Once, an Amish acquaintance with an interest in numbers showed me a few calculations. He had worked out the theoretical Amish population far into the future, using the assumption that it doubles every 20 years. The numbers get big quickly. Â Total Amish population (currently 250,000) hits a million sometime in the 2050s, and rockets from there. A recent academic study (on the spread of a…
I’ve written about how Amish sometimes make goods for upscale retailers, such as a pair of Pennsylvania Amish brothers who produce leather place settings and picture frames for Ralph Lauren. Now it looks like Amish apple butter has made the big time. Gourmet food company Dean and Deluca is offering apple butter made by Amish bakery Rise ‘n Roll.  Rise ‘n Roll is described in its…
One of the highlights of President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night was a call for clean energy. The president put forth a goal: “by 2035, 80% of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.” Â “Clean energy” in this case means “wind and solar…nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas”. To me, that sounds a bit ambitious. Â Solar currently accounts for less than…
I recently came across a few images of Amish-themed murals. Â This first one is found on Bahia Vista boulevard in the Florida Amish community at Pinecraft, Sarasota. I’m not really an art person, but I usually enjoy murals when I meet them in my travels. Â Maybe it’s just the element of the unexpected, in finding a massive piece of artwork outdoors. I also like how…
Reader Michelle V recently asked: do Amish play football? Well, here’s a bit of evidence that they do, courtesy of Rick Harrison, who took the above photo at the 2009 mud sale at Georgetown in Lancaster County. While football is not as popular as softball or volleyball, the ole pigskin does get tossed around, especially by Amish boys. Interest in the sport varies. Â Some don’t…
“I see this in the food industry. Â There’s quite a few organizations here locally that will sell using “Amish”. Â And what they’re trying to do is create the perception that it does come from Amish producers. Â When it doesn’t. Â They don’t explicitly say so, they just say “Amish Country this”, “Amish Country that,”…”Amish” is big, “Country” is small. Â So, the customer that buys this, his…
We all know Amish travel by horse-and-buggy. Most ride as passengers in cars, and pretty much all Amish will take the bus or train when need be. But how about shorter trips? Here are five more ways Amish get from point A to point B: 1. Bicycle Bicycles are fairly common, especially in larger Midwestern Amish communities. Amish-owned bikes can be pretty fancy. Â In places…
Thanks to Mary for sharing the above photo of County Road 77 in Holmes County, Ohio.  You might recall CR-77 mentioned in the comments section of the Amish buggy safety post of a couple weeks ago.  Hurst and McConnell remind us that CR-77 is known locally as the “Amish roller coaster”, for its series of rolling hills.  You can kind of get a sense of that…
Training for the 2014 Winter Olympics? Looks like this video was recorded in Knox County, Ohio (one county southwest of Holmes County). No SMV triangle, lights or storm front on this buggy. He even gets in a bit of a slalom at the end: Skiing is in fact popular with some Amish (primarily, but not only, youth), as is snowboarding. Â Lancaster County lies not too…
Mary-Ann Kirkby was raised on a Hutterite colony in Manitoba. When Mary-Ann was 9, her family–parents, herself, and six siblings–left the colony for the world. I Am Hutterite is Mary-Ann’s memoir of life at Fairholme Colony, and her adjustment to living “outside the ark”. The Hutterites Hutterites are spiritual cousins of the Amish. Â The two groups share roots in the European Anabaptist movement. Â The Amish,…