Yesterday I opened a box which had been waiting for me since returning from New Hampshire. I hadn't seen it in the reshuffling that occurs with the assimilation of a full car load of stuff. It was apple butter from a blog reader, Debi, who was in touch with me several weeks ago about White Lily flour after she posted on the
Bountiful Biscuits entry in late January.
As we're both from New Hampshire, I offered to bring up some flour for her but it didn't work out. However, we got to talking about apple butter and
Gould Hill Orchards in Contoocook and how they have our favorite, hard to find heirloom varieties. So I was delighted to receive a jar of homemade apple butter, something I learned to like as a small girl when my father enjoyed it on cottage cheese. I learned to make it just to send some his way each year. [Winesap apples, pictured above, are included in Debi's apple butter, and are one of few apple varieties that they sell at Nolt's Bulk Foods in Liberty. Truly a culinary "sign" that we were meant to move here as they are my favorites.]
Yesterday we were also blessed by strangers. On the way to town to do some errands and try out a new café, a man in a truck motioned to us to pull over. Initially we thought he was trying to pass and then didn't and figured him to be a lane hog. When we finally pulled over after his gesturing he wanted to tell us that our back rear tire was low and likely ready to blow out. We had been going 70 miles an hour on the parkway. Not only did he take the time to let us know, he stayed to change the tire with us and then another person stopped to make sure everyone was alright.
After changing the tire and heading on our way we got to the café and it was packed, being as it was the first week of opening (and the only non-fast food place to eat in downtown Somerset). A man by himself at a table for four motioned for us to come over. He offered us some seats at his table. What was initially kind, but awkward, became a great conversation over lunch. When my husband was waiting in a long line after lunch to pay our bill, a Baptist minister, with whom he had struck up a conversation, even offered to pick up our check! [But we didn't take him up on that.]
By the way, the name of the café? Life is Sweet Bakery & Café. It certainly can be. Across from the café on Somerset's town square is the new location of
God's Food Pantry which helps feed over 500 families a month in Pulaski County. In one week, the café, food pantry, and new and beautiful main branch of the
Pulaski County Library all opened within a short walk of each other. Each is an enterprise I will regularly support or be involved with in some way.
There is a Bible verse [Hebrews 13:1-2] that I often think upon, especially in a world where we need to be cautious of strangers, but where we always need to be open to possibility and hope:
"Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."We have so often found this to be true in our lives. Since moving here we have found most people to be honest and sincere and kind. One woman,
another blog reader (and longtime blogger herself) and now a friend (hi Cat!), has been an angel in her welcome, and gifts, and bits of knowledge and complete embracing of our family. After only meeting me once at the Kentucky Book Fair last November, she invited me to join a Bunco group that she was forming. We live 45 minutes away from each other but she has become a neighbor in the truest sense.
Yesterday gave us pause to remember these kinds of blessings and how we should always keep watch for angels unawares. I am learning, also, how the blog community is full of angels and friends both new, and old. Thank you all.
We spent the morning today at the Casey County Benefit Auction (the 14th annual). Run by the local Mennonite community, to help a family with medical expenses or in other insurmountable need, the day-long auction includes all manner of vehicles, farm tools, household goods, plants and livestock (Bertha over at the Cupcakes would have gone crazy with all of those chickens!).
There was also an excellent bake sale, chicken barbecue and soft vanilla ice cream churned by a horse on a treadmill (imagine if they had such a thing for humans ~ we could earn our ice cream by burning it off first). Probably one of the most bizarre contraptions I've seen--but just as humane as having a horse pull a plow, I suppose.
The auction was held at the corner of interstate route 127 (famous for its huge yard sale the first week of August each year) and state route 501, the road into the heart of the Mennonite community in Casey County, Kentucky. It is a small but prosperous community with several businesses and is what brought us to the area for the first time two years ago (that and the Bread of Life Café, run by the Galilean Children's Home). Fortunately, it is not touristy and kitschy like Holmes County, Ohio and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania have become. We shop regularly at all of these businesses and it certainly beats having to drive into Somerset to deal with traffic and big box stores.
The best part for us--we did not bid on any animals because we are still not set up to have them (next year!)--was just milling around enjoying the atmosphere and seeing many people that we've met or befriended, do business with, and are beginning to know. It made us feel all the more a part of things which is always a good feeling to have in a new place.
The bake sale was packed with pies, breads, cakes, whoopie pies (oatmeal and chocolate) and these lovely little mini-pies, which, at 60 cents were a steal, I thought (so I wouldn't take any change). I have only tried a butterscotch but it was melt-in-your mouth. We also got apricot, apple, and lemon (and a larger cherry pie). Temple picked out a sponge cake (which came on its own plate to keep!) and some whoopie pies. The chicken just fell off the bone and made a great early lunch. The kids loved the ice cream, too.
We were also glad to learn, quietly, that one of our friends, who has suffered medical hardship, and his family will be the recipients of the proceeds this year. The Amish and Mennonite communities pull together to help their own in times of need and that was gratifying to see in action. While there are some old order Amish around, mostly Mennonites have settled in Casey County. Their clothes are a bit less plain: different hats, no beards for married men, and more jolly prints and colors for the women's dresses.
You will note that I have discreetly photographed a few gatherings of Mennonite people. Out of respect to them I did my best to conceal their identities.
