Holmes County Ohio Farms

Farms from a distance for The Barn Collective in Amish Country Ohio.

Linking up with Tom the Backroads Traveller for The Barn Collective.

We had a lazy mostly indoor Saturday with lots and lots of rain. Today, Sunday, we’ve had some blue skies and sunshine. We spent the afternoon with our oldest kids. They fed us well and we had some good conversation. We’ve followed super Sunday in Major League Soccer to see who will move forward in the playoffs towards the MLS Cup final game. Montreal is moving on and it looks like Toronto will, too, eliminating both New York teams. We (Seattle) play Dallas this evening. Colorado eliminated Los Angeles earlier today. This information is probably only interesting to me and that’s okay.

Hope you all are having Sundays filled with good things you enjoy!

My God, I Thank Thee ~ Hymn

My God, I Thank Thee

My God, I thank Thee, who hast made
The earth so bright,
So full of splendor and of joy,
Beauty and light;
So many glorious things are here,
Noble and right.

I thank Thee, too, that Thou hast made
Joy to abound;
So many gentle thoughts and deeds
Circling us round,
That in the darkest spot of earth
Some love is found.

I thank Thee more that all our joy
Is touched with pain,
That shadows fall on brightest hours,
That thorns remain;
So that earth’s bliss may be our guide,
And not our chain.

For thou who knowest, Lord, how soon
Our weak heart clings,
Hast given us joys, tender and true,
Yet all with wings;
So that we see gleaming on high
Diviner things.

I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast kept
The best in store;
We have enough, yet not too much
To long for more:
A yearning for a deeper peace
Not known before.

I thank Thee, Lord, that here our souls
Though amply blessed,
Can never find, although they seek
A perfect rest;
Nor ever shall, until they lean
On Jesus’ breast.

Words: Adelaide A. Procter, Legends and Lyrics, a Book of Verse, 1858.

InSPIREd Sunday

My last two churches from Ohio Amish Country happen to both be white. This first one is St. John’s United Church of Christ.

The name of this simple church is Holmesville Church of Christ.

I think the best feature on this country church is the belfry. We did not see any bats up there…

Bats in the Belfry: An antiquated term for insanity, madness. Belfry: the top of a bell tower on a church, where the bell is housed. Often infested with bats, who enjoy the darkness and seclusion of the place.

She’s got bats in the belfry, sqirrels in the attic, owls up in the loft.

Linking up to InSPIREd Sunday with Beth and Sally.

Monday Mural Swiss Amish Style

Sugarcreek Ohio was originally settled by immigrants from Switzerland. It has a rich blend of Swiss culture and Amish heritage wrapped into an experience all its own. These first two murals are on buildings on Main Street in Sugarcreek, Ohio. The mural above had moving skiers coming down the slope.

With Swiss-style architecture, famous Swiss cheese and an annual Swiss Festival, Sugarcreek has become a top tourist destination in Ohio. It’s called the Little Switzerland of Ohio.

The next series of shots are from a mural in Heini’s Cheese Chalet in Millersburg, Ohio.

Heini’s Cheese Chalet is a required stop on any cheese country tour so you can see this indoor marvel, sixty feet long, painted by hand. It provides a unique perspective on the rise of Civilization. Come with us, to a time before there was cheese….

The mural begins on the left with a huge wedge of Swiss — before there was a Switzerland — crossed by nomads on camels. The mural charts evolving cheesemaking processes, consumption, and its impact to the present day, circa 1980. “Mutiny on the Bounty was partly over cheese,” explains the accompanying text, also painted by hand. The illustration style is reminiscent of a child’s guide to the Bible; though an elfish, round-faced boy with a half-eaten cheese morsel makes an appearance.

The mural concludes with a tiny billboard promoting the world’s largest wheel of cheese, a ten-ton cheddar that was here until someone accidentally kicked the plug out of its refrigerated kiosk in the 1990s.

The entire mural was painted by local artist Tom Miller. “His work,” according to Heine’s promotional literature, “is now considered to be of collectible worth with increasing value.”

ht: RoadsideAmerica.com

I bought a basket made by four year old Amish child from this shop. Seriously…four years old, I was blown away. There were long aisles of refrigerated cases with so many cheeses that you could sample. There were other goodies, too. These large Cheese shops in Amish country were really amazing. Makes all of the food stores I frequent seem cheese challenged and sausage challenged, too.

Linking with Oakland Daily Photo for Monday Mural.

We Have Fallen, A Leaf’s Perspective…

Now it’s up to you to pick us all up and put us away till next year.

You can just blow us off somewhere unless…

…we get stuck in the nooks and crannies.

And now we are wet which adds another dimension of challenge to get rid of us.

We are mostly off the huge Maple in your neighbor’s yard. Just one more good windy day and the branches will be bare.

