Mennonites love history. It's the 502th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, All-Hallows Eve, and there's high winds and a tornado watch, but tonight we're enjoying a lecture on the streetcars of Lancaster County. I'm at the Martindale Mennonite Fellowship Center, sitting in an audience of about three hundred and eighty people. Our speaker is eighty-three-year-old Herb Fisher. Mr. Fisher uses his version of a Powerpoint (Windows Photos, with verbal instructions for his helper to … [Read more...] about Streetcars & Photoshop
Neighborhood
Tour Guide Teamster: My Friend Susanna’s Unusual Side Job
The wagon, loaded with Tennessee tourists, rolls forward, pulled by a pair of horses named Champ and Nicholas, guided by a tour guide teamster named Susanna, who lectures us on the Amish life as we take a buggy ride through Lancaster County farmland, in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Tourist buggies, which are the size of covered wagons, are a common sight in the tourist areas of Lancaster County. I've seen them for years, and today, I'm taking a ride on one of these buggies for … [Read more...] about Tour Guide Teamster: My Friend Susanna’s Unusual Side Job
Pizza, Pottery Works, and Puffing up the Mountain!
The quiet domestic life — the excitement of urban life— a grueling mountain hike— it's not often I get to experience it all in one weekend. Pizza Loaves I spent Saturday morning making one of my favorite recipes, Peppery Pizza Loaves. Mom has a scrapbook cookbook with the recipe clipped from an old issue of Quick Cooking. You can get the recipe from Taste of Home here. The pizza loaves are quick, delicious, and freeze well. I also made a couple of Frosty Chocolate Pies (pie recipe here). … [Read more...] about Pizza, Pottery Works, and Puffing up the Mountain!
Packing at Blessings of Hope
"Let's go volunteer at Blessings of Hope!" My sister Brenda is the family planner (on the left in the above photo) and that's how 19 family members, mostly children, ended up bagging flour together on a Wednesday afternoon earlier this summer. It was great thing to do together as a family, and a fun way to support a local ministry doing an astonishing work. Blessings of Hope has been in my neighborhood for several years, and for a long time I thought it was a food pantry. Blessings of Hope, I … [Read more...] about Packing at Blessings of Hope
A walk on Good Friday
This evening I took a walk through my neighborhood— the same route I take at least several times a week. But this time I took my camera. The rain had just ended and I knew there were flowers awaiting. First I photographed these tulips in our yard. Then I walked over to the church across the street and photographed this tree. Up close and far away... Then I just walked on, seeing what I could find. Even flowers in the weeds! Happy Easter! … [Read more...] about A walk on Good Friday