Research Trip To Kalona, Iowa

The Kalona Salebarn had a draft horse sale last Monday and Tuesday. We aren’t in the market to buy, but we love to watch the large work horses prance around the ring put through their paces by Amish farmers. The place was packed so I know we aren’t the only ones who like to watch. For me, it’s a good chance to study Amish families so it’s a research day.

In back, the salebarn has a walk way above the holding pens so we toured over the horses. Evidently, we weren’t close enough to get a good look. My husband decided we should walk down between the pens. Up close, the draft horses look like giants which was way too close for me. Paying more attention to what was in the pens than the alley, I soon found myself standing right where a pair of large black horses needed to go to be put in a pen which was behind me. I danced one way then the other and came to a halt behind my husband who flattened himself against a pen until the horses walked by.

We took a tour of the parking lot. The day before had been a sale of old machinery, buggies and the unusual. One small enclosed buggy caught my attention. I was trying to figure out where the door for it was when one man said if I had been there on Monday I could have bought the buggy. I told him I didn’t know what I would do with it. We didn’t have a horse to hook to it. I never did find the door.

The strangest sight for me was a carriage that reminded me of the one in the Cinderella fairy tale. I always take my camera, looking for Amish pictures that might work on a book cover. I couldn’t resist getting a shot of the carriage minus Cinderella.

I took some pictures of the row of parked Amish buggies. The latest style of buggy must be a small, square plexi glass, one seat buggy. Light weight and easy to see out of all the way around. Looked like the only way to climb in was over the seat. On our ride in the country, we passed one such buggy with two young girls in it. I don’t take close ups of Amish people so I didn’t take their picture in the buggy. I did come home with plenty of farm scenes and a one room school which I will be using in my next book in the Nurse Hal Among The Amish series. Check out some of my book covers to see the pictures I’ve used. Plexi glass buggy is near the far end of the picture.

Amish cooks had baked many pies and angel food cakes for the bake sale and a grill was going to serve lunches. Just looking at the pies made me hungry for a rhubarb pie so as soon as we got home I went to my garden and pulled enough stalks to bake a pie. The first pie of the season always tastes the best.

The salebarn Amish cafe was really busy. Guess many had the same thought we did that if we ate at eleven we’d beat the rush. No such luck, but we knew about another good place to eat. We wanted to stop by the Mennonite grocery store so we ate in the deli there.

Since it was Tuesday the Amish stores in the country weren’t open. It’s their day off. We drove around, admiring the Amish gardens and picturesque farmsteads. One garden had the biggest cabbage or cauliflower plants I’ve seen for this time of year. I can’t imagine when the seed had to be planted in the house or greenhouse to grow plants that big. Some gardens had rows of milk jugs with fragile plants under them.

We stopped by a well known Raha green house near Wellman to just look around. I have all the tomato plants and peppers I need which I started in February and always enough flowers carried over from the year before to set out. What caught my eye was the pots of Cassia didymobotrya which is known as popcorn cassia. The sign said smell the leaves. I rubbed a leave between my thumb and finger. Believe it or not, the smell is like buttered popcorn and the flowers are yellow and shaped something like popcorn. As usual, I waited until I was home to wish I had bought one of those plants for my mother-in-law. Oh well, maybe we’ll be going back soon. I’ll pick up a plant next time.