I sat down Sunday with a Lancaster Amish dairy farmer friend. He soon handed me a copy of local paper LNP, containing this article. Low milk prices are making it tough to make a living on the farm. So some are selling their cows at auction. From the article: “The first cow is Pepper. She’s got a good udder and 85 pounds of milk and ready…
Just some photos today from my (ongoing) visit to Lancaster County, PA. We had a gray day or two but the sun poked out yesterday and it was a beautiful morning. I nearly called this post “Spring in Lancaster County”, but with no green on the trees yet it’s more that in-between season between winter and spring, which I am going to take the liberty…
Amish furniture making may seem on first look like a male-dominated trade–and it is. But Amish women do some important work in the industry, as Milca Rivera of DutchCrafters shares in today’s guest post. As Erik noted in his post 5 Jobs Done by Amish Women, one of the types of businesses where you can find Amish women working outside of the home are woodshops….
Marie Graber runs the Arbor House Country Inn in Jamesport, Missouri. You might remember Marie from last month’s post on Amish life in winter. Marie was raised Amish, and was a member of an Amish church for some time. Today Marie answers questions on the Jamesport Amish community, tourism in the area, growing up Amish, and other topics. I hope you enjoy this interview. Thanks…
An interesting piece just out from Lovina Eicher, an Amish mother of eight who writes the Lovina’s Amish Kitchen column. This week, Lovina shares an hour-by-hour account of a typical day: 3:00 a.m. Alarm rings—time to get up and pack husband Joe’s lunch, fill his water jug with ice and water, make a pot of coffee, etc. 3:45 a.m. Joe’s ride is here to go work in…
This is a story about Dinky’s Auction House in the Amish settlement in Daviess County, Indiana. It contains an intriguing detail which goes largely unexplained. There is a photo showing a buggy described as the “First Air Conditioned Top Buggy” (below). So this is something I’ve never heard of before. We’ve discussed heating in buggies. We have seen solar-powered buggies. But the air-conditioned buggy is…
NBC Left Field has produced a video report on the Amish relationship with technology. They interview Sherry Gore as the main contributor to the piece. You might remember Sherry as the author of Taste of Pinecraft among other publications. She is a member of an Amish Mennonite church, and lives part-time in the Pinecraft Amish & Mennonite community of Sarasota, Florida. In the clip below, Sherry…
Mark Louden is a linguist, educator, and author of Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language. Mark recently answered some questions on Pennsylvania Dutch. We’ve got that interview for you today, plus a chance to win a copy of his book (the contest has now ended – you can find the winner here). If you’ve ever wondered about things like how close PA Dutch is…
Last month we explored 5 common features of the most conservative Amish communities. Today let’s have a look at 5 things found in the more progressive Amish communities. The term “progressive” comes with a caveat, as the word can refer to different things. For instance this could mean materially progressive – meaning allowing higher levels of technology, or, we could mean progressive in a religious sense….
TIME Magazine has an article called “Amish People Stay Healthy in Old Age. Here’s Their Secret.” It starts with some interesting info I’d never seen before: The average American life expectancy is currently just under 79 years. Back in 1900, it was only 47, but for early–20th century Amish it was already greater than 70. I don’t know the source of this, but let’s take…