September 2011, Lancaster, Pennsylvania~

Hello from Amish Country!

This is your friend, Hen Yoder, writing.  I hope this finds you gut (good)!

I am happy to say it finally stopped raining, but it is too wet to harvest the crops, so we children have to stay indoors and try to entertain ourselves.

I have been doing a lot of reading and writing and taking care of my younger brothers and sisters.  I've also been helping Mamm and my oldest sister, Rebecca, in the kitchen.

Grossmutter and my older brother William have been helping Dat with the farm animals and working the land; a farmer's work is never done, it seems.  When they finally come in for the night, it is pitch dark; they sleep for maybe four hours before they're back up and tending the farmland/animals.  It starts all over again.  

I secretly wish sometimes that we weren't Amish.  I sometimes wish I were an Englischer and/or had things like television, a radio, or a computer, or maybe even a phone.  I wish we had electricity instead of depending on candle light or daylight and then having to stop everything when it gets dark 'cause we cannot see.

With the days getting shorter it seems that I can't enjoy myself as much as I did in the spring/summer when we had lots more daylight!

One good thing, though, about the longer nights: we can see the aurora borealis.  There's some type of storm going on on the sun, and this storm is sending solar flares, which can cause auroras to spark in the skies if they're strong enough.  Well, they've been strong: the auroras have been very colorful.

 What an amazing spectacle!  

I don't know how long the storms on the sun will last, but watching the auroras have sure been exciting!!

I did a report on the aurora borealis for science class at school and I just got it back today.  I got an A+.  Teacher was very proud of me.  So were Mamm and Dat when I showed them my paper with the big, black "A+" marked at the top!

Hard to believe that fall is here.  Seems like only yesterday when it was spring and also summer.  Soon it will be winter and then we have to think about getting ready for Christmas!

It's only late September!  I don't want to think about Christmas just yet!!  I would rather think about Hallowe'en with its big, fat orange pumpkins, good harvest to eat, and the witches and other scary things!

Well, I have to go and eat supper.  Tonight it's fried potato mush, smoked ham hocks, string beans and tomatoes from our garden that Mamm saved before the rains came, and, for dessert, apple fritters.  Yum!!  

Too bad Isaiah can't have any of it: he gets his supper in a bag that we hook up to his belly tube; the stuff then goes down the tube and into his belly, since he cannot chew or swallow.

That must be hard, not being able to taste or chew your food!  

I will write in here again soon; until later, this is Hen Yoder saying God bless!

~Love, your friend in Pennsylvania, Henrietta.  :)

~To be continued.~