It seems like I have a lot of explaining to do. My email box is telling me that I should’ve included the whole wanna-be-agrarian speech in one post. But since naptime is only about an hour and a half (sometimes two hours, if you run them hard in the sun during the morning hours), I’m going to have to write in snippets. Either that or I’m open to an invite for a nice long dinner wherein I’ll tell you all about it.

It all started in my teenage years with my Amish fascination. I read every book I could about their culture, sewed authentic dresses using Amish patterns (no, I didn’t wear them), and arranged dried flowers on straw hats to give myself some ambiance while I planted and tended my puny suburban garden. Small steps, I kept telling myself.

At 17, I’d composed a letter to mail to “Any Amish Family” in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but I never did mail my appeal to apprentice. The crème’ la (don’t know the word) was when my husband took me to Lancaster to visit his grandfather. It was the first time I’d seen farms, rolling pasture, and handmade quilts drying on the line. Incidently, the first Amish person I saw in Lancaster was in Burger King, but that’s just a side note.

Now, I mention this not because I still harbor romantic notions about a more simple life, but just to say where I came from (suburbia) and to confess that my initial pinings were misguided and ill-informed. But I was a teenager, and that explains everything.

Just as another side note (because this weblog is a journal for my kids), my husband took a picture of an Amish teenager on another trip to Lancaster. He was working in a corn field, and the sky was bright blue behind the boy. Greg stopped and asked him (knowing that it is against their religion to take pictures of themselves), and not only did he concede, but he asked Greg to mail him a copy. (Teenagers!) Greg did, and they corresponded regularly after that.

About a year later, we returned to Lancaster to visit his grandfather again, and we stopped by the family’s house (of the boy we took the picture of). After us awkwardly waiting while they privately conferred among themselves, they invited us for a tour of their farm and for a ride down the lane in their buggy. This was the first farm I’d seen up close anywhere other than the movies, and I remember that it stunk to my uncultured nose.

More later when I get a chance. And just for contrast, this is the rocket my husband will help launch tomorrow.
Atlas V