In addition to the quilts we saw last week, Hostetler’s in Conewango Valley in New York sells faceless handmade dolls. Here’s a fancier version of the Amish doll which Tom notes must be destined for English buyers. The faceless doll is another item iconic of the Amish. Truth be told I haven’t seen too many of them in the Amish homes I’ve been in. It’s…
Riding down Highway 30 east of Lancaster City I was struck as I usually am by the preponderance of Amish tourist destinations. Amish tourism has a long history dating back to the 1930s and 1940s in Lancaster County, with the Ohio and Indiana industries kicking into gear a couple of decades later. Today it would be hard to imagine these places without the plethora of…
A Lancaster friend has a bunch of growing boys, which means he’ll need barn space for more horses. The last week or so he’s had a local carpentry crew at his place putting an addition onto the barn (this is not to be confused with the “pole barn”, which is a different building where visitors from Poland sleep while in town). The work crew is…
Need a ride? Message board inside an Amish bent-n-dent store in Ohio. By the look of that torn-up ad on the left, old fashioned advertising still works. Besides the many Amish taxis, you could also find an ad for child care by an Amish woman. Message boards are still a fixture in some places, for instance country stores. Do you still have anything to do…
Taken in the Berne, Indiana Amish settlement. Every picture tells a story. Or stories. What story do you see here?
This summer I picked up a copy of the 2010 Michigan Amish Directory, which lists most of the Amish settlements in the state. Amish directories vary; some can be little more than an address listing, while others include historical background, maps, and more. The Michigan guide, like a few other directories, contains a chart listing the occupations of household heads. While the survey is not…
Amish are well-known for their produce, which they sell at stands and auctions. Produce season is in full swing, with lots of tasty garden treats to be had. You can usually find some great buys for relatively little money. On my recent trip I bought a lot of fruits and veggies from Amish produce stands (to counter the caffeine and other unhealthy stuff I inevitably…
Do Amish horses often lose shoes on the road? The reader who shares the photo below says yes: “Horses always leaving these behind. I ran over this one today, glad the nails were pointed down.” Farriers are the men in Amish settlements who shoe the community’s horses. You can read more and view photos in this report on a visit to an Amish farrier at…
That was the question asked in this thought-provoking video I watched over the weekend. The tone of the narrator is a little too “kindergarten teacher” for me, and don’t watch if you don’t want to see people in beach-style attire in a few places. But it makes a pretty interesting point. Compared to our predecessors, we live like kings (behold the $4,000 1980s brick cellphone). The…
Summer is prime time for auctions. The town of Belleville smack dab in the middle of Big Valley in Mifflin County, PA is home to a long-running auction and flea market, which attracts a large contingent of Amish and English alike. The auction is held each Wednesday year-round. Livestock, farm equipment and many other items go up on the block each week. The flea market…