How about some winter shots from the New Wilmington, Pennsylvania Amish community? This is one of my favorite Amish settlements, dating back to my first visit one autumn going on 15 years ago. While the sights I saw then were of hues that matched more closely to the distinct brown-topped buggies of the local Amish, […]

Continue Reading Winter In The New Wilmington Amish Community (20 Photos)

Here’s a remarkable feel-good story about a team of audiologists helping Amish children with hearing and ear issues. In one plain Amish community in southern Michigan, medical professionals saw an uptick of children losing their hearing (untreated or repeated ear infections can cause hearing loss). From the Michigan Health blog: In 2019, Winters and her […]

Continue Reading Audiologists Persuade Bishops To Accept Digital Hearing Aids – Helping Dozens Of Amish Children With Hearing Loss

Sadly, after a calm period of some weeks as far as buggy accidents, two fatal crashes occurred on back-to-back days, in Michigan and Ohio. In the first, a 39-year-old Amish mother was killed in Branch County, Michigan when the horse was “spooked” by an oncoming vehicle: ALGANSEE TOWNSHIP, MI (WTVB) – A Reading, Michigan woman […]

Continue Reading Two Fatal Buggy Crashes Happened On Back-to-Back Days (Ohio & Michigan)

This is not your typical Amish singing video. What we see here is something called the Sail & Sing Christian Cruise. It’s a tour company based out of New Holland, PA. So what are Amish doing on a cruise ship, you might be wondering? For those who wish to visit Europe (or anywhere overseas), ship […]

Continue Reading 700 Amish & Mennonites Singing On A Cruise Ship (Video)

Lehman’s is a well-known business catering to Amish and – even more so – to non-Amish who like off-the-grid and low-tech tools and home products. Many readers here are familiar with it – we’ve had posts including 5 Interesting Facts About Lehman’s and 6 Lehman’s Products Used By The Amish. So I thought it might […]

Continue Reading Lehman’s Is Getting A New Owner (Updated)

Jim Halverson shares a visit he made back in the fall to the Wakarusa area of northern Indiana. This town lying north of Nappanee is in the vicinity of a small Old Order Mennonite community. Jim made two interesting stops while in the area, as you’ll see below. Instead of trick-or-treating on Halloween, I attended […]

Continue Reading Visiting An Old Order Mennonite Horse Auction – And Casket Shop (22 Photos)

Writing in to the Finger Lakes Times in early December, a reader made the following claim as part of a review of communism and socialism through history: The only form of communism today that is the same from several hundred years ago is the Amish. Yes, they practice a true form of communism right here […]

Continue Reading Do The Amish Practice Communism?

I came across a police report about an Amish man being harassed in the community of Sherman, Maine. The Amish are targets of harassment in some places. In some cases the harassment goes well beyond what we might think of as a simple prank. The topic has been the subject of an academic paper, as […]

Continue Reading Police Report: Amishman Followed By Truck, Harassed In Maine Community

I am sure some of you are going to recognize this sign today. I would even call it semi-famous at this point by virtue of it being photographed so much due to its location. The sign is an advertisement for a long-running root beer business at an Amish farm just outside Intercourse, Pennsylvania, the heart […]

Continue Reading Slice of Amish Life: Cold Homemade Root Beer

Reader Jerry brought to my attention a silent auction concluding today in Millersburg, PA, of an Amish-owned organic dairy farm. They’ve provided quite a few photos from inside the home, and of the property, which you can see below. These are some of the better photos I’ve seen of an Amish home and property. Jerry […]

Continue Reading This Amish Farmhouse & 63-Acre Dairy Is Being Sold Today (29 Photos)

Spence’s Bazaar is a flea market/farmer’s market in Dover, Delaware. The market has a significant Amish presence including some popular food outlets. This is a nice account of the place, which has an 85+ year history. Image: Spence’s Bazaar Delaware State News now reports that they have been shut down temporarily, and you get one […]

Continue Reading Delaware Market Shut Down; Amish Faulted

Someone is hoping a funny photo gets roads repaired in Geauga County, Ohio. The Geauga Maple Leaf shared this photo on their Facebook page. In it we see a pair of Amish trousers upside down in what appears to be a deep pothole puddle. Completing the picture, an Amish straw hat and a couple items […]

Continue Reading Humorous “Amish” Photo Promotes Pothole Repair

On the morning of Christmas Eve, I visited an Amish community in Summers County, West Virginia. This is near the Virginia border, about a half hour’s drive from the Pearisburg, VA settlement. The town is Forest Hill. The first place we came across was this double-business – Shady Hillside Variety Store and Kountry Crust Bakery. […]

Continue Reading A Visit To The Amish Of Summers County, West Virginia (42 Photos)

I’m not sure that looking back “favorite” will be a word I’ll associate with 2020. But there were certainly bright spots in what most would probably agree was not the greatest year. In that spirit I am keeping with the usual tradition here of sharing a “favorite posts” year-end compilation. These are posts which either […]

Continue Reading Favorite Posts Of 2020

This summer we learned about Goot Essa, an Amish cheese maker in central Pennsylvania. The business had adapted to the recent disruption and started selling their foods online (with non-Amish help to run the website). Last week I spoke with Goot Essa’s founder, John Esh Jr. John has kindly answered some questions – about his […]

Continue Reading Q-and-A with John Esh of Goot Essa (Holiday Cheese & Fudge Gift Basket Giveaway)

Molly asks a good question on the recent Lancaster farm stay post: Eric, would you tell us the differences between Lancaster county & Holmes county? We have visited Holmes county, but would like to know the differences. As the two largest and most-visited Amish communities, people often wonder which one of Holmes County and Lancaster […]

Continue Reading Which Community Should You Visit? 7 Differences Between Lancaster County & Holmes County

Swartzentruber Amish homes are among the very plainest. They tend to fetch lower prices when put on the market, in part due to their lack of basic amenities including not just electricity but bathrooms and plumbing. This Swartzentruber home was last listed at $130,000 in spring 2019, though the Zillow listing now has its “Zestimate” […]

Continue Reading An “English-Ready” Swartzentruber Amish Home (15 Photos)

There is an interesting discussion on the Ag Talk forum about Amish pies. The original post is basically a complaint that pies made by the Amish in the poster’s area of central New York are not very good. An excerpt: I’ve tried 3 different Amish sources 2 on farms and one at a Amish store. Yesterday […]

Continue Reading Beware of Amish-Made Pies?