The day has come and now you can clear the rain gutters of the last remaining leaves.

You leaf laborers have earned yourselves a good meal off the smoker and out of the oven with all the colors of Fall. Ribs off the Traeger, roasted vegetables, coleslaw, jalapeno cornbread, and barbecue beans.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry for the leaves are gone till next Fall!

Linking up to Foodie Friday and Everything Else, Five on Friday, and Friday’s Fave Five.

Thank you to Rattlebridge Farms, Amy at Love Made My Home, and Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

And if laboring over leaves wasn’t enough I’m now having some physical therapy to help with the extreme tightness of my IT Band that has been giving me some grief. Sad but true you have to exercise and try to endure more pain to get rid of the pain and here is one of my new torture instruments.

This is called The Stick…hmm…catchy but it works like a rolling pin to work out the tightness of your muscles.

So…thank you Lord for seasons, for the strength to deal with the fallen leaves, for the enjoyment of good food that nourishes our bodies, for physical therapy to repair and strengthen our bodies and for Spiritual therapy to strengthen and anchor our souls.

^{Hebrews 16:19-20 (ESV) ~ 19}We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, ²⁰where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

On the Way to Charm

One of the days we were in Ohio we drove to Charm, Ohio. These are some fences and farms we saw.

It was a wet day with a few dry spells, the very last day of September. And now it’s November already.

So far this is what November looks like here.

Facebook lit up last night and today about the Cubs winning the World Series in game 7. In general I’m not a baseball follower but doing something for the first time in 108 years is significant. I did manage to stay awake and see the outcome. I found these photos in my archives from my one and only time outside Wrigley Field in 2012.

Congratulations Chicago Cubs!

Thank you TexWisGirl for hosting Good Fences.

More Signs from Indiana

All of these signs were seen on a Sunday along the Heritage Trail in Indiana mostly contained within Elkhart County. The Pillsbury’s flour sign was in Wakarusa.

These last two signs are in Topeka, Indiana just south of Shipshewana next to Yoder Popcorn. There were a few places that would have been fun to explore but were closed on Sunday.

Linking up to signs, signs with Lesley.

Such a wet and drippy day here in the Pacific Northwest. Daughter and I had a fun several hours shopping at the Navy Exchange and Costco with a little lunch in between.

Of Quilts and Queens…

…and other Q things. It’s always an interesting quest to come up with Q words to share for ABC Wednesday.

These first two photos were taken in Bristol Indiana.

Quilts on Barns in Amish/Mennonite Country.

Barn Quilt in Eastern Washington from the road.

Quilts in the Der Dutchman Restaurant in Ohio Amish Country.

And now a quick trip across the pond to England to visit Queen Victoria.

Outside Buckingham Palace, 2013.

Outside Windsor Castle, 2014.

For my last offerings we’re back in the USA for Queues of buggies from Amish Country.

Linking up to ABC Wednesday started by Mrs. Nesbitt and carried on by Roger and the ABC Team.

Despite the rain last night (Halloween) we got about 44 trick or treaters at our door. The bonus of the night was being able to meet a new neighbor we hadn’t met before with their almost 1 year old little boy. So sweet.

I’ll leave you with a couple “Quiet” verses from the Bible to calm (quiet) you in our noisy world.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)

First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, ²for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 (NASB)

Amish Farm Mosaics

I really thought these corn shocks were cool.

“One of the most well-known ways of taking in corn is through shocking it. The first step is for the farmer to drive his team of horses, pulling a machine called a binder which cuts the cornstalks off close to the ground. The binder then makes bundles of corn which must be gathered by hand and stacked up in a teepee-style pile. Although the cornstalks are now dry, the corn is probably not dry enough to be stored safely. The whole idea is to prevent the corn ears from falling on the ground and absorbing moisture. When the corn is dry, it will be gathered on a wagon and either shucked by hand or run through the corn picker.”

I’ll be linking up to The Barn Collective at Tom the Backroads Traveler and to Mosaic Monday with Maggie at Normandy Life.

ht: Dutchman News

A Mind at Perfect Peace With God ~ Hymn

A Mind at Perfect Peace With God

A mind at perfect peace with God;
O what a word is this!
A sinner reconciled through blood;
This, this indeed is peace.

By nature and by practice far,
How very far from God;
Yet now by grace brought nigh to Him,
Through faith in Jesus’ blood.

So nigh, so very nigh to God,
I cannot nearer be;
For in the person of His Son
I am as near as He.

So dear, so very dear to God,
More dear I cannot be;
The love wherewith He loves the Son,
Such is His love to me.

Why should I ever anxious be,
Since such a God is mine?
He watches o’er me night and day,
And tells me “Mine is thine.”

Words: Horatius Bonar or Catesby Paget

Ht: Cyberhymnal

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Author Archives: Ellen