Boud

 I want to direct you to something. 

https://fieldfen.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-shadbush-shad-and-gift-economy.html

It is written by Boud, whose name is familiar to me from comments on other blogs, but I haven't 'met' her yet. I'm not sure why. 

The post is a timely reminder for anyone wringing their hands and wondering what to do. We help. That's what we do. We look around and and we help as best we can. 

I had an experience in that yesterday that I will add to her words. 

Mattie and her mother in law needed a ride yesterday. 'Grandma' has had some difficulties, and had some work done on her leg. She had an appointment at the doctor's for a followup yesterday, which struck my ear as strange, because I don't know many doctor offices that are seeing patients on a Saturday, but hey...it was a morning out, so I didn't mind. 

I picked my way up the hill. It is icy here, and their driveways are sloped. Their driveways are covered in such a sheet of ice one can scarcely walk on them, let alone get a Suburu up them, even with four wheel drive kicked in. The house driveway was a definite no go. I went sideways immediately, and allowed the car to slide slowly back into the road trying to keep a handle on the slide so that I did not wind up in a ditch. I was successful. 

By that time, Levi was out. He called, "Try the middle driveway." Which I did. I got a bit farther, but still, my car wound up going side ways. I let it slide back down into the road. The ditches were a little less worrisome on this driveway, which was good, because I was much more 'sideways' than I had been on the house driveway. 

I hated to have grandma walk. Levi called, "Are you any good at backing up?" I said, "Well...yeah..." and he suggested trying that. I was doubtful, but I gave it a go. Levi called, "I'll direct you..." Worried no doubt about some logs and a piece of sawmill equipment that is pulled by a horse. I called back from my open car window, "I'd rather have you stay back. If I slide sideways or something, I'd hate to hit you. You're ornery, but I'd sure feel bad if I killed you," and his teeth flashed in his beard. "Oh, I wouldn't feel anything when you were done," and he laughed. 

I am proud to say that I backed that car right up the icy slope to where Mattie and Grandma stood. Didn't spin much at all, and definitely did not go sideways. As I often do, I found myself wondering just how an Amish man knows how to get a car up a icy hill, but I do not ask a lot of questions. 

Anyways, we got loaded up and headed back down the hill. 

The doctor's office was locked up and dark. I privately thought that they'd made a mistake on the date, but no, Grandma had her appointment card. Thinking perhaps that he'd had trouble getting in on the icy roads, I called the number on it, and left a message asking for instructions, and we ducked across the road to get gas. 

I hadn't even begun to fill the tank when my phone began to ring in the car. Mattie will not touch the phone, but luckily, it was still in my wallet, so she did hand it to me. It was the doctor who impatiently explained that he'd had his receptionist call all his appointments to cancel them. They did not have a phone number for Iva. 

I said, "Well...she is Amish..."

In any case, that took care of that. Rides in to town are not wasted, and so we had some shopping to get done at the grocery store, Mattie had a prescription to fill for David, and grandma was hoping that the eyeglass place in Walmart could fix her glasses. The nose piece had fallen off. 

Mattie was doing baking for church. They bake in quantities not understood by us mere mortals, and she needed more eggs than her molting hens were producing. She was a bit shocked to see eggs priced at $5.42 a dozen at Aldi's. She thought that she might wait to get to Walmart. "Hopefully, they will be cheaper there," she said. 

Later, at Walmart, she stood in dismay in front of a display of eggs priced at $6.82 a dozen. 

I had just bought 4 dozen eggs from my niece. I use a dozen a week, but I still had 3 dozen left. I said, "I pay $3 a dozen to buy them from Ange. You can have them for what I paid for them. Will that help?" 

And she felt badly about taking them, but "making for church" is a very big deal to them, and the women take great pride in an abundant spread. I asked her if that would be enough. She said, "Well, if I could get 2 or 3 dozen more by Friday..."

I said, "Well, when I get home, Tim and I are headed to the new house. We'll see if Ange has more eggs." The ride back up on the hill was filled with talk about eggs, and the prices of eggs. I shared a story about Jim and Allison and $12. eggs, which had them stunned anew. 'What were people going to do?' they wondered. 

Long story short, after we dropped the ladies off and got the car unloaded, I texted my niece. She had 10 dozen eggs. She'd sell me 8. I picked up 8 dozen for $24, and when we headed back home, we went the long way home. We dropped off 3 more dozen eggs with Mattie. When we walked back out across the icy driveway, Tim had their $9 in his pocket and a bowl of homemade ice cream under his belt. I dropped off a dozen eggs for Grandma who was pleased we thought of her and straightaway went for her wallet to count out her $3. One the way down the hill, we stopped at Tim's daughter's house, and gave her a dozen too, which she was glad to get. 

At the end of the day, eight dozen eggs minus 5 dozen we handed off left me with 3 dozen eggs, eggzactly what I had taken from the fridge to give to Mattie to start with. I was no poorer, eggwise, than I'd been at the beginning of the day. We were out $3 for the dozen we'd given to his daughter, but no more. But, you know, I felt much richer in a way that I couldn't articulate. 

Boud is right. Thank you, Kris for calling the post to my attention.