As it does around this time each year, the Young Center at Elizabethtown College has just published its Amish population estimates for 2020. The total estimated Amish population is 350,665, found in 31 states, four Canadian provinces, and two South American countries. Some interesting takeaways from the figures: 1. Four Large Settlements. The largest settlement, […]

Continue Reading The Amish Population Has Doubled Since 2000 – Now Exceeds 350,000 (2020 Amish Population Figures)

Well, not exactly like the Amish, if you’re ordering online. But I still wanted to draw your attention to Shetler’s Wholesale, a business based in Indiana with a long history of selling household goods to Amish via traditional catalogs. “Wholesale” is in the name, but they sell retail to individuals. They have now launched an […]

Continue Reading Shop Like The Amish At Shetler’s Wholesale (Now Online)

As we learned in last year’s post on 5 interesting facts about Lehman’s, the customer makeup of this simple products retailer is more English than Amish (by a factor of 4 to 1). And the product line reflects this to some extent. The company has a wide array of products fitting the “old-fashioned/off-grid” concept. But […]

Continue Reading 6 Lehman’s Products Used By The Amish

I came across something that got my attention while searching for Amish homes to share with you. Right now there are at least 7 Amish homes for sale in the community at Hillsboro, Kentucky (Fleming County). What’s going on here? It looks like a lot of people are moving out of the area for some […]

Continue Reading 7 Amish Homes For Sale In One Community (40 Photos)

“Kettle will not stay, neither will the windmill.” That was the stipulation attached to this unusual listing for an Amish home in the Seymour, Missouri community. This Amish home caught my eye for several reasons. For one, the community. Seymour is a plain settlement where many homes have a distinctive shingle-siding plain look to them […]

Continue Reading Look Inside A (Very) Plain Amish Home (25 Photos)

Amish have lived in Pontotoc County, Mississippi for a quarter-century. I made an unplanned visit to this community in late January. It was slightly out of the way, but well worth it. I hope you enjoy these photos and my comments on this Swartzentruber Amish settlement of two church districts. Amish came here in the […]

Continue Reading A Visit To The Amish Of Pontotoc County, Mississippi (25 Photos)

A comment by Al in KY got me thinking about how many Amish settlements I’ve actually visited. I had tallied this up before, but it was years ago. So I thought it a good idea to put together a fresh list. I believe the very first settlement I went to was Lancaster County, but that […]

Continue Reading My Amish Settlement List (58 Communities)

We caught a glimpse of North Carolina’s Swartzentruber Amish settlement in an article back in May, when someone interviewed a man from this community as he waited at an Alabama Amtrak station. More recently I previewed the community auction which was to take place in late November. Amish began moving to the area near Ellenboro, […]

Continue Reading Visiting North Carolina’s Swartzentruber Amish Community (31 Photos)

So after I visited Charlotte County, Virginia in April, I wrote about a local Amish variety stand. In that post I mentioned the following, about a different place: As I finished up my purchase, the girl directed me to a dry goods store not too far away. After she gave me directions explaining that it was […]

Continue Reading A Visit To An “Off The Map” Amish Dry Goods Store

On the heels of the “20 Unique Ways Amish Raise Their Kids” article, another click-magnet piece popped up on my news feed this morning. This one is called “15 Insane Rules All Amish Kids Must Follow.” I take “Insane” in this context to mean crazy, odd, or absurd (that is, according to the article writer/editor). […]

Continue Reading 15 “Insane” Rules All Amish Children Must Follow..?

Amish are well-known for living by guidelines and rules governing technology, dress, and other aspects of daily life. But Amish churches are not all the same. Some are more traditional, and others more progressive. Some do things one way, and others do things another way. So how do Amish know the dos and don’ts specific […]

Continue Reading 6 Examples of Amish Ordnung Rules

Ever noticed how Amish women in different places wear different head coverings? A good example is the heart-shaped Lancaster women’s covering, versus the straight-sided, pleated coverings worn by Amish women in the Midwest. Like other items of Amish clothing, there are quite a few different styles of women’s coverings, and some with rather subtle differences. […]

Continue Reading Comparing Amish Women’s Head Coverings (19 Photos)

Donald Kraybill is the author of over a dozen books on the Amish, and currently serves as Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. I asked Don if he’d answer some questions for us today on the Amish and his newest book, called Simply Amish: An Essential […]

Continue Reading Donald Kraybill on Simply Amish (Q-and-A & Giveaway)

Amish have been regularly faulted for failing to follow COVID regulations – going back to early on in the pandemic experience. Now, a public health body in Canada says local Plain groups are in fact complying with COVID regulations regarding church gatherings. This, despite apparent complaints from non-Plain neighbors. Farming in an Ontario Old Order […]

Continue Reading Notice: Amish & Mennonite Church Meetings Shouldn’t Be Blamed For COVID Spread