First Horse Sale

Grandpa (Thomas Nye) and Grandma took our little  2-year-old Ruby to her first draft horse sale a few weeks ago. First, you need to understand, Ruby is horse-crazy just like her grandpa. When we stepped out onto this catwalk she literally shook with excitement. See how she is pointing in the photo below? She pointed at every horse in sight and squealed, "Horsey!"

 

We went down among the horses. Ruby made a special point of saying a friendly, "Hello" to anyone who happened to be on horseback. She ignored people on foot. LOL

When we headed outside she enjoyed watching buggies and horse-drawn wagons rolling past.

We ate in the Sale Barn diner where the cooks and waitresses are Amish or Plain Mennonite. Ruby smiled at everyone and cleaned up everything on her plate!

We watched horses sell to the relaxing rhythmic sounds of an auctioneer. Horses are super pricy right now. A horse that would have sold for a thousand dollars five years ago would sell for three times that amount today.

Horse sales are a place where the Amish and non-Amish worlds come together. It probably feels to them like a day in the modern world. And to us, as if we stepped into the past.

 If you love horses, the good-old-days, or if you're intrigued by Amish culture...

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Early Impressions

Plastic farm animals are awesome!

Some of my first memories are of setting up elaborate scenes with plastic farm toys. The natural next step was to encourage my children and grandchildren to do the same.

Grandma (my wife) and I found these wooden barn, corrals, and fences at our local favorite Amish store. Golden Delight Bakery will blow you away with the best baked goods you've ever tasted. They also sell these barns and fences, and plastic farm animals.

Amish parents are very selective about what toys are allowed in their homes. Amish children love playing farm. There is something wholesome about this kind of play... instead of robotic super heroes with mega weapons of mass destruction. My grandsons and I spent hours setting up our display and having our human figurines do chores and move animals through shoots and into new lots. 

We had to keep the peace at times because some of the bulls got into fights and some horses kicked each other.

Things were going along smoothly until Isaac (the older of these brothers) noticed a huge storm brewing off in the distance. Leo (younger brother) suggested we get all the livestock inside the big barn for safety.

Our plastic livestock cooperated for the most part and they were quickly rushed inside and jammed together in close quarters as the storm approached.

You can only imagine the chaos of nervous farm animals riding out a storm inside a barn. A little Noah's Arkish. 

This brought back a fun memory of mine. I was at a Farm Progress event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hundreds if not thousands of Amish folks were at the event. A big storm came up and everyone ran for shelter. People around me were crowding into some tents but I thought they didn't look too secure. I ran for a huge barn about a football field away. The storm broke before I got there and I was soaked when I rushed inside. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness I realized I was the lone English (Non-Amish) person inside a barn packed with Amish men, women, and children. They were all silent and facing the doorway I just ran through. We all stood and watched a fierce wind blast across the fields before us. When the thunder, wind, and rain subsided, they we all ventured out together and friendly conversations resumed. 

I was surprised at the creativity my grandsons showed when they came up with this reenactment of such a realistic and traumatic event. This type of play can help children work through their fears and work out  solutions to lifelike problems.

When the drama ended we decided it was an easy conclusion to our playtime because the animals all belonged inside the big barn for storage anyway. We picked up our fences and put everything away.

My little granddaughter (Ruby) is finding herself nurtured by grandpa in the same way.

 

When the toys are all cleaned up they love to go outside and see the real deal. There is nothing more therapeutic than connecting with a living, breathing, massive draft horse.

Applesauce Bonanza

Applesauce apples ripen around the 4th of July every year.

Many people think of harvesting apples in the fall. This is true of most varieties of apples, but not Lodi or Yellow Transparent. These sour types create the best texture and flavor for home-made applesauce. My wife grew up helping her grandmother and mother can and freeze orchard and garden produce.

 After I picked apples for three evenings, my wife washed and cut out cores, removing as little as possible in order to increase the output. I helped by ladling cooked apples into a colander. 

We poured the strained, cooked apples into our "victorian strainer" and filled our cake pans with raw applesauce. My main job is cranking the strainer and ladling the sauce into freezer boxes. Once it cools, add sugar to taste. No recipe-- just apples and sugar. We leave it rather sour and add cinnamon-sugar when we put it on our plate, or at the time of serving.

We put up 77 quarts into our freezer. I know-- this sounds like a ton! However, appletrees have "on and off years." Some growing seasons produce oodles of apples, but you never know what next year will be like. We had a late frost this year and it might have destroyed our crop. It turned out to be an apple bonanza! I prayed for these trees when I planted them in 2002 as a birthday gift for my wife. Prayers answered: they grew and produce well. The message in her card said, "There will be two beautiful bouquets of apple blossoms every spring that say: I love Shari." (and her applesauce) 

Our children grew up eating my wife's AMAZING applesauce and now my grandchildren are enjoying the same. In the photo below, you can see our Yellow Transparent appletrees just to the right of my balding head. My granddaughter is riding on Karma, our Amish raised horse.

Our whole family LOVES Shari's home-made applesauce with her home-made pizza!

There is an applesauce apple picking story in Under the Heavens

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Family Horse

Every child needs to have at least one great horse in their life! Our family has had a number of great horses and ponies over the years.

