Making a Flower Bed
By Ira Wagler
June 4, 2007

   I live without a woman in Leola and have some issues getting things done which women usually do. My wash never gets done, my dishes never get washed, and my fridge is usually empty. Early this spring I discovered an old flowerbed in front of my house. I walked past it a hundred times and never noticed how weedy and trashy it looked. Once upon a time it was a nice flowerbed but by 2007 it looked more like a redneck garden. All that remained were a few tulips and a daffodil. This is how it looked.

 

One Saturday I got the urge to clean it up so grabbed a shovel and started digging out weeds and grass.  A few hours later the flower bed looked like this.

   The next step was to buy some flowers so I drove to Ken’s Gardens in Smoketown. Now this was a strange trip. I dodged old people and angry women for awhile, as I walked around and picked out flowers that looked nice. I had some trouble discerning the difference between annuals and perennials. I finally decided annuals are flowers that bloom every year but later found out I was wrong.

I purchased a great variety of flowers including Petunias, Poppies, and Geraniums. I also bought a few bushes that looked pretty neat, and a few tomatoes, onions, and pumpkin seeds for my garden I took them home and planted them. Now that I had the flowers planted I decided I need some mulch so I went and bought a truck load and when I was done putting it on, the flowerbed looked pretty neat.

   A few days later something ate all the leaves off my tomatoes. I think it was a fat old groundhog that lives under my house. I tried to kill it but had no luck. 
   A few months have now passed and the flowerbed still looks pretty neat. The Geraniums are blooming and the tomatoes have grown back and the fat old groundhog hasn’t munched on them again. Hopefully he got sick after he maliciously attacked them.

I water the plants every few days and pull the evil weeds whenever I feel like it. None of the flowers have died, the flower bed looks pretty neat and I’m proud of it.
   

   I also made this little flowerbed and planted Spreading Petunias in the old wooden box above it. 


Please check back later to find out if the flowerbed survives the summer in if the tomatoes actually bear any fruit.

COOKING

The following article, featuring Wilma Wagler, a Bird in Hand Amish Mennonite woman, appeared in the Lancaster Sunday News on April 22, 2007. Since the article was printed, she's been inundated with response from the local community. Everyone was amazed to see a Beachy woman in the paper. Now she is also on the internet so she will become even more famous.

A 'little bit of this and a little bit of that'
By PATRICIA POIST

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa - Ella Lapp describes her mother, Wilma Wagler, as "an Amish cook."

That means the Bird in Hand mother of five can make all the "old-fashioned" stuff, such as homemade noodles. And, each summer, she cans her own vegetables and fruits.

"She's a wonderful cook and can make almost anything," Ella said.

Wilma, 46, grew up Amish in Iowa (she is now Amish-Mennonite) and, as among the Plain culture, cooking and baking have always been a part of her life.

"I have many recipes that aren't written down that I learned from my mother and grandmother ... add a little bit of this and a little bit of that," said Wilma, who runs a construction business with her husband, Stephen, and who is also a volunteer for Hospice of Lancaster County.

Wilma said she loves to experiment with new recipes "but," she said, "my family prefers the tried-and-true, which I've always made."

She finds cooking easiest in the summertime because she grows her own produce. "So it's vegetables and salad from the garden and meat on the grill every evening," she said.

Since last year, after reading "SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life," by Steven G. Pratt and Kathy Matthews, Wilma started putting a big effort into incorporating healthy food into her family's diet.
Three spices I could not live without: Lawry's Seasoned Salt. My mother used it a lot. Cinnamon. It adds so much to pastries. Red pepper on main dishes and salads, but just on my plate, because it is too hot for some people. It's very healthy and adds a lot of zest.
A favorite cookbook: "Weavertown School Family Cooking Cookbook." I have quite a few Mennonite cookbooks, but I also enjoy collecting some of the more modern cookbooks.
You will never catch me doing this in the kitchen: Picking (nibbling) while I cook.
Culinary specialties: I make all my bread with wheat that I grind fresh.
A meal that I most enjoy: My family — my husband and five children, one son-in-law and one grandson — likes to come to Sunday dinner. I love my refrigerator mashed potatoes, which I can make the day before and have ready in the oven when we get home from church. With meat, along with a vegetable and a salad, this makes a quick meal.
One of my favorite recipes:

PIZZA CASSEROLE

• 2½ pounds of hamburger

• 1 small chopped onion

• ½ cup spaghetti

• 1 quart pizza sauce

• 1 cup sour cream

• 3 cups of grated cheese, cheddar or other favorite

• 1/2 cup flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 2/3 teaspoon salt

• ½ cup milk

• 3½ tablespoons Miracle Whip or mayonnaise

• ¼ cup vegetable oil

Fry hamburger with onion. Cook spaghetti. Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Add milk and oil and mix. Press in bottom of 9x13-inch pan. Put hamburger mixture on top, then spaghetti, followed by pizza sauce. Mix sour cream, Miracle Whip or mayonnaise, and cheese; put on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Enjoy!

 Thanks to the Lancaster Sunday News for letting us print this article. We don't really like Lancaster Newspapers due to their liberal bias and innacurate reporting on Amish and Mennonites, but we decided to put our differences aside for now.