Having Amish for Dinner

When I told my friends that we were having Amish for dinner, I got all the predictable responses, e.g. 'How will you prepare them?' or 'Slow cooked?' or 'With a very plain sauce?'  so if you're thinking of any Amish jokes, I've probably already heard them.


So anyway, I should have titled this, 'Having Amish Guests for Dinner,' but how fun would that have been.

Kevin's cousin and three young Amish friends showed up at 7 PM on our (not quite finished) front porch and knocked on the door last Friday evening. They did not arrive by horse and buggy, but by VW Bug - gunmetal gray, which Eric (the non Amish) was driving, of course.

 Cute VW Bug in Westby

Ugly Norwegian Trolls ;-)

(Eric and my husband)

As I said, Eric and the Amish guys arrived by VW Bug, not by...

 Horse and Buggy

In fact, while they were still en route from Westby to our house, I got a phone call from Eric. I told him that I should have reminded the Amish guys not to wear dark clothing because we have an abundance of dog hair. (Joke, get it? Because they always wear dark clothing, of course. Long pause, waiting for laughter...) ANYway, he had me on speaker phone, so I think they got a kick out of that - or wondered what they were getting themselves into.

I tried to take their drink orders, but they responded with

'Anything's okay'

'No matter'

'I don't care, you choose' (or something like that)

I told them they didn't carry those kinds at the BP.

I think they didn't want to seem demanding. When coaxed, they came up with a couple names. So Kevin and I made a little trip to the BP for Pepsi and Mountain Dew.

I had a big beef stew and apple crisp ready to serve them for dinner. I thought those were pretty safe. Even my kids never said, 'I hate that!' to those two.

 Actually, a workshop of one of the guys who visited us

 Juxtaposition
I wonder which one's Eric's...

Like any young, intelligent, and fun young men, these Amish guys (and Eric) were great dinner companions. We had a lot of fun conversation, and either they were really polite in wanting seconds, or they actually enjoyed the dinner.

They discussed things like how they collect ice, how they store it (for refrigeration in the summertime), how they made the woodworking project we had ordered (and which they delivered), and Kevin served one of them coffee in our Lehman's Hardware Store mug from the store in Ohio. They were very familiar with Lehman's, of course.

None of them had ever been this far north before last Friday, and Eric suspects that none of them had ever before eaten a meal in the home of 'an English.'. 

Before they left, Kevin offered them additional cans of soda for the long 3-hour trip home. Eric lamented the fact that the soda would mean extra pit stops. Kevin reminded him that there were always field drives to accommodate them. At this point, one of the young men said, 

'What happens in the corn field stays in the corn field.'

Now you wouldn't expect to hear that from an Amish guy, right?? !  We got a big laugh out of that.

I'll have to order more woodworking projects and maybe we'll get them back up here for another dinner. :-)

Before he left, Eric brought in a gift for me: a big leaf from an epiphyllum oxypetalum. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it!) I stuck it in the soil next to one of my jade plants. I hope it survives.

So lest you think that the Amish are so very different from us, just remember that all the dark clothing and 19th century technology aside, they're  just.  like.  us.

The above photo is of Amish cows. You couldn't tell the difference now, could you!  :-)

P.S. When I said something to my daughter about 'the Amish boys,' she said, 'They sound like a rock band, Mom - THE AMISH BOYZ, with a Z'  

I'll have to suggest it to them. I wonder if they're open to moonlighting.

***

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