@bonmots - aww thank you so much, the Amish romance novels are pretty lame.  She had me see if I could find any on the internet for an ereader.  I found a couple but they mostly involved holding hands and buggy riding.  It is sort of difficult picturing you in the bonnet and the Amish get up.

@crazy2love - Oh I love the snow, it's so peaceful, it's just that my back doesn't enjoy the shoveling but then I just pay someone to do it for me when we get a lot.

@ohellino - I think at least 75% of the farms around here are Amish.  It's crazy but then they have such big families so they need to buy more land to work.  Some aren't even farming, they just work doing carpentry and other work like that.  I've designed the last three floats, maybe one of these days I'll post photos from the other years for comparison.

@sleekpunk - well thank you so much, I just get feeling down sometimes.  Hahaha...inner city...city of 1400.  Actually there are housing projects on the block as the library so maybe I am.

@leaflesstree - I actually had thought of that but the girl at the cash register who was putting out fresh cheese curds caught me trying it on.

@James2012 - glad you liked

@Thatslifekid - I remember being called a racist over that bar.  I thought nothing of the name until an African American fellow called me a racist after I told him it was a popular bar in town.

@promisesunshine - well I guess that is a step to cutting down the intake, glad you enjoyed the photos.

@musicmom60 - there used to be cheese factories everywhere but they pretty much got bought up by the big companies.  We had a large one in my town but it closed, sat empty for years, got bought by some Chinese businessmen and they made energy drinks but they were sent to China and then the FDA shut them down and now it's a butter factory.  Glad you enjoyed.

@heythereJOANN - I will, if the wine with the actual grapes doesn't turn out then I'm going to try to make wine with frozen juice concentrate.

@RestlessButterfly - glad you enjoyed

@emily_shannon - I don't rightly know, I think it'll turn out to be just regular table wine but my aunt told me about someone she knows that doesn't want their grapes and they have huge grape vines so I just want to experiment.  I'll have to post photos of the other floats I've made.

@ElevenStones - Well it's a cheese factory in the middle of Amish country.  It's not run by Amish but it is because the milk they use comes from Amish farms.  They make a ghost pepper cheese, it's the hottest thing I've ever eaten.

@nattata - yeah it's pretty cool that they do that, they get a lot of tourists because of the Amish country and people wanting to see them.  Anyway, here's the cheese factory website.  I don't know if they ship to Germany though.

@dingus6 - yeah after the parade we parked it along the parade route and there were about 3 dozen people staring at it

@StrawberrySunrises - thank you, glad you liked

@hxckendra - well you wouldn't like these because these Amish are Old Order and some I think are Older Order.  There is one community where the bishops have forbidden their members from painting their houses because it's a sign of vanity.  Then there is this one community that lost a couple families because these guys besides being farmers also worked as carpenters and they were working on a house in the winter so they wore stocking caps.  The bishop got wind and came down on them for wearing these caps and not the traditional straw hats.  They petitioned but all the elders wouldn't allow for stocking caps.  They also can't wear deodorant because that is body adornment.

@EmilyandAtticus - yeah I love living in this rural area, it provides a lot of fun.  I'm glad you enjoy the blog.

@Aloysius_son - yeah it comes in real handy if the computer ever goes out, the drawback is that people sit outside my house to get the free wifi at all hours of the day

@AncoraImparo - The prices are pretty cheap actually.  I got this bag of gummi fruit slices.  It's about 2lbs and it's only $2.50 whereas the Dollar General has the same candy for $1 for an 8oz bag.  I got a 2lb bag of bacon bits for like $2.  I got these soup mixes that each bag gives me about 15 bowls and it was $4.  I got caught as I was trying it on to take the photo.  That's a mandella.  It was a combination shield/good luck charm for tipis.

@starmanjones - words are stupid

@TiRocKiinPiinK - well there was one time when I was working downtown and a guy asked if there were any good bars in town and I told him to go to Nig's.  He then called me a racist.  I never thought of that name as being potentially bad until then.  I have at least two big cheese factories around me.  One I can never get to because they have weird hours.

@spinner_mom - I was thinking of doing a Xanga contest and giving away a bonnet but I don't know what sort of contest to hold.