The above was taken in northern Indiana. Your captions welcome. The best will get an Amish Woodworkers’ Guide and a back-copy of The Connection magazine.

Continue Reading Caption contest: Cows

A couple of things I wanted to bring to your attention: Gravatar Recently I was asked again about getting an image which will appear next to your name when you leave comments.  You’ll notice some commenters have custom images and some have the grey silhouette figure (the default image). We use the widely-used “Gravatar” system [...]

Continue Reading Two things you might like: Gravatars & JSTOR for Amish articles

Reader Michele purchased an Amish home and converted it to “English”, a process which took about half a year to begin.  She had this to say about “living Amish” in the meantime: I don’t know why they are called “simple”…we lived just like Amish for 6 months before our contractor could start our construction.  There [...]

Continue Reading Is Amish life really so “simple”?

Over the years a number of cases have come to light of Amish who have committed sexual abuse, most recently in an Ohio community.  Last week a central Pennsylvania news station did a report on the issue of sexual abuse among Amish, which you can view here: If you read Saloma Furlong’s autobiography Why I [...]

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Following up today’s tech conference post, as an example of basic-but-creative Amish technology, we have an “improvised Amish canning range”.  The reader who snapped the photo below shares: Many Amish often do their canning in their building entry/wash room or shop building.  In Arthur they usually had an old gas stove/range which they kept in the shop or wash [...]

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Why should the Amish approach to technology matter to the rest of us?  I asked Donald Kraybill if he’d share a little today about Amish tech, and the upcoming conference “Amish America: Plain Technology in a Cyber World“: Why should we be interested in Amish technology?  The Amish are one of the few communities around [...]

Continue Reading Donald Kraybill on the 2013 Amish Tech Conference

Tags: The Amish and Technology

The second coming of Breaking Amish–”Breaking Amish: Brave New World” arrived last night. This season (or “spin-off” as the TLC network has been calling it) has taken the cast and placed them in the Pinecraft neighborhood of Sarasota, Florida.  I wasn’t surprised when I heard of the choice, for a couple of reasons: Filming in Pinecraft [...]

Continue Reading Breaking Amish Season 2

A reader in Indiana shares: The fences around here are used as a “lost and found.”  I have seen halters, lead ropes, buggy wheel rubbers and the most common item — horseshoes hanging from the fences lines in the Elkhart – LaGrange community. Perishable items like clothes, expensive items like batteries, or small items like [...]

Continue Reading The Lost and Found Fences of Amish Indiana

Today is Ascension Day, commemorating Jesus’ physical ascension into heaven. The day, falling on the 40th day following Easter Sunday, is observed by Amish in some places and not in others. The Amish in Lancaster County are among those that do, as are Amish in Holmes County, Ohio and northern Indiana.  In contrast, in Adams [...]

Continue Reading How do Amish observe Ascension Day?

Certain Amish surnames occur with great frequency. Here are ten of the most common: 1. Miller-the most common of all Amish last names.  Joseph Stoll writes: “The German spelling was Müller, and because there were many Millers in Europe, the name was very common, with no common ancestor for many people of this name. There were [...]

Continue Reading 10 Common Amish Surnames