BY LOVINA EICHER
It is 6:30 a.m. on August 11. I am sitting beside daughter Verena’s bed at the children’s hospital. She had surgery on her foot yesterday and was admitted to the hospital. Doctors were just in here to see her but are not sure if she will be able to go home today. She had some pain through the night but is now taking some pain medicine and sleeping really well. Since the surgery the feeling is back in her right leg and foot. It had been numb from her knee on down since the end of May. We are very excited to see that her feeling is back since the surgery. She’ll have to wear a hard cast for 4 to 6 weeks. The cast comes up to her knee. At night time to go to bed she has to wear a brace on her whole leg to keep it straight. We are also so thankful that her post-concussions have not reoccurred for 2 1 /2 months. We pray they are gone for good. Hopefully she is now on the road to permanent good health.
Daughters Elizabeth and Susan are done de-tasseling corn for this year. I am glad they are finished so that they can be home with the rest of the children while my husband Joe goes to work. Joe did take the day off from the factory yesterday to be up here at the hospital while Verena had her surgery. Our good friend Ruth took time out of her schedule to bring us here. She stayed here with us all day. We sure appreciate what she does to help us out.
This is now Saturday afternoon August 13. Verena ended up having to stay at the hospital until last night. We didn’t arrive home until 8 p.m. I was really glad to see all the children again. Jacob, Emma, and family brought in our supper. It was nice not to have to fix a meal after arriving home. I think daughter Elizabeth was glad for the break also. Her and Susan worked hard but did a good job of fixing the meals and taking care of their younger siblings while we were away. On Friday morning Elizabeth called us at the hospital at 5 a.m. to tell us all our horses were out on the road.. They had some excitement but with the help of others they soon had them back in the field. The horses must have pushed open a gate that was left unlatched.
Elizabeth and Susan took the five youngest children to he dentist for their cleaning on Friday. They took our horse Diamond and the buggy to the dentist office in town I was glad when they called the hospital to let us know they were all home safe and sound. While we were out at the hospital we received the sad, shocking news of the death of a 38-year-old single male in our community. He was killed instantly in a farm accident while making hay. Life is so uncertain. Only God knows when our time here on earth is done.
Joe and the boys did a lot of weeding in the garden. Makes it look a lot better. Hopefully we can get caught up with the garden now. It looks like canning will be in full swing for the next couple of weeks. Tomatoes, hot peppers, red beets, and more green beans are all ready to be canned. I switched my order for peaches until next week when I found out Verena would have to stay at the hospital after surgery. We are still getting quite a few zucchinis form the garden so I will share my zucchini brownies recipe.
ZUCCHINI BROWNIES
4 eggs
1 1 ½ cup oil
2 cups white sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups shredded and peeled zucchini
1 cup nuts
Preheat oven to 350. In a large mixing bowl, beat together eggs, oil, and sugar. In a separate medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, soda, cinnamon, salt, and cocoa. Add to egg, oil, and sugar mixture. Then add vanilla, zucchini and nuts. Mix all together and spread onto a greased 10 X 15 jelly roll pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Can be frosted but are also really good just plain. reprinted with permission from www.amishcookonline.com Richard from Amish Stories. Dont miss Fridays post "Lancaster on 2 wheels folks, great images from Lancasters Amish country side.
