…to everyone for a great year.  Boy, it sure flew by.  Wishing all a healthy and happy 2010~!

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This is not an Amish buggy. Biking enthusiast and adventure blogger the Spokesrider has posted a few interesting photos from inside an Old Order Mennonite buggy shop in Indiana. Owner LeRoy Martin hails from the area of Indiana described in yesterday’s post on the Nappanee Amish.  His shop does have some Mennonite and Amish customers, [...]

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The third-largest Amish community in Indiana Nappanee is what I tend to think of as a ‘prototype’ Amish community, smallish to medium-sized, centered around a single small town. It’s the type of place where once you leave the main town of a few hundred or thousand souls you’ll find Amish homesteads radiating out in a [...]

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Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying the post-Xmas, pre-New Year period as I am. A few items of interest: An 80-strong Amish furniture wholesaler’s association is opening a showroom in Shipshewana, Indiana, further evidence suggesting increased small-business activity in the 3rd-largest Amish settlement. “We’re trying to take it to the next level,” says an Amishman [...]

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photo: golancasterpa Christmas is one of many holidays observed by Amish, and with an expected emphasis on family rather than Santa.  Amish-raised scholar John Hostetler shares in Amish Society that some Amish children may be “exposed to such customs [ie, Santa and the Christmas tree] if they attend public school, and some Amish parents come [...]

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Ohio’s unemployment rate hit 10.6% last month.  According to a recent Tribune Chronicle article, within the state, the counties with the lowest unemployment rates (at 7.2 and 7.4% respectively) are Holmes and Geauga, which also happen to have the state’s largest Amish populations.  Make of that what you will. On the other hand, Amish-heavy northern-Indiana, a [...]

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Not “Amish”, but quite entertaining nonetheless.  Kevin Roberts, “Friend” to some and “Quaker” to others, writes a nice blog at quakerthink. In his latest post, Kevin surveys the transportation options available to him on his isolated Ohio homestead, and had me chuckling as he described Dude, the twenty-five dollar donkey that may be worth even [...]

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A few links of interest from around the ole interweb: Christina Davidson of the Atlantic comments on consumerism, recession, and Amish life while dropping in on the Dover, Delaware Amish.  She also describes a good example of how change happens in Amish communities. 48 Days to the Work You Love author Dan Miller makes an [...]

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North Carolina is my home state, and not one known for having a large Amish population.  Amish have attempted to settle NC in the past, however, and today one settlement does exist, at Union Grove, a hamlet lying some miles west of Winston-Salem. Union Grove, which began in 1985 as a spinoff of the Guthrie, [...]

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