Living in Amish Country

I stepped out to fire up the grill to roast some tube-steak tonight for dinner, and a familiar aroma filled my olfactory senses. The thing is, we live in town–there aren’t any barns or farms in the immediate vicinity, so I was wondering why I smelled that smell.

Once the dogs were cooking, Josiah and I shot some hoop and then I saw the cause of the smell: Amish exhaust–

(Our house is the one with the kids playing in it As always, you can click on a picture to enlarge it.)

Once that mystery was solved and dinner was devoured and cleaned up, I took some of the kids to the park behind our house. The Amish men were there in force, some playing softball, others football. Hannah got to chat with an Amish girl pushing her sister, and later we took some pix by their “rides”

There are definite benefits to living out in the country; come to think of it, if you ask me, there aren’t really too many benefits to living in the city or suburbs! Heh heh

For one thing, there’s the scenery:

For another thing, when your fuel pump stops working half-way from shopping on a Friday night, the “hood” that you break down in is a lot safer looking than most any other place!

Down Time

This past week we traveled to Michigan to visit family and friends for Christmas. I planned on putting up numerous posts of pictures, etc. for your viewing pleasure.

Alas, my notebook’s power cord decided to call it quits on Christmas Day! I searched the local electronics stores in the Grand Rapids area for a replacement, but in vain. So, I’m only able post from the library’s computer. Ack!

Lord willing we’ll be up and running toward the end of next week.

Happy New Year!

Let it Snow…More?!?! Please??!??

I mentioned a couple days ago that the National Weather Service forecasted a potential of 1-2 feet of snow for us, beginning Wednesday night through this morning. Sadly, despite the forecasts the bands of snow coming through the area didn’t give us much. Both the Bosses and the Field-Hands were disappointed.

This morning we did wake up to a little more snow. Here’s the view from our back window: 

Maybe 4 inches was delivered, enough to merit plowing the driveway–

Christmas in Florida, er, OHIO

Ya know, ya gotta just absolutely love it when you can pick out your Christmas tree in 60 degree weather and the date is November 28!!!!

By the way, we’ve never formally introduced you to one of our “farm implements,” our 1994 Chevy Suburban. When we picked it up last year we thought such a tough looking machine needed a tough name, so we named him “JES,” taking the first letter of each of David’s three mighty men.