My niece lives near Strausburg, so it was a very busy place over this holiday weekend. We enjoyed fresh sweet corn and Ron treated me to breakfast two mornings in a row and I ordered one of my favorites – sausage gravy over biscuits with home fries. We also had whoopee pies and apple fritters. Ron always jokes about these items not being fattening or bad for you because they’re made by the Amish – it’s against their religion to do so. Yeah, right Ron. Anyway, everything was delicious indeed. Shannon had gone to some of her favorite Amish markets a while back and bought strawberries for me and put them in the freezer so I could make jam for the upcoming church bazaar. She had also made several batches of different kinds of pickles and generously gave us 2 quarts and 2 pints of different varieties. This was a great weekend indeed as we rode around and looked at the lush fields of produce and crops and to hear the constant “clip-clop” of horse hooves hauling buggies on every road in every direction. She also gave us several packages of dried cherries that her dad, my brother Art Shoemaker, had given her to give to me when she was down visiting him the end of January, right before his passing on February 14th following a short battle with lung cancer. Recently, our Alba Church received the Society of St. Andrew’s spring newsletter which featured a beautiful story titled “Missing Art Shoemaker”. Art was a very strong advocate for the SoSA, as well as many other organizations, in his drive to feed the hungry and had gleaned literally hundreds of thousands of pounds of produce all across the country. It broke my heart to think that even on his deathbed he was thinking of providing for those less fortunate with good, nutritional food. Needless to say, we miss him terribly.
We returned home to find the garden still doing wonderfully, but the weeds attempting to take over everything. I’m in hopes to tackle some of it on my day off, Wednesdays, and I’ll plant those onion sets where I finished off the radishes. We now have peas to pick, plus more squash.
As I’ve told you before, I read several devotional tid-bits every morning, and over July 4th weekend the same scripture reading kept popping up. It’s 2 Chronicles 7:14 – If my people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. (Amplified Version). What turmoil our country seems to be in. It’s not only preposterous, it’s at times ridiculous, especially to think some people have any intentions of “turning from their wicked ways”. And then there’s the issue with the Confederate Flag. I was told about a circumstance that appeared on “Facebook”, where a person asked that a cake be made and decorated by WalMart with the Confederate Flag and they refused. However, when that person asked if they would decorate it with the flag of Isis that was “okay” and could be done. Are you kidding me? What, in God’s Name, is our country coming to? This is just another reason why we don’t do much shopping at this superstore – or, as Ron calls it: “China-mart”. Am I worried? You betcha! We need to “pray without ceasing”.
On July 12, 1933, the minimum wage was established at 40 cents an hour. On July 13, 1930, the quadrennial soccer competition known as the World Cup began in Montevideo, Uruguay. On July 14, 1867, the use of dynamite was first demonstrated by Alfred Nobel. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb test explosion occurred.
Quote by Lou Erickson: “Gardening requires lots of water – most of it in the form of perspiration.”
From the “CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?” file: On July 16 in 1981, Shukuni Sasaki established a new world record by spinning 72 plates at the same time.