Still No Baby- So here's another Amish story.

Well, I've been trying to write a blog post all day. The internet here in the country is driven by little squirrels running on a track so it takes quite a while for the pictures to load on Blogger. While I waited for each set to load I worked on making my first sweet potato pie.

Also, I got invited to drive an Amish hay wagon so had to leave. But that's a story for another post....

Since there is no baby to introduce yet, I thought I'd tell you about our excursion last weekend to Shipshewana, Indiana. Also known as Amish Central.

Our first stop was the big Amish grocery store. Since it was Saturday it was quite busy.

In this store there were aisles and aisles of candy in every color, shape and flavor. The Amish have quite a sweet tooth.

The busy cash registers were run by Amish clerks and baggers.

We bought some cheese and wonderful sliced salami and a giant chrysanthemum (for $4!).


We then headed out to the Yoder farm for their big October auction. I had dreams of Amish quilts.

The parking lot was full when we arrived.

This part of Amish territory is quite, shall we say, liberal. Or modern. They are allowed rubber so they use bicycles a lot. I'm sure the horses appreciate this.

We felt a bit sorry for the horses since they had to stand around in their harnesses for hours and hours in the parking lot.




This was an auction by the Amish and for the Amish which meant that all the vendors were selling items useful to the Amish.

Lots of horse tack....

...and a horse auction....

...and the latest in Bishop approved appliances.

I would actually like to have one of these for our backyard bonfire suppers. Or for camping. I just couldn't see getting one in my suitcase for the airplane trip home.

Though we saw lots of Amish handiwork, I was disappointed that we never found a quilt sale. About twenty five years ago my husband and I attended an auction like this in Michigan on another Yoder blacksmith farm and there was a huge, well-attended quilt auction taking place in a barn. I may or may not have gotten auction fever and bought a quilt that was too big for our bed.




Before we left we found this ice cream stand with home-made Amish style ice cream.

Since these were modern Amish the ice cream makers were powered by a little gas engine.

But the black raspberry ice cream was still very tasty.