Up To My Knees in Everything

Can you believe September is almost over? It's like we went right from August to October in about two weeks' time. Life has yet to slow down. Two weeks ago, we went to Lancaster County (near the Amish) with some friends who took us to visit his parents, who live in a place called Mount Joy.

Lancaster is known not only for the Amish, but for shopping in general. There are outlet malls here like North westerners have never seen. There are family general stores and handmade furniture stores, quilt stores, country "stuff" stores, antique stores, and junk/yard sales all over the place. There is a museum of farm equipment, an amusement park called Dutch Wonderland, as well as a made-to-scale version of the Old Testament tabernacle, to name a few tourist sites. There are lots of retirement centers, lots of hotels, and lots of tourists, which is why we tend to avoid it like we tend to avoid the Jersey Shore in the summer time. Big crowds are not a big reason to go someplace, in our estimation.

But thankfully, our friends' parents live far enough away from the "circus" that is Lancaster that we spent a lovely and enjoyable day with them seeing why people love to live in that area. They treated us to a delicious lunch, showed us their favorite places to buy bulk foods and fresh eggs, and we admired their lovely home and beautiful vegetable garden out in the peaceful countryside. And we came home with five-dozen eggs ($.80/dozen), 50 lbs. of whole wheat flour, 100 lbs. of high-gluten bread flour, and a few other snacks and goodies too wonderful to pass up. While all the flour is resting in our box freezer for a couple of weeks, we are preparing to make room for 1/2 of a pig which is due to be delivered to us (already frozen) on Saturday.

On top of all that, yesterday while Enoch was off from school because of a Jewish holiday, he harvested all of my thyme, basil, and mint from the front garden, pulled out all of the tomato plants from the back garden, and most of the beets. And to top it all off, three of my four children are at varying stages of a sinus cold (everyone but Tristan); the baby seems to get croup when he gets sick, just like Tristan used to, so he's not sleeping real well either.

So suffice it to say, I'm up to my knees in everything, including my usual laundry and dishes and housework. And we hope to go apple picking and pumpkin picking this weekend, weather permitting and depending on when the awaited pork arrives. I love this time of year, don't you?