Visiting the Kalona Produce Auction (12 Photos)

Jim Halverson shares some photos today from “Amish” garage sales in northern Indiana. Garage sales are popular in the community, as they are in other places. Amish both attend as shoppers and put on the garage sales themselves. And these aren’t just single-family sales. Jim writes: Topeka has a city or area-wide garage sale every year in the middle of May. This year it was…

So after I visited Charlotte County, Virginia in April, I wrote about a local Amish variety stand. In that post I mentioned the following, about a different place: As I finished up my purchase, the girl directed me to a dry goods store not too far away. After she gave me directions explaining that it was down a long lane, and I was confident I had…

The Amish are well-known for not attending higher institutions of learning. That noted, the business I want to share with you today might be the closest thing in America to an “on-campus” Amish operation. But first, a brief recap – I’ve just returned home after the better part of a week on an Amish trip. The centerpiece was attending the Health & Well-Being in Amish…

Amish builders in Maine have teamed with a non-Amish business to create a “solar shed”. If you didn’t know, many Amish themselves are avid users of solar power, with the sun-guzzling panels visible on homes and barns and even on buggy rooftops. They use them to power batteries, lights, or electric fences, for instance. As Maine Amishman Joas Hochstetler explains: “Solar is pretty passive, there’s…

The first business I stopped at while in Charlotte County, Virginia last month was Esh’s Variety Stand. What is a “variety stand”? Well as you might guess, something like the more common variety store, but in stand form. I came across this neat little place shortly after arriving in the community, not far from where I took this buggy photo: It sat down a longish lane…

The Coshocton Tribune and Indianapolis Star recently published a series of stories on the deer farming industries in Ohio and Indiana. Amish people figure prominently in a number of the articles. The first is about an Amish craftsman putting deer antlers to a creative use. Amish-Made Deer Antler Pens Some have wondered what Amish deer farmers do with the animals they raise. The answer: a variety…