We have two wonderful horses at the time, Karma and Coke. They are getting older and at the point where they are perfect for children to be around. It's too hard to imagine what life would be like without them.

As you can see, they are very much loved! Our grandchildren love to come out to the farm whenever they get a chance. If Grandpa is still delivering mail they start asking Grandma, "When will Grandpa get home... we want to see the horses!"

Karm and Coke know what is coming when the children come into the barn. Our grandchildren love to pour oats into the feed bunk and then give them handfuls of hay. They love to brush the horses and sit on their backs. Our oldest granddaughter tries to braid their manes.

 We had Isaac over by himself one afternoon and he climbed onto the wagon seat and said, "I wanna go for a ride!" He knew what he wanted and didn't give up until Grandpa hitched up the team.

My wife and I had our four oldest grandchildren over for a field day before school started back up.

Shari (my wife) asked if we could take the children on a wagon ride. I had the wild idea that maybe we should have a picnic lunch with the horses first.

Karm and Coke ate hay while the children had a sack lunch. I harnessed up the team right after taking this photo.

 We stopped under our big shade tree after every round we made.

While the horses rested in the shade our grandchildren traded places. Each of the four got a chance to take a round riding up front with grandpa on the wagon seat.

Little Leo Thomas was too small to go along, so grandpa made sure to give him an opportunity to play with a toy horse. His day is coming!

Christmas Cookies

My wife decided to invite all five of our grandchildren over for a Christmas Cookie making party last Saturday. She put on her Santa's-helper apron (Santa thought she looked really cute in it!)







Last Christmas she made little aprons for all of our grandchildren to wear while doing art projects or baking cookies. They all put on their aprons and "chef hats" and we were ready to get started.

 Our littlest chef had to stop for a few moments and send an important text message. (actually he was looking at pictures on my phone, his favorite thing to do... especially my horse pics)


Two of our four daughters were there to help, and you can see them at the table with our grandchildren.

Of course we had to make some horse shaped cookies too.

 and everyone loved adding frosting, sprinkles, and colored sugar.

 Of course we had to do taste testing too!

Everyone put on a reindeer hat and lined up for a photo with Santa's helper. 

Cookie dough and sprinkles approximately $5... memories of making Christmas cookies with grandparents... I'm gonna guess, priceless.

An Old Swing

My wife's Uncle Duane lives in the heart of Amish country. He always has great stories to share with me every time I talk to him. He and his sons baled and/or sold hay to every Amish family for miles around. I stopped over to visit him the other day and three of his grandsons were there putting up a swing. They had a very interesting story about this swing and I thought I should share it with all of you. Duane explained that this frame was designed to be a hoist. They would drive a team of horses through this frame and a pulley at the top would be used with a rope to hoist up the front end of a grain wagon, to unload it. After they quit using the frame as a hoist (a very long time ago) they decided to use it for a swing.

The old frame accidentally got bent a short time ago by a tractor. Duane's grandson's didn't want to see the old swing gone... so one of them welded an exact replica of the old hoist.(The guy you can see kneeling down near the frame.) His son is the little guy taking the first ride in the new swing. If you look really close, you can see the old hoist laying on the ground behind Uncle Duane. This is where the story gets really interesting, to me. When the three grandsons dug down to the old cement footing, to attach the new frame they made an fun discovery. There were names written in the cement.

These young men found their grandmother Marilyn's name written in the concrete along with three of her other siblings names. The baby of their family didn't write her name... so we have an idea of how long ago this footing was set. Aunt Marilyn passed away a few years ago, and this was the farm she grew up on. I think it is cute to see her child-like signature (which she happened to misspell, there is an extra i in there.) Someone drew lines between the names, Rodney, Howard, Marilyn, and Linda.

Uncle Duane's great-grandson will be the Fourth generation to play on this swing, that is set on an old grain-wagon hoist. You can see the footing with the names in this picture. Uncle Duane has a great family. I'm very impressed that his grandson went to all the effort to make an exact replica of the old hoist. And, that his grandsons took the time to come set it in place and keep the family traditions going. They were rewarded for their efforts, with a connection to their grandma. A set of autographs that lay hidden under the soil for around 75 years!

Horse Barn

My wife's grandparents moved to this farm in 1918, when they got married and left the Amish. They became Mennonites, which was not a very big jump back in 1918.

This building is actually a corn-crib. We are not sure when her grandpa built it but it seems by the type of structure, that it must have been in the 30's or 40's.

My wife's parents moved into a small house out back when they got married in 1948 and farmed as partners with their parents for a number of years.

My dad-in-law tells stories of the two couples working together, milking a dozen cows by hand. I can just imagine that scene. He said that he would sit on one side of the cow and his new wife would milk from the opposite side.

Like most farms in 1948 they had 12 cows and 12 sows.

When my wife and I moved here in 2000, I converted this corn-crib into a horse barn. My dad-in-law was also a plasterer for a living. He stuccoed the outside of the crib making it very tight and useful as a horse barn.

I store hay in one of the cribs and made a hallway out of the other. You can see my horses reaching their heads into the feed bunks in the hallway.

My sweet little granddaughters love our draft horses and beg to sit on their backs. Karm and Coke don't seem to mind at all. In fact, I believe they love all the attention my five grandchildren give them.