Weekend Blogroll: Amish Snowplows; Snowy Owls, Baked Oatmeal, and Somalia-Amish Commonalities?

Happy Saturday to one and all! We have some neat things on this weekend's blogroll, neat and intriguing.  So wherever this weekend finds you, I hope you enjoy some of this reading.  Let's dive right in:

AMISH SNOWPLOWS:  I've seen these before in my own travels and I just credit this to the resourcefulness of the Amish.  Click here to join Backroads Traveller Tom for a primer on these creative snow movers.

NON-AMISH SNOWPLOWS:   There are snowplows like the ones that dart around my city streets after a flake infestation and then there are SNOWPLOWS, giant behemoths with their massive plows that thunder down the interstate clearing these all important arteries of ice.  I can tell you when traveling on an icy interstate those plow and salt spreader trucks are a sight for sore eyes.  This is a post of Tom's that has made me smile each time I see it, so thought I would share it also....someone stuck a smile on an old vee-shaped giant snow plow.  Such neat quirky scenes in the country!

SNOWY OWLS:  Ohio has seen a veritable invasion of snowy owls this winter, these majestic white raptors that usually prowl around Canada and the northern States.  But as the Arctic air has poured south so have the owls.  My wife is an avid birder and stays on top of all the birding blogs and sightings.  There was a snowy owl sighted in Washington Court House, Ohio last weekend (about 90 minutes from us) and, boy, we almost went in search of it.   It was a beautiful bird from photos I saw. Let's check in with Bruce Stambaugh's blog again,   click here to read about the search for snowy owls in Amish country where there are many avid birders.

AMISH BAKED OATMEAL:  These cold, teeth-chattering winter mornings are perfect for a bowl of oatmeal.  Long regarded by many as just a step above gruel, well-prepared oatmeal with some yummy fixin's mixed in really does make for a great breakfast and the Amish are avid oatmealers.  Click here to get a good recipe for Amish style baked oatmeal.

AMISH AND SOMALIAN SIMILARITIES:  I LOVED this blog post.  Listen in as Amish turned Mennonite missionary Bertha Beachy explains in a wonderfully succinct 90 second video clip the remarkable similarities between Amish and Somalians.  Seems like a stretch until you listen...