Visiting the Amish

Going to town.

A trip to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to see the Amish is a experience that pulls the heart strings back to a simpler time and is reminiscent in real time of a life my paternal grandparents lived in New York on a farm in the 1940’s.  There is a feeling that the Amish have gotten it right with values that respect the land, hard work, family and community.  We had the privilege of taking a tour that revealed to us some of the daily life of the Amish relating details about their lifestyle that we could never have gleaned from a drive through the countryside on our own.

Monday laundry day.

 Monday is laundry day and that is evident at every Amish home we pass with clothes hung either on the front porch or along long laundry lines reaching up generally from the the house to a high point on the adjacent barn to prevent children and animals from mingling with clothes put out to dry.  The average Amish family has seven to ten children, their marriages are generally stable and intergenerational cohabitation is the norm with a value bestowed upon the elders often not seen in American culture otherwise.  Homes are expanded to accommodate both spectrums of life-youngsters and the elderly.

One room school house

House vegetable and flower garden.

Children go to parochial schools run by Amish parents through the eighth year of schooling.  They also are expected to work in the home and on the farm in gender specific duties learning the intricacies of a self-sufficient life.  Women manage a garden for food for the family which is preserved with canning or freezing (in gas powered freezers.)  The women make all of the family’s clothing, cook and care for the house and grounds immediately around their home.  Men farm the fields and work with the livestock, complete building and carpentry projects and manage their worship.  There are no Amish churches.  Instead, the Amish meet every other week in one of their homes for services that last about three hours and then following the service everyone shares a meal and the children play together.  Benches for the meetings are carried from home to home.

Draft horses used in the fields.

Harvesting Tobacco

The Amish grow corn, soybeans, alfalfa and hay using only draft horses or mules.  They have separate horses for their carriages including retired race horses which explains the beauty of the horses drawing their carriages as they high step in a trot along the side of the road.  Additionally, there are pigs, milk cows, chickens, dogs, cats, goats and more about the property.  Each garden for vegetables and flowers is located next to the house or sometimes in front of the house.  The Amish do not cut their flowers to bring into the house however, nor do they generally decorate the exterior of their homes.  They consider that wasteful spending.  Everything is “plain” so as not to be boastful to show their humility before their neighbors and God.

Amish men grow beards after they marry but mustaches are not permitted.  Their coats have no buttons closing with hooks and eyes instead.  Pants are not creased and must not have cuffs.  Women only dress in dark colored dresses covered with an apron and a  white cap if they are married and a dark cap if they are not.  Buttons are also not used in their clothing.  Even the youngsters wear smaller versions of the same style clothing.

Limestone barn with air slits and silo.  Note raised entry below white door.

Harvesting corn with mule drawn wagon.

The barns are generally “raised” barns meaning that the barn has a lower level and upper level with a driveway rising upward from the surrounding ground to the second level.  The barns are almost always painted white.  In a few cases where they have been constructed of limestone, slits in the stonework can be seen to aerate the hay in the upper sections of the barn.  There are always silos and corn cribs for storage of silage and corn.  As we visit, the Amish are busy harvesting corn from the fields using four draft horses or mules to draw wagons to pick up the corn stalks.  They do use tools for their work-these being permitted as long as they are horse or mule powered.  There are fields and fields to be harvested after a good summer of lots of sun and rain.

Baby pig and calf - best friends...supervised by yellow and white cat on fence.

Two married women and a little girl head home.

And so a life of hard work and humble values continues amid the rush of modern life about the Amish.  It is easy to be drawn to this self-sufficient lifestyle, where nature surrounds you and life takes a slower pace.