Yesterday I blogged about the trip my spouse and I are planning to take in October and November to historic places in the US southwest. Today my wonder spouse and I took a different kind of trip - back in time.
I'm happy to report that crops growing in the "Great Black Swamp" area that I blogged about several days ago are flourishing. The field corn is tall and the stalks are turning yellow, almost ready to harvest. The soybean plants are drying and about ready to pick. We were able to buy tomatoes and an onion (locally grown) at our favorite produce market and bread, pumpkin bread and apple bread at our favorite bakery.
What makes this a trip back in time is that all of this is happening in the heart of Amish country northeast of Fort Wayne. What we see, as we drive from place to place, are horses grazing in pastures, and at one farm, six horses hitched to a wide plow and turning up the good black earth in an already harvested field. And all of this happens in vast expanses of flat, flat land, the remnants of the footprint of a glacier from thousands of years ago.
With just a little imagination, it's easy to picture this land as it was 250 years ago - swampy and covered with trees. Early canals and trains opened this area to settlement by farmers who obviously made the most of the opportunity. I do not mean to belittle the impact on Native Americans in this area but that's an earlier story for another blog.
Today we simply enjoyed the feeling of driving through history.
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