Sunday, June 14, 2009

Sunday Ramble in Amish Country

Living on the edge of a large Amish community has many nice advantages, perhaps the greatest being very low traffic roads. Especially on Sunday mornings. Alex and I took a 29 mile bike tour this morning through our neighboring Amish country. Of course, Sunday mornings means church, so no buggies on the road this morning.


It was a perfect morning for riding, with no wind and temps in the low 60's. From a half mile away, we could smell new mown hay. Here it is having been raked yesterday. This hay will be ready for bailing maybe Tuesday, if it dries out enough. The first cutting is late this year because it has been so wet farmers couldn't get into their fields until recently. Of course, getting corn and soybeans planted is first priority, making hay second.


Many Amish homesteads have purple martin houses. This is one of my favorite martin house complexes - made from dried gourds.


It is part of a larger complex below:


Check out this garden. There are many beautiful gardens in this area. It is fun to look at them along the way.


These turkey vultures were waiting for us when we got home. Fortunately they were asleep and they didn't see us. Of course they wouldn't have bothered us if they did see us, but I always flop my arms when turkey vultures are around just so they know I'm still kickin'.


Happy riding!

6 comments:

jeff said...

Sounds like a nice ride with beautiful weather. I'll take as many of those as I can get.

Rat Trap Press said...

Wow, temps in the 60's. That's nice.

I was wondering what those bird houses were made from. I like them.

Big Oak said...

Jeff - you and me both.

RTP - they are dried gourds. We used to grow vegetables and flowers to sell at local farmers markets. Dried gourds have always been a popular seller. There is even an organization that promotes using dried gourds and sharing seed for hard-to-find varieties. http://www.americangourdsociety.org/

Mike J said...

That looks like a great ride. I love the gourds. Rides with a lot of things to see are awesome.

Doohickie said...

Yeah, I'd like the 60 degree temps again too! The morning low tomorrow here will be the mid-70s and it only gets hotter from there!

I love how green everything looks up there. It's not too bad down here but in another few weeks everything will turn brown :(

rlove2bike said...

Looks to be some very nice riding. I like...Low Traffic.