Wednesday October 26 2016  PEANUT BUTTER AND FLAX SEED

What do peanut butter and flax seed have in common?  Both are what I needed to buy today and they cost me over sixty dollars!  When I walked out of Mischler’s Country Store today I had over sixty dollars worth of groceries from the Amish market and all I needed was peanut butter and flax seed.  I go there only a couple of times a year and though I try to keep it at a minimum I always find something else I need in addition to what is on my list.   And that is what happened today.  From my house the market is about 80 minutes from home.  Today I attended a funeral held at our church and when it was time to go home I realized I was already 20-25 minutes closer to the Mischler’s Country Store.  Since I had an afternoon available I decided to drive the extra distance and pick up what I needed.

You may wonder why it is so important for me to drive so far away to pick up peanut butter and ground flax seed.  Sometimes I wonder that too, but the primary culprit is the honey roasted peanut butter I purchase there.  It is freshly ground and has no preservatives.  I purchase several containers because I have little “munchkins” (properly known as grandsons) who absolutely adore the peanut butter I buy from the Amish market.  And since they both have birthdays around this time I try to stock up on it so I can give the peanut butter as gifts to them.  The market has very reasonable pricing and has a large variety of bulk items I can purchase.  Today I bought beans (black and kidney), 2 red peppers, 5 containers of the freshly ground honey roasted peanut butter, a bag of roasted unsalted peanuts, sweet potatoes, 3 bags of ground flax seed equaling six pounds total, mushroom popcorn, raw pumpkin seeds, a jar of honey, and a couple of other little things of which I can no longer recall.  It’s rather amazing how quickly food prices add up these days, especially when one eats like I do.

But the best part about driving over to the Amish market is the beautiful back road drive.  Today when I entered the Amish community it was as if a hush fell over the land.  The trees were even more beautiful and in peak color.  The rain was coming down and the wetness intensified the fall colors.  When I arrived at the store I thought the store was not open when I looked in from the outside.  No lights were turned on.  Then I remembered that the only light available in the store comes from ceiling skylights.  The store is closed when the sun sets.  And even though I was there at 3:30 p.m., due to the overcast and rain, it was almost dark inside the building.  There is no electricity, no refrigerated items, and no frozen items.  A hand manipulated adding machine manually totals the bill.  Old fashioned cash registers make a loud clanging noise when the cash drawer pops open.  Instead of seeing women shrouded in burkas like I see at the grocery stores where I usually shop, most of the Amish women have on long dark dresses and their heads donned with little white bonnets.  Rather refreshing I’d say.

What dawned on me this afternoon was that I especially enjoyed shopping there because I love the quiet hush that permeates the building; no music; no electrical sound.  When walking through the store there were no other sounds at all except those made by other people.  An eerie silence enveloped me.  There was a peaceful stillness; no freezer hum, no refrigeration sound and no high pitched sound from lights on the ceiling.  The absence of man-made noise was quite refreshing.

When I was in the Amish country this past weekend (a different part of the state from where I went today) my friend and I came across a group of about 20 to 25 little Amish children walking in mass alongside a country road.  The boys were dressed like little men wearing long sleeved shirts made from blue course fabric which was partially covered by their black homemade bib overalls (which all appeared too short in length).  The little girls (from about 5 years old to 10 years old) were dressed just like their mothers, black dresses with white aprons covering the front of their dresses.  It was quite cold outside and every single child was walking barefoot on the hard pavement or along the graveled road’s edge, skirting the horse droppings.  I don’t remember seeing any of the children with jackets on.  It was so interesting to see them in such a large group, all barefoot, swinging their metal lunch boxes as they walked home from school.  It was more than likely two or possibly three family’s worth of children.  I was dressed warmly, had shoes and socks on, along with the heater running, and I was still chilled.  Those little Amish kids must be quite resilient.

LIKE GOING BACK IN TIME

Kathleen Martens

October 26, 2016

www.visionsofpoetry.com

Little ones

Dressed in white and black,

Replicas of their parents

Walking in a pack.

Swinging buckets back and forth

Walking homeward bound.

Bare feet pitter patter

On both asphalt and ground.

Little men and little women

In the process of growing older,

No matter how old they grow

Seldom do they seem bolder.

But it seems that peace

Radiates from within.

All is quiet in their world,

No electricity noise to lend.

It may be extra quiet

But it probably gets quite old

Running to the outhouse

When it is quite cold.

A hard life to live,

Like going back in time.

And though it looks serene,

I’m glad that life’s not mine.

Oh Lord, thank You so much for the modern conveniences we have available to us.

Thank You Lord that it is not necessary for me to live as the Amish do in order to get to heaven.

GOOD NIGHT AND GOD BLESS YOU.