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…
Amish carriage shops are not all alike. Â One of the more delightful things I discovered when first visiting these shops was that some work on vehicles from beyond their culture. This means non-Amish carriages and even early versions of cars (from an era when a car was closer to a “horseless carriage” than an “automobile”). One such visit revealed work being done on an early-1900s…
Janneken Smucker, author of the newly-released Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon, answers your quilt questions today. Janneken is Assistant Professor of History at West Chester University, consulting curator for the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and author of a number of publications on quilts and quilting. Johns Hopkins University Press is giving away a copy of Amish Quilts.  If you submitted…
Over the past few months, one of our readers in the Midwest has gotten to know an Amish family dealing with a trying circumstance. Â He shares an interesting observation/question: I know that the father… told me that the Amish he is with believe they are supposed to be the light of the world but that they should not try and blind a person’s eyes with…
A reader sends in the following set of photos, of an improvised vehicle in northern Indiana. Â I guess we could call this an Amish go-kart. “It was quite a custom job,’ he explains. Â “The steering wheel was fabricated of round steel stock powered by a Honda engine with a drive belt to the rear axle. Whoever assembled it was quite creative. Â I have no idea…
There have been quite a few stories involving the Amish and health-related issues lately. Â Let’s start with the story of a new clinic in Indiana. Community Health Clinic Following a visit to Indiana this summer I mentioned the soon-to-be-opened genetic clinic in Topeka, Indiana. Â A week ago was the official opening of the Community Health Clinic, though it has been seeing patients since September. Operations…
We’ve looked inside Amish homes many times before. Today, something a little different: an English-owned home, inspired by the design of Amish houses and built by an Amish contractor. My English friends who live in this home near Shipshewana, Indiana, previously lived at Arthur, Illinois. Â They had this home built three years ago with a distinctly Amish flavor. As you can see below, the exterior…
Last week I made a short visit to the Pinecraft Amish community at Sarasota, Florida. Â I wanted to share that visit with you via a series of photos. Â If you haven’t heard of it, Pinecraft is an unusual Amish community for a few reasons. It is located in a city (Sarasota, population 52,811–technically just outside city limits). It is more of a vacation destination for…
I am working on a big Pinecraft photo post for tomorrow and, phew, have finally finished “traveling season” (for a few months, at least).  I just did a quick tally – over the past 5 months I’ve rented a total of 7 cars, making 6 trips to Amish communities in 4 states. And since most Amish communities are some drive from North Carolina, I don’t think…
I know we have a lot of readers interested in Amish quilts and many with experience buying them.  We’ll be hearing more soon on the subject from Janneken Smucker, author of the upcoming Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon, including a chance to ask Amish quilt questions. In the meantime, reader GamGam recently left an insightful comment full of tips for Amish quilt buyers.  I thought any…