The Countryside of Arthur, Illinois

イリノイ州アーサーの農園地域

[Note] If this page is too small to be readable, please enlarge it to 120-125%. Thank you.

After visiting downtown Arthur, we moved to its countryside. The Amish are mostly farmers, and they live in the countryside. It was just a few minutes drive southward, and there were huge farming fields of Central Illinois.

Once we were in the countryside, we began to see lots of Amish people on country roads. To my small surprise, lots of young men rode bicycles for transportation. I also saw a few men ride two-wheeled horse carts, which were a small, low, light-weight, no-roof type. Those world-famous black, roofed Amish buggies were only sporadically seen on roads. Besides, not takinig photoes of Amish people is generally advised around there. So this photo here is the only one that I took from afar of an Amish buggy. (Not to mention, we saw a lot of parked Amish buggies in front of Amish houses while driving in this area.)

This was the first stop in our Arthur countryside drive. Do you remember about the woman at Arcola Tourist Information Center? She had showed us several recommended Amish shops the day before, and this was one of them. It was an Amish quilts shop named "Melrose Quilts and Sewforth." The star-like design on the sign board is one of the famous Amish symbols. So, that mark tells us that this is an Amish shop.

The shop was painted white, like most Amish farm houses are. It looked very clean. We entered the shop. An old couple kept it inside. They seemed to be interested in Japanese, and we had a very good conversation with them. The shop items were mainly rather small quilts such as kitchen gloves, towels, pot mats, tablerunners, tablecloth, and the like. But there were big quilts beddings along the wall, too. I personally bought a few small pot mats and a kitchen towel, any one of which was very beautiful.

The area surrounding this shop was just spacious! What I saw was vast fields, most of which I believe are Amish farms. The white houses you see far must be one Amish farm.

This is a view from this quilts shop's parking space. Probably wheat (or corn?) fields, already harvested.

Animals and Amish farms are closely tied. These are goats. The Amish probably get milk from them and make cheese. Or they may eat meat from time to time.

And a horse. Actually, we saw very many horses in this countryside. Each Amish farm had a horse pen by a roadside and a lot of horses were just hanging around in those pens. Horses are indispensible animals for the Amish. They pull buggies on roads; they draw plows in corn fields.

Our second stop was "Shady Crest Orchard and Farm Market." This was another recommendation of the information center woman. This was a typical Amish orchard and farm, and we saw lots of animals and farm produce. The sign board tells they even provide deli and coffee. Wonderful!

Animal, animal, animal all around. I found a horse at a farm right across from this market. It looked peaceful, quietly enjoying its free time grazing.

There was a goat pen on the left-hand side facing the market. several goats were grazing. One of them seemed to be interested in me because it raised its head, and even came closer to me.

Another group of goats. The goats around here are probably Anglo-nubian. This goat is mainly kept for milk.

Koichiro, one of my students, first found this hitching post at the edge of the parking lot. This is really Amish, right? They need this to tie their horses while shopping at this market.

There was a big pumpkin patch by the market. Do you see lots of pumpkins far? Because Halloween was near, they were lined for easy pick up.

A closer look at pumpkins. Every one of them looks good for Halloween decoration.

While I was walking around, I felt something round under my feet. And they were many! I looked down and found there were tons of apples descarded on the ground. Yes, now was the apple season too, and peole left on the ground the apples that hadn't grown well.

Then I found lots of apple trees standing near me. This one still had many apples on the branches.

Apples of this tree had already been harvested. Only a few were left. But they looked yummy.

A trailer full of harvested apples in crates. Were they waiting for delivery?

Most apples were matured red while a few were still partly green. But all of them were probably Jonathan.

Tons of green Jonathan in a big wooden container by the market building. The label said these were utilities Jonathan. Does that mean we can use these apples for a variety of purposes?

There were red Jonathan by the side of green ones. I should have asked market people why they separated red Jonathan from green.

Day Four continues to the next page.

四日目はさらに次のページへと続きます。