March 23rd Dave Wrote

Carol and I just returned this afternoon (Tues) from a week of vacation in Indiana. Luke Gingerich, one of Carol's nephews from Oregon, had a lead role in the comic opera "Dei Fliedermaus" (spelling??) at Goshen College. His folks decided to come from Oregon to see his performance, and then Carol and her sister Bonnie from Texas decided that would be a good time and place for all three of them (Sheryl, Bonnie, and Carol) to get together over spring break. We left last Wednesday afternoon and spent four nights together at a bed-and-breakfast near Goshen. We had a really great time together.

Last Friday we all visited the draft-horse auction that is held twice per year in Amish country northeast of Goshen. We spent an hour or two watching them sell big Belgian workhorses. One 3-yr old gelding sold for $20,500, but most of the others sold for $1200-$3000 each. On Friday night we went to the opera and it was very enjoyable. Carol's nephew Luke is a very good singer. On Sunday night, Elroy Schrock (husband of Bonnie from Texas) took us all out to his Amish brothers dairy farm where we met about half of his 12 siblings, along with their wives, kids, and grand-kids. I visited with the dairy-farmer brother as he finished up with milking (milking machines, bulk tank, and transfer station all run off of a small engine, but only coleman lanterns in the barn). He had really good-looking cows. The visit brought back many memories of what farming was like in the early 1950's when I was a child. And Indiana Amish country is much less urbanized than Lancaster: it actually looks like real farm country!

The bed and breakfast where we stayed was run by a Mennonite couple in their early 60's, and they did a fantastic job of running their place. It was built about 10 years ago specifically for use as a bed-and-breakfast, and they have 9 rooms for rent. The breakfasts that they served were fantastic. We should have skipped lunch after those breakfasts. All of the guests had breakfast together each morning at 8:30. They were booked full over the week-end, so we got to meet other interesting people. In addition to running the bed and breakfast, Phil Slabaugh is a barber, makes hair pieces for men, composts duck manure, and buys and rebuilds old manure spreaders for resale to the Amish farmers in the area. Yea, the duck manure surprised me, too, but he says that area of Indiana grows more ducks for restaurants and ethnic Chinese groceries than any other place in the U.S., and the duck farms are happy to have him haul away the manure from their big poultry houses. After it is composted, he spreads it on his brothers farm, uses it for the extensive flower beds around their B&B, and sells it to neighbors.

Part of the fun at the B&B was sharing crazy stories. Charlie told how he recently had been "rear-ended" by his wife. It happened one night when he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. As he was sitting on the toilet, he heard Sheryl getting up quietly and tip-toeing toward the dark bathroom. He decided to remain quiet and announced his presence only by pinching her bottom just before she sat on top of him. He said neither of them could go back to sleep for several hours: he couldn't stop laughing and she was too mad! He told that story at breakfast one morning when there were 15 of us all eating together. No one could come up with a story that could top that!

My winter meetings are finally over, so now it's time to get everything set up for our summer field trials. I'm glad that spring is slow in coming: we still have nearly a foot of snow in shaded areas although sunny slopes are bare. We're supposed to get another 3 inches of snow by Thursday morning, so that will help keep spring at bay until I can catch up.

I've added my e-mail address back onto this list, so please use this list for future letters rathan than the list from the 3 or 4 letters that preceded this. My name was deleted (accidentally, I hope :) part way through the last round of letters and I had to depend on Carol to forward her copies to me.

Having come from a long week-end with Carol's sisters and relatives, and now thinking about all of you, I'm struck once again by how blessed I am to have so many loving and healthy family relationships. One of God's greatest creations must have been the family unit. It's too bad that so many people today suffer with dysfunctional families. I hope that all of you can enjoy your families and family relationships as much as I enjoy mine.