The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a long piece over the weekend on competitive Amish volleyball, reported from a tournament at Intercourse Community Park in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania back in June. I spoke to reporter Jason Nark on the Amish sports topic; his full report is here. A few things stood out to me – here are four. 1. Volleyball Holds A Special Function In Amish Culture…
Ben & Rose don’t put on too many shows – but they recently played a couple of big ones in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (more on that below). We’ve been following Ben and Rose’s music since late 2024, from their first eye-and-ear-catching viral appearance as an Amish couple playing a classic country music tune to dozens of song releases since. A profile from LancasterOnline published ahead of…
“Vision of Mother” is one of the sadder songs we’ve seen Mike and Marty do – a tune paying tribute to a beloved mother who has passed away. This one follows their version of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” from back in June, which was also a song about a mother’s passing. So it’s a theme they’ve gone to twice in a short period now….
Just like your car, Amish buggies – not to mention their horses – need the occasional wash too. That’s the idea behind an upcoming event in the Shipshewana, Indiana area, passed along to us by Jim Halverson. This is the ad for a benefit buggy wash to be held about two weeks from now, on Saturday August 15: BENEFIT BUGGY WASH to be on Saturday,…
Looking at its name alone, the Amish Black Box Phone has an air of secrecy or mystery to it. Is it some sort of clandestine Amish spy-ops device? A tool meant for conveying bad news? Of course, many of us will connect “black box” with the recording devices used to record communication in plane crashes, another morbid association. But it’s none of those things. Rather,…
Ben & Rose are back, this time covering a hymn beloved by many. “How Great Thou Art” went up on YouTube yesterday, their first new song since “Stroll Over Heaven” at the end of June. The hymn has an interesting history. It started life as a Swedish poem, “O Store Gud,” written by Carl Boberg in 1885, reportedly after he was caught out in a…
Earlier this month, Sugarcreek Budget Publisher Milo Miller brought us a look at the latest edition of Horse Progress Days. He’s back with a look at another popular Amish event, this time Family Farm Field Days, held in Apple Creek, Ohio. It’s a gathering built on a simple idea: that farming can still be a viable living for a family, whether they’re working hundreds of…
So I couldn’t resist commenting on this one. You may have come across slideshow-style “listicle” posts on mass media sites like MSN or AOL. I’ve been seeing a lot of them lately about the Amish (sometimes they link to this website as a source, so no complaints there). Things like “10 surprising technologies the Amish use” or “The 15 largest Amish communities”. Often enough, the…
Horse Progress Days 2026 happened last weekend in the Arthur, Illinois community. Like he did last year, Budget Newspaper publisher Milo Miller shares a great batch of photos he took while at the event. For those unfamiliar, Horse Progress Days is the marquee event for horse-drawn farming equipment. It draws thousands of Amish attendees from across the country each year. It’s an event not only…
Ben & Rose have just released a new tune – “Stroll Over Heaven” is a gospel song written by Carl L. Trivette in 1952. It was popularized more recently by Alan Jackson on his 2005 gospel release Precious Memories. This is their first since their team-up with Rose’s siblings Mike & Marty on “Palms of Victory”. We actually got a short demo clip preview of…