Small town America is a special lifestyle, not always the simple life but never the less small scale. When I go to the local grocery store, the cashier could be a local minister’s wife, a woman that went to school with my daughter or the lady across the road. You meet neighbors, relatives, and friends in the aisles. That has always been my way of life, so city life is very foreign to me.

When I was a little girl my parents raised chickens. Mother gathered the eggs twice a day and would sort them by size. Friday we went to the local store (at that time there were only 2) and she would give the eggs to the storekeeper. He would count them and give her credit for the eggs.  This is what we call bartering, back then it was just a trade for groceries. The building still stands but the store is long gone. I miss that simplicity in life but embrace the way I live now as well. Here in Lancaster County there are some very small stores that have a semblance of that era. When guests ask I send them to those “outposts”.

It is a great weekend, outside the snow is DEEP, inside it is warm and cozy, unless you are living where you have no electric. I never realized how much we rely on others for getting goods to us. With the airports shut down for at least a day shipping of goods is not happening; the flowers for my packages never arrived (I’m holding hope for today). Roses are not from these parts in February I wanted to make raspberry chocolate pancakes for breakfast and the store hadn’t gotten the shipment of raspberries . Plan B was blueberry pancakes, everyone loved them. Since 49 of 50 states have snow on the ground my guests are very understanding. I keep looking for those tulips .

Wow, did we ever get hit with a big one! Keith went to the barn this morning and said it was over his boots (about 24″) everywhere he walked, if not more some places. Here in the country when we have snow and wind that means drifting that closes roads and makes travel almost impossible. We take travel advisories very seriously. It is beautiful from inside the house I have friends in southern VA that got hit even harder. Heed the advisories.

Long ago the ladies had quilting bees. They used the time to socialize and complete a project and probably eat some good food. The Amish still do have quilting bees to do just that. The modern young women have scrapbooking weekends and do the same thing, socialize and complete a project. I am amazed at the creativity around the table as they work and talk about the events that produced the pictures. Some just put them in book a with captions so that 20 years from now they will be able to identify the subjects. But some use great detail to highlight the pictures. I am reminded once more at the great minds the Almighty gave us and how differently we use them.

A day on the farm……..well, at least today on the farm, we had to have the cows checked to see they were pregnant. Our guests love to watch the little calves run around the meadow so that is an important step. Of four, three are carrying calves. so sometime in the next nine months we will have 3 calves. I’m sure they are all at differnt stages in their pregnancy. They are cute and fun to watch.

Lancaster County is known for its quilts and we have some of the finest fabric resources available. In March the AQS show will be in town and you can go and see vendors (about 300) and attend for a daily rate of $11. This would be a nice addition to your visit to Lancaster County. I will have a map to help you navigate to the convention center. If you still want more I’ll help you find those wonderful shops that are on back country roads, what fun! In Lancaster County you don’t get lost, you just see the real countryside.

Here in Lancaster County we love our food that has butter and sugar. I sound like Paula Deen My theory is that you can use less but at least it is a pure product. I can read cream, but some of the other stuff you find on labels make you wonder what it really is. Enough of my “soapbox”. We have two restaurants that are run by Amish; one being the Dieners on Route 30 E. and the other being Katie’s Kitchen on Route 896. If you go to Katie’s order the mashed potatoes, they are the best.

We are so fortunate in Lancaster County to have our Farmers Markets all year long. Market Days are Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Tuesday is Root’s Country Farmers Market and Friday, Saturday at Central Market in center city Lancaster. I love both of them (at one time I worked at both) but always go to Root’s on Tuesdays. The produce is fresh and much cheaper than the supermarket. Today I bought Romaine for a salad and it was raised just a few miles from me. I also found wonderful strawberries (I know they are not local) that are beautiful and actually smell like what they are. I’m also going to use them with my salad with an easy homemade dressing for dinner tonight. You can schedule your stay to coincide with market days and go home with fresh produce and meat.

Kathy looking forward to dinner.

We’ve had our first snow of the season. It was the kind that we love; it looked nice, you don’t have to plow and it goes away without getting dirty. When you live in the country snow can become a big pain but when I watch the news and see large snows in the cities ours looks good. We just make piles of snow in the yard (or anyplace we can pile it). On the other side when it really snows we are in to stay until the plows come through. We just live prepared.

Now take the little snow and add the beautiful Christmas lights,  how beautiful does that get! I was out last night and noticed that many homes are really lit up for the Christmas season. When I was a child we would set a night aside to go out and see the lights. I have some very fond memories of that event. As an adult I wonder about it……my parents were “plain people” and the most we had was a tree and some electric candles in the windows, so why the fascination with other people’s lights?

The event went off beautifully. We had between 80-100 people. The food donated to the food bank was tremendous and they were most grateful. We hope that many people will benefit from everyones generosity. Will we do this project again, ask me in May