Besides Christmas, how often do you give someone a card? Amish have been known to send all types of cards, including sympathy cards, Christmas cards, and Valentine’s cards. That also leaves aside the practice of letter-writing, which flourishes in many Amish homes (and while on the subject, we can’t forget the clever way some Amish create envelopes). One happy occasion perfect for card-sending is the arrival of a baby. Our…
I think we can include the classic Amish kick scooter as one of those icons of the Amish, along with the horse-and-buggy, hand-stitched quilt, straw hat, and so on. Even though many Amish don’t really use scooters (e.g. Amish in a lot of Midwestern communities), they are closely connected with the Amish in Lancaster County, where they’re visible everywhere. And with Lancaster Amish the most…
“Maybe one each season says ‘don’t take any pictures’”. That’s friend of the blog Katie Troyer answering a question she’s no doubt heard before. You can see Katie and hear her discuss her passion in a new video (below). You may have enjoyed Katie’s photos at various places on the web (and even offline – I have a calendar featuring her work on my wall at home)….
What do you know about the Amish of Geauga County, Ohio, the fourth-largest Amish community? Over 15,000 Amish live here. Yet the settlement kind of gets overlooked, especially with Holmes County so close. Among the buggies, windmills, and laundry lines of Geauga County, you’ll find something not often seen in other communities: the classic ice vending freezer. A friend who recently visited Geauga describes there being “hundreds” of them “all over the…
The scenes below come from the Adams County, Indiana Amish settlement, from the recent building of a new school. You’ll see two structures in the photos below. The school is actually the foundation you see in the bottom two photos. The wooden structure the men are working on is a barn for the school. The slab on the right hand side of the bottom…
When I saw “graffiti” in the title of the email, I imagined spray-painted epithets, possibly the work of ne’er-do-wells with an axe to grind against the Amish. By the looks of things, the etchings in these photos from contributor ShipshewanaIndiana appear to be the work of young boys, perhaps killing time after a church service. I can’t quite make everything out in the images–in the first…
These photos of a pantry in an Amish home were taken in Carroll County, Tennessee. Reader Brenda shared these some time ago and I’m just now getting to them (thanks, Brenda). What time of year do you think these photos were taken? For that matter, when do pantries look their thinnest? I’ve rarely done anything but deplete them, so I couldn’t pinpoint when exactly canned good…
Kite Kommotion is an annual event in the town of Shipshewana in the Elkhart-Lagrange Amish settlement. From the event description: “Folks can take advantage of flying their own kites or watching performances by international kite teams and professional kite exhibitions.” A reader shares photos from the event’s latest edition. I guess these photos speak for themselves. Lots of kites, lots of kommotion. As you can…
You’ve heard of the Amish barn raising–but what about the Amish “barn moving”? Not only do Amish work together to put up a barn in short order, sometimes they team up to literally pick up and move a structure. And there are a handful of videos on Youtube showing this in action. First, from Wisconsin. The video maker writes: This took place in rural Dalton,…
It’s Friday, and I think we’re due for another roundup post. Here we go: The Plain Side Loren Beachy writes a column for The Goshen News called “The Plain Side”. Loren is a school teacher and auctioneer living in the Elkhart-Lagrange Amish community. I’ve been reading some of Loren’s archives lately, including one on preserving the PA Dutch dialect and a funny tale about his…