Paid in full . . . My fiancé drives while I fold the receipt, then recite the shop owner's directions.

steam-bent wheels
drawing the Amish
closer
a broad-brimmed straw hat
a horse's blinders

The road rolls over gentle hills.  Clusters of orange daylilies fill the ditches. Here, houses and barns are weathered white, the gardens rich in hue.

modest cuts
and plain fabrics
the farmer's wife
in her prayer cap
pinning laundry

Even though the schoolhouse is immaculately white, we almost miss it. The small building is nestled amid green pastures and well-tended farms.

without a sign
to denote its purpose
one room for a school
a white butterfly
on a purple coneflower

a doe
on the grass path
with her mate
a wooden barrel full
of yesterday’s rain

Further down, on one side of a row of Osage-orange, an "English" farm, two dogs tied out.

the old draft horse
tethered
and nibbling
peaceably
in a makeshift manger

winter wheat
for their daily bread
the harvesters
with their scythes
cut the grain

the older boys
never more
than a step
behind their fathers
tent the sheaves

On the other side of a covered bridge, we pull a few heads of wheat from our pockets, rub them against our palms, blow away the chaff and taste the grain.