"The Amish Mall"

Hello, everyone.

If you have been following along for a bit, you know that I'm working on completing my goal list of 40 things to do before I turn 20. Why in the world I would want to try to finish 40 goals in a little over a year, while working and going to nursing school, is beyond me. I am not one to give up, so I've been trudging through this goal list and working like crazy to complete the items on said list. Last week I realized that I'm almost 20. This scared me because I know I am nowhere near finished with this huge list of mine. So, I got out my handy dandy planner and started scheduling when I would do each goal and when I would post about it. Turns out, in order to finish in time, I have to finish and post about 4-5 goals per week. Yikes. Did I mention I still have to work, and clean the apartment, and make dinner and sleep...this doesn't leave much time for goal finishing. I'm determined to finish this list, though. 

All of this introduction is really just as disclaimer...a warning, if I may. I will be posting lots and lots over the next few weeks. They won't be boring posts. You might actually find them entertaining..or inspiring. Maybe you will create your very own list of goals to complete before your next birthday. There is one thing that is great about this list and that is all of the fun things it forces you to do. If I didn't come up with this list of things I wanted to accomplish before leaving my teenage years, I would be sitting here reading blogs all day...not doing activities that allow me to experience life and to grow as a person.

Overall, it is crunch time for me.

 Hence this post: A weekend trip with my mother to "The Amish Mall" and getting to sneaking in to pet a cow. Two more goals checked off my list. 

Just one more warning before you read on: 

"The Amish Mall" is not for the faint of heart. 

Only true antique lovers and thrift shoppers should involve themselves in such a place. If the country side makes you a little uneasy, you might as well just stick to the shopping mall.

We had heard rumors of the Amish mall, a place where you could walk through trailer after trailer of discounted items. Anything from tools to kitchen ware. Last weekend, after a day of antiquing with my mother, we set out for this magical place. The Holy Grail of bargain shopping. The place where everyday seems like Black Friday. We knew it was in the middle of nowhere. We set off in the car in search of this place and drove for what seemed like forever. Past farm after farm after farm. It seemed like we were driving on one particular dirt road for at least 20 minutes, this was the road that we were told it was on. After driving way out of the Verizon service coverage and seeing no sign of the place, we turned around with little hope of getting to visit the Amish mall. 

We ended up stopping at an Estate sale about 10 minutes back down the road. The woman running the sale offered us water, but had heard of no such place. We visited with her for about 30 minutes when another family pulled up to the sale. They knew right where the Amish mall was. After they directed us to the farm we were looking for (which happened to be 2 houses past the middle of nowhere where we turned around originally) we eagerly set off.

When we finally arrived, we waited in the driveway for at least ten minutes. We yelled "hello!" a few times and pet the puppies that were laying around outside. Nobody came. We were even waiting right next to a horse and buggy that someone had parked in the driveway earlier. No sign of anyone coming to show us around any time soon. 

Right when I was ready to give up and leave again, a man peeked through the doorway of the house. He had a long beard, homemade clothes on and no shoes. He told us to look around all we wanted and to come back and knock when we found what we wanted. With his instructions, we took off and started meekly peeking into the trailers. The photo above is of me with the first sections of trailers we looked at.

They were each separated by a footpath to walk down. Notice the view in the window behind my mother. That is what the insides looked like. Piles and piles of the most random items. Shelves were knocked over, things were thrown on the floor, piled in buckets, and hanging on walls. There seemed to be no organization at all. Horse ropes laid next to tools which lay next to Easter egg dye kits. He seemed to buy these products in bulk and resell them far cheaper than other stores did. Every single item was labeled with an ID number and a price, though. It was very, very bizarre. 

Here is an example of one of the walls. This trailer must have been the glove trailer. There had to be at least 20-30 trailers on this man's farm. We just kept wandering around between these random trailers and looking to see if anything caught our eye. The first thing to catch my eye was the cows!

We weaved through what seemed to be their family cemetery, behind the trailers and right towards the cows. I was not about to miss this opportunity to check pet a cow off of my list. I walked right past their barn, through the weeds and stuck my arm over the fence in an attempt to pet these cows. Just when we were trying to get photo proof, an Amish man came out of nowhere to see what the puppies were all barking at.

We stopped dead in our tracks and started slowly moving away from the cows.

 He looked like he was about to kick us off of his land for sneaking out past the barn. Luckily, my mom tried to break the silence and mentioned that I was trying to pet a cow for my goal list. This seemed like an innocent enough reason to be way past the shopping area, through their personal barn and hanging over their fence, I thought. He stuttered: "Pet a cow? I don't think you'll have much luck with those big ones." I looked at him and said something along the lines of "Well, I guess not. That's okay." and he interrupted me and asked if baby cows would work. 

Would they work?! I would love to pet baby cows! I was so excited that he thought that I wasn't from "around here." I must have seemed like some city girl who has never seen a blade of grass before. I let him know that we were only 20 minutes away and usually had chickens, and explained that I just really love cows.

He let us in the barn to pet the babies and we talked to him for a good ten minutes. We were very lucky that he was a kind man, and didn't yell at us.

One even started licking my hand.

Here is a video I took of the cow licking my hand. The photos were coming out horribly due to the lighting and the fact that I was using my Iphone. Excuse my giddiness. I clearly was not keeping my composure. I was also rattling my camera everywhere..sorry about that, too.

After the cow incident, we thanked the man and wandered back through the trailers. We looked for a little bit longer before we left. I ended up getting a spice rack, two tubes of chap stick, a meat thermometer and new needles for my sewing machine all for $10 even.

Yesterday, My mom and I met up again and went to this huge CO-OP with "200 great shops under one roof." It took us an hour and a half to get through the whole place. I love this apron I found.

My mom wants me to make her this, so I took a picture.

Some vintage mannequin heads. 

There is my mom shaking the hand of a very life like person in Scrooge's village.

We stopped at Michaels and I finally got some washi tape. I ended up getting these adorable ceramic measuring spoons and a homemade bag with roses on it. Overall, we had a great time shopping these two days and made lots of memories. 

Have you ever been or heard of a place like the Amish Mall? Would you go to it?