires on the tractor, and the use of the tractor on the road are some of the practices that distinguish New Order Amish from other Amish groups. The New Order Amish around this area have gone a step farther in permitting the use of the tractor to make short trips.

The basis for the various restrictions on tractor use is explained by Donald Kraybill and Marc Alan Olshan in The Amish Struggle with Modernity.  In The Riddle of Amish Culture, Donald Kraybill relates the history of the New Order split from the Old Order. Tractor use is just one of many differences between the major Amish groups, but with the New Order Amish, it's one of the most visible differences.

Related:
Cultural Change and Survival in Amish Society, a paper by Brian Lande for his class, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.

Early Fall in Christian County, KY

Seen around the county during the last month

A nearly-dry stream bed in late September.

Now, the water is probably full of fallen leaves.

A full barn of tobacco, curing
in the fresh country air.

Dad and kids, headed home
from the produce auction

The northern part of Christian County has dozens

(or hundreds?) of small fields like this one, where the

ground is flat enough to farm between hills and streams.
This is corn, drying in the field before harvest.

The shorter flowers are members of the aster family,

and the taller ones are ironweed, as I recall.

Last spring, these were wheatfields.

Now, they're beanfields (soybeans). 

This complex west of Hopkinsville

has about a dozen tobacco barns in it.

The smoke can get heavy when
the barns are being fired.

A horseless carriage, so to speak

Late afternoon sunshine on a 

field of ripening soybeans

The sun is setting much earlier now. 

I saw this gorgeous sunset on my

way home from work one night.

Keely and I went to an interesting moving 

sale at this house in Hopkinsville. 

The seller had lots of cool, collectible stuff.

At the Farmers Market in 

downtown Hopkinsville