Road Trip - Day 10 - Intercourse

After being treated to a lovely breakfast by Hilda we set off in search of Intercourse - a town in the Lancaster County and what a gorgeous town it was, full of Amish furniture (they could put Ikea to shame - good quality, handmade & cheap) produce, craft, fabric, wool, antiques, food, candles, quilts, soaps, and shops that sold lots of nik nak type of things it was great. My first stop was at Lancaster Yarn Shop  where I got some gorgeous wool for a cardigan I'm knitting, the yarn shop also sold hand dyed wool from the region I was very tempted.

We then came across a great place called Kettle Kitchen Village - it was a place full of shops, over 40 local shops in one outdoor shopping village, filled with homemade Lancaster County food, fresh baked goods and tasty canned goods - it was truly an awesome place and well worth a visit, it was a place to get buggy rides, have pony rides, there was a little farm area and playground for the kids it was lovely, the girls had a pony ride each of course.

Next stop I found a fabric shop a fantastic fabric shop so much better than my local one in Chicago for choice, I was very surprised but then the area is rich in homemade quilts. I did manage a purchase of fabric I've been after for ages.

Next stop back to the village for lunch then it was time to head to our official farm stay - our home for the next 3 days.

So we arrived at The Homestead our Amish farm stay for the next 3 nights/4 days, on arrival we met Martha our host, Martha is married to Stephen and they have 8 children (9 but the eldest boy died) ranging from 17 years to 23 months old, and each have a role in the family - the older girls help mum out and work outside the house but within the Amish Community, the boys help look after the farm, we were always seeing the older boys tending to the farm, mowing the lawns, milking Caramel the 3 teat-ed Jersey Cow, mucking out the stables etc, even Stephen Jr aged 5 had jobs to do, he took out the trash and collected the eggs, Ruby and Tilly took to Stephen Jr and Malinda (23 months) and helped Stephen Jr with his chores as well as playing with them all the time.

After settling in, we had heard that the best ice cream in the USA was sold from a dairy farm down the road, well we couldn't pass up that opportunity now could we, so off we went to Lapp Valley Farm to sample the delicious ice cream and truly delicious it was and why is it so delicious because it's made from the milk of Jersey cows -  The Lapp family who own the farm make all their ice cream & other dairy products on the farm itself from the milk produced by the Jersey cows (this milk is noted for the higher butterfat, calcium, and protein). Ruby now calls the beautiful Jersey cow an ice cream cow.

Ever seen a drive through Ice Cream shop? No well not only did the farm serve fantastic ice cream in the shop it also had a drive through, how cool is that? and what did we see, not a car that pulled up, but an Amish buggy, it pulled right up to the drive through window, they ordered their goods, paid for them and left, we were so glad to have witnessed this.

After our ice cream I dropped Mr C & the girls off at the farm driveway, whilst I went back to Intercourse for some needles to get started on my next knitting project with the Yarn I had bought earlier - I just couldn't wait to get started.

Whilst I was out, the girls got acquainted with the children, and helped milk Caramel, I joined them whilst Caramel was still being milked, which Ruby had a go at, we then visited the horses and the girls played in the barn, they also discovered a great play house.

After a lovely smorgasbord dinner at  Shady Maples dinner it was time to retire - we'd had such a busy day it was lovely to retire to our room with no TV for distraction.