Happy New Year to all. I hope your 2013 was filled with blessings and that 2014 will be happy, healthy and productive for you. Â Do you take stock of the previous year at this time? Â Set goals and make plans for the coming year? It’s really just the changing of dates on a calendar, but can be the right time for a brief pat on…
Have you cleared out that fridge yet? Or still plowing through holiday leftovers? I had to creatively re-arrange mine just to fit all the extra Christmas goodies in. When I moved into my current home, I went without a refrigerator for a few weeks. Fortunately it was the dead of winter, so the windowsill made a makeshift fridge for a while. Â That wouldn’t work anymore….
A few years back we shared a short clip of an Amish fellow skiing behind a buggy in Ohio. Â Skiing and other winter sports can be particularly popular with young Amish males. Today, photos of more winter fun, taken somewhere in Indiana. These youth snowboarders are carving up the “slopes” courtesy of a single-horsepower engine (there actually is something of a slope, or ridge, which…
As we’ve noted before, some Amish are avid hunters. Hunting is not just for the guys, however.  In a column titled “Shotgun Season opens on deer”, Lovina Eicher, aka The Amish Cook, describes her girl’s (or is it girls’?) involvement in hunting: Our daughter, Elizabeth, doesn’t have to work today. Her factory is closed so workers can take advantage of the opening day of the shotgun season on…
Is it just me or do pumpkins make their appearance earlier every year? They have been camped out in front of the local Kroger, and popping up around the neighborhood for the last week or two at least. People just seem to like being around pumpkins, and pumpkin-branded things. They’ve certainly gotten into our foods. McDonald’s is selling some pumpkin coffee now, and so is…
School has been back in session in Amish Country, and for that matter much of English Country, for a few weeks now. Ask an Amish child how he feels about going to school and you’ll get a range of answers, just like you might hear from his non-Amish counterpart. Some enjoy it very much and look forward to the return of school days. Others would…
A reader shares photos today from a festive occasion in northern Indiana. There’s nothing especially Amish about this, except that this park is in a heavily-Amish area of the county, and that Amish attend the event (and by the looks of it, make up a large portion of attendees). I remember passing this park numerous times in my Indiana bookselling days in 2006. Â I never…
This is a question that comes up from time to time, most recently asked by reader Treva. The sense I get is that people: want to buy something culturally appropriate that the receiver will appreciate, and above all to not offend anyone with their gift. Getting a gift for an Amish person is not as tough as it might seem. Â I’ve put together a couple…
Today we have another excerpt from an Amish father’s talk to a youth group and parents in Lancaster County.  We last looked at this talk about a month ago, with a segment on cell phones and the internet (the first segment addressed popular music). In this excerpt the Amishman suggests how one might fight temptation and bad habits by developing character. As a whole, this talk…
Reader Ed C has shared some photos of Lancaster County firefighters putting out a blaze in the Strasburg area in winter 2012. You can read this post for more background on Amish serving on fire companies in the Lancaster community. Amish are involved in more than a token way on fire companies in Lancaster County, with one official estimating up to 300 Plain firefighters serving…