I want to post a little bit about my recent trip to Amish country. Damien and I met my friends Heather and Jeremy in Nappanee, Indiana at the end of September. We stayed in a beautiful old B&B and had a beautiful home cooked breakfast with the other guests. While sitting on the vast front porch we heard the clop-clop-clopping of horses several times and looked down the street and amidst the semi-trucks, motorcycles and cars there was an Amish horse and buggy! There were lots of them. That sound of horses on the pavement must be a familiar sound to the folks in that area.
Driving around the countryside, you could tell which farms were Amish. Either there were Amish kids in the yard playing baseball, the farmhouse was very well kept with a white fence around it, there were buggies parked outside, no electric wires were connected to the house, or there were old-fashioned Amish clothes on the line out to dry in the sun. There was also the smell of horse manure.
We visited Amish Acres, where vistors can learn about their culture and ways of life. But the best thing we did was have dinner with an Amish family. Our B&B offered this for $17 per person. So, we drove out into the country and found the farm of Etta and Moses Miller, their son, his wife and their 5 or 6 children! There happened to be a motorcycle gang made up of about 15 ex-policemen and their wives there for dinner too. After a HUGE dinner of mashed potatoes, fried chicken, salad, green bean casserole, stuffing, pies, homemade ice cream and more, we all went outside and some of the motorcycle guys took the Amish kids on their first motorcycle rides!! The grandparents, Etta and Moses, were a bit aprehensive, but the kids came back with the biggest smiles on their faces!
After the the motorcycle guys left, then it was just us and the family. We got to hear them speaking their Pennsylvania Dutch language and the kids were teaching Heather how to say things. Until Amish kids start school, around age 7, the can't speak English. But their school is only in English, so that by the time they are 8 or 9 they are bi-lingual. Their church services are all in High German, so by the time they are adults, they are practically tri-lingual.
Just before dusk, Moses gave us a ride in his buggy. He handed me the reins for a couple of minutes. I bet not too many people have had the chance to drive an Amish buggy down a country road next to an old Amish guy named Moses! He had quite a heavy accent too.
The whole experience was just like going to another country, except that it was only a few hours away from where I have lived all my life. I learned so much about Amish life and culture. I realize that basically before that trip I knew nothing about them.
Unfortunately, the town of Nappanee was devestated by a tornado this week. And then today a van carrying 17 or 18 Amish had a tire blow out on the highway just north of Indianapolis and 5 people died, including 3 children.
Spending time with them and in the area and reading about them since then has been amazingly interesting. We couldn't take pictures of Amish people directly but we took a few of the area. Damien has them up on his photo site (see link on the side bar).

Beautiful Fall Day

Damien and I finally had a free afternoon yesterday and we went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. We walked around the gardens there and hopped onto the canal towpath that goes for miles in either direction. You can forget you are in the middle of the city. We saw comical turtles, beautiful wood ducks (couldn't get a good picture of those), insects and birds. The leaves were flaming with the color of fall!!
We also did some cooking. We have been really into cooking lately. We made stuffed red peppers with a mashed mixture of sweet potatoes, white potatoes, turnips and carrot. We added a fried mixture of chopped okra and tofu to that. Then we topped each pepper with chopped mixed nuts and grated gruyere cheese. We also had wilted mustard greens lightly sauteed in butter and garlic. We served that wil our homemade beer bread. It was delicious!!
We made some wonderful stuffed mushrooms with and avocado mixture the other day with homemade olive bread.
We will be so sad when our CSA vegetables stop coming!

We also have big news. We are finally for sure going back to Japan!
The school we used to work at, Nova, was the school we were trying to go back with. Nova is (was?) Japan's largest English school and second largest employer of foreigners outside of the US military. Well, they are totally going under! We cancelled our application and started looking for something else. After several weeks of telephone interviews and sending out applications, we have been hired by a small school run by an Australian in Kani City, Gifu Prefecture. This will be a totally new place for us. We will have access to the Japan Alps, only a few hours from the coast, a hour from Nagoya (Japan's 4th largest city) and within a few hours train ride from several UNESCO worl heritage sites!! We will leave in mid to late February and start at the beginning of March.
We are hoping to take a quick trip to New York and Washington DC before we go so Damien can see the east coast. Then we want to spend a week or so in China visiting Damien's sister and her husband before heading over to Japan.
We will keep everyone posted on how this all pans out.
By the way, my mom has a flickr site now (link below) where she has pictures of the family and of her recent trip to Norway!