Flight of the Quill: March 2021

I'm sorry this is a day late; I completely forgot about it😬

Katie Miller is the mother of seven children, four girls and three boys, the second youngest of which is my mother. She has twenty-seven grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren, as well. She was born and raised and has remained Amish. Some of the things she enjoys doing are quilting, baking pies, playing board and card games, and talking with her friends. She wants you to guess how old she is😁

Me and Grandma.... Excuse my expression😂🙄

What is your favorite traditional Amish food?

Rivvel soup. The recipe:

Rivvel (rub) one cup of flour and one egg together with your hands to make crumbs. In the meantime, brown 1/4 cup butter in a medium-sized soup-pot. When the butter is browned, pour in one quart of milk, and heat to boiling. Add salt and pepper to taste. Turn off heat, and add your rivvels, stirring with a fork to break up the lumps. Cover immediately, and let set for at least five minutes, until the rivvels are cooked all the way through. Serve with saltine crackers and bread with apple butter. Enjoy.

(From Caitlyn: I'm lactose intolerant, so this sounds nasty! But if you like milk, you will probably like this.)

What things do you enjoy doing?

Quilting and baking pies.

What is your favorite thing about being Amish?

How the people stand together through thick and thin, and are always there for someone in a time of need.

What do you like to cook/bake?

Casseroles, pies, and ho-ho cake.

Did you ever play any instruments?

Harmonica

Do you come from a large family?

No, I only have two sisters. But most Amish have large families.

That's it for today!

~Caitlyn O'Brien

Hi! What have you all been doing lately?

A while back, I did a guest post with my mom, about her life growing up as an Amish girl. Now, her mom (Katie Miller) is here for a month-long visit, and she has agreed to do a Q&A with me. This is how it works:

You may comment and ask her any question you like about the Amish. The deadline for questions is March 28, and then on March 29, I will type up her answers, and post them. Please be respectful😊

Moving on..... We have been pretty busy here lately. Yesterday, we painted the basement (which was in sore need of a fresh coat of paint). Well, technically, we put the first coat of paint on the doors and the baseboards on Thursday evening. Then, yesterday, we got started about 10:00, and put on the second coat of paint. Then, while that dried, we painted a bookcase that has not been painted for seven or eight years (my sister found tremendous satisfaction in painting over her name, which she wrote on the bookcase in colored pencil when she was seven). By the time the bookcase was finished, we could already start on the walls. One wall is concrete block, with the coal stove in from of it, so we only painted the other three walls. We painted two of the three remaining walls a pale, earthy green, and the remaining one a darker shade of the same earth green. My sister roller-painted one of the pale-green walls, and then I volunteered to do the other. I spent two and a half long, boring hours on a ladder, painting the other wall, and putting the second coat on both walls. It was terribly dull, but at least it went a lot faster than it would have if we would have had to do that by hand, with a paintbrush. By six o'clock, we were ready to do the darker green wall, which Mama did. That took till six-forty-five, and then we went to get hamburgers for supper, because by then we were all ravenous, and we had only had a light lunch. But wouldn't you know, the fast-food place was so. Incredibly. Slow! It was a little after seven before we got home. And oh my! You should have heard the munching😂 The only sounds were smacking lips, and the baby exclaiming, "Mmmmmm!" I honestly think those were the best hamburgers I have ever eaten.

Speaking of the baby.... she turned two the other day😱 How is it already two years?! Happy Birthday, cutie pie.

She is quite precocious (if I do say so myself). She has quite a repertoire of songs including Jesus Loves Me, B-I-N-G-O, Baby Shark, God is Great, Rock-A-Bye-Baby, Wind the Bobbin Up (which she loves to sing at the top of her lungs in church....),and the Hallelujah Chorus (😲). Of course, she doesn't sing the words, just the tune. But still! I can barely sing the Hallelujah Chorus. How could a two-year-old?! However, I will be the first to admit I am not all that great at singing, so it wouldn't be too hard to pass me up in music skills!

The baby can also hold a pencil the right way, and she very carefully "draws" things (huge scribbles that she points at, and says my name. Wait.... so I look like a scribble?!). She tries to draw animals, too. They don't really look like animals; she just scribbles a bit, and then points at the scribbles and makes animals sounds. It's incredibly adorable💜She also likes to try to imitate a crying baby. She scrunches up her face, and almost closes her eyes, ad goes, "Oooh waaah!" It's so cute, I can't even describe it.

Now for some pictures of the young lady who seems to be the heroine of this post (😉😁), A.K.A. my baby sister (wait, I guess she's not a baby anymore. So, my little sister):