Monday, May 10, 2010

A visit to Kalona

On Saturday, Bob & Donna Schroeder took us along to Kalona. They knew the people that were having an open house at a furniture retail store. What a wonderful place full of big Amish furniture--bedroom suites, rockers, tables & chairs, and much more. They even served a free lunch of hotdogs or hot ham and cheese sandwiches, chips, fresh donuts and ice cream plus soda or water. After that we drove around to see some of the farms where Bob had collected milk when he did a milk route down there. We stopped at a farm and since they were home and invited us in we got to go into the house and visit with the couple. They have 10 children, 8 of them girls. The second oldest is getting married the end of May; they are planning on 500 people coming to their farm for the wedding. All of the food will be made there; they will set up 5 cook stoves in their machine shed and women from the neighborhood and relatives will come to make at least 75 pies, mashed potatoes and gravy; dressing; and a meat loaf made of hamburger, ground chicken and ground weiners. Mrs. Gruber or Graber (I can't remember her name for sure) was taking this all in stride--she was making homemade laundry and hand soap while we were there. The bride-to-be and her husband-to-be came (in their horse & buggy) home from going to garage sales in Kalona with their faces all red and they had to have been cold. Remember how cold and windy it was Saturday? From there we visited a greenhouse at another farm where Bob knew the people. Donna & I HAD to get some plants along with fresh eggs. At this farm they grew and butchered chickens and as we could smell, raised hogs. Such lovely people. Another stop at a country store where we bought a really, really good chocolate angel food cake, got some cheese curds at the Kalona Cheese factory and stopped for an early supper-late lunch at a tavern in Riverside. Fun day.

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