Amish Put Their Money Down For Road Safety: Helping Fund Studies For Proposed Overpass

Amish Put Their Money Down For Road Safety: Helping Fund Studies For Proposed Overpass

ByErik Wesner
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Amish in one community are putting their weight – and money – into efforts to make buggy travel safer for their people. In Seymour, Missouri, the “Main Street Overpass” project is heading to state officials for consideration, backed by local representatives along with the area’s considerable Amish population. The overpass would span a local highway, providing a safer route for Amish buggy traffic, among other…

Amish Mothers Face Riskier Births After A Hospital in Maine Closed Its Maternity Unit

Amish Mothers Face Riskier Births After A Hospital in Maine Closed Its Maternity Unit

ByErik Wesner
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Amish mothers in Aroostook County, Maine are among those who now face increased risks following the closure of a local hospital’s maternity unit – one of 11 to shut down in the past decade in the state. It’s true that many Amish mothers do give birth at home, with the help of midwives – often Amish women themselves, but also often not. That doesn’t mean…

New Ben & Rose Short: “Tomorrow In Your Hands”

New Ben & Rose Short: “Tomorrow In Your Hands”

ByErik Wesner
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Another short clip of a new song is out now from Ben & Rose. A nice simple video of the couple sitting with producer Conrad Fisher as they sing, while he plays guitar and also sings. The caption says simply “Ben and Rose rehearse an old hymn called ‘Tomorrow in Your Hands’“. I’m not able to find who wrote this one and when, but here…

“Double-Barreled” Amish Buggy Does Snow Donuts In A Tennessee Parking Lot

“Double-Barreled” Amish Buggy Does Snow Donuts In A Tennessee Parking Lot

ByErik Wesner
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It’s been awhile since we’ve had a good “Amish fun in the snow” video. So it seems apt that the arrival of the Big Winter Storm of 2026 would also bring us a good Amish-buggy-doing-snow-donuts video (at end of post). The person who filmed this, Casey Jones Springer, captioned it simply “Only in Tennessee”. While that’s not technically accurate (for instance, here’s a buggy snow…

A Visit To An Amish Produce Stand & (Nearly) Year-Round Greenhouse – 23 Photos

A Visit To An Amish Produce Stand & (Nearly) Year-Round Greenhouse – 23 Photos

ByDon Burke
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Quick note from Erik: as you will see by the author attribution, this post is by Don Burke. Don has been contributing posts and photos for over ten years now, and I’m happy to say you’ll now be able to find Don’s past posts collected here.  Look for more from Don in the coming days and weeks – he has some interesting ones coming up,…

Man Charged With Felony DUI While Driving Amish Children

Man Charged With Felony DUI While Driving Amish Children

ByErik Wesner
3 Comments

An Amish taxi driver has been charged with DUI while he was transporting several Amish people, including two young Amish children, in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. On stopping the driver, 58-year-old Patrick Allen Reitz Jr., police discovered marijuana in the vehicle, in addition to a strong burnt marijuana smell. Here’s what happened according to the report at Explore Jefferson: According to a criminal complaint, the incident…

An Amish Winter Trip Gone Wrong (Part 1): When “Amish” Isn’t Just One Thing

An Amish Winter Trip Gone Wrong (Part 1): When “Amish” Isn’t Just One Thing

ByHaley Straw
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Let’s welcome author Haley Straw back today as she shares part one of a new winter-themed series, drawing on one of her more challenging experiences as an Amish taxi driver. We all have moments that redraw the maps of our lives. For me, it was driving the Amish through the Christmas break of 2022. It was a blur of 3:00 AM calls and whiteouts that…

West Virginia Amish Market Thrives Despite Raw Milk Law

West Virginia Amish Market Thrives Despite Raw Milk Law

ByErik Wesner

Pocahontas County, West Virginia is home to a rather small Amish community of just a few dozen people. The Amish arrived here in 2023, and for the past two years have been running a market store that sounds like it has become quite popular in the area. Attesting to that, one patron writes: What a local treasure! This store has everything, from bulk dry goods…

Amish Man Killed When Buggy Turns Into Logging Truck’s Path

Amish Man Killed When Buggy Turns Into Logging Truck’s Path

ByErik Wesner

A young Amish man has lost his life in a tragic accident that apparently was caused when he turned his buggy into the path of a logging truck. This happened yesterday in Allegany County, New York. From New York Upstate: Willing, N.Y. — A man was killed after a logging truck hit an Amish buggy this week in Upstate New York. The deadly crash happened…

Building “Plain” Computers for Amish & Mennonites Made This Mennonite Man Unpopular

Building “Plain” Computers for Amish & Mennonites Made This Mennonite Man Unpopular

ByErik Wesner
5 Comments

Allen Hoover makes toned-down, “offline” computers for the Amish and Mennonite community. And not everyone in the community likes him for it, according to a new interview. Hoover is an Old Order Mennonite man in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania who has been providing “Plain” computing solutions for Amish and Mennonites for over two decades. The appeal of these machines: devices which provides business functionality – but…