An Indiana man who schemed Amish and Mennonite investors out of millions of dollars has been sentenced after being found guilty of fraud in May 2022. From WNDU: SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – A Goshen man has been sentenced to just over eight years in prison and has been ordered to pay over $2 million in restitution for his role in an investment fraud scheme….
“Don’t feel sorry for us, no,” John says with a chuckle. “We’re having a good life.” In this video I interview John Esh. John lives in Nittany Valley in central Pennsylvania and runs the Goot Essa cheese & food company (Full video transcript below). John sat down for a longer conversation with me a week or so ago. I’ll be posting that full video soon….
Back in 2019 we had a look at the Amish and hemp farming, a trend that emerged after Pennsylvania legalized hemp cultivation. Now four years later, a new piece at DailyMail.com looks at “the booming business of Amish cannabis farmers” with a visit to the retail location of Lancaster County Cannabis, owned by a 29-year-old Amishman who goes only by his last name in the story…
Right off the bat, this home has two things that stand out about it – its small size for an Amish home (1,192 square feet), and its fancy design. In fact, it reminds me of the style seen in the million-dollar Amish home we looked at last year. This home has a Garretsville, Ohio address. Garrettsville is in northern Portage County, which would make it…
I was happy to see that Goot Essa owner John Esh appeared on the “Seen Through A Glass” podcast recently to discuss his cheese & food business. John has a nice casual discussion with podcast host Lew Bryson. He explains how he came to cheese-making, and specifically European-style cheeses. In case you were wondering about the Amish and cheese, John notes that there is a…
Jim Halverson checks in with a photo set from a Swartzentruber Amish barn-raising. This took place back in the summer as should be obvious from these photos. If you missed it, we recently took a closer look at the Amish barn-raising via Burton Buller’s excellent film The Amish Barn-Raising Day. In it, we see footage of two separate barn-raisings (in Ohio and in Pennsylvania), done…
I made a return to YouTube videos this past week with a look at six Amish stories in the news recently. This is a newish format for me as far as videos go. In the video, I run through the stories and give you my take on each. You’ll see it’s a bit more conversational and casual. There’s a reason for that, which I explain….
One of my favorite things about looking at Amish homes is: there are almost always little details that stand out. This week’s home fits that bill, as it looks like it was an English-built…but then there is that classic blue Amish door frame hinting that this is not currently an English-owned place. I don’t know exactly what you call this style of home, but it’s…
Sometimes people stand out by making noise. Other times, the quieter ones set themselves apart. One thing that I’ve always appreciated about the Amish, is that they’re not attention seekers. Perhaps this is in part due to the fact they automatically get a lot of attention due to being so visually, and culturally different. But there are also aspects of Amish culture that leads them…
Autumn is the heart of the traditional Amish wedding season in places like Lancaster County and other communities. Amish weddings draw large numbers of guests, and the Amish custom is to hold a day-long reception afterwards. Amish wedding receptions are typically large, with hundreds of guests, and require a lot of food. In some Amish communities, the custom is to rent a “wedding wagon“, a…