The Old Folks Home

[microchick]

@microchick I was not aware that the Amish used engines of any sort
next thing you know one will get a tv

Yep, it's a strange world they live in. We have had them come in and look at an animal husbandry article we found on the computer. Some in different communities own cellphones, propane refrigerators and water heaters. It mostly depends on the community they belong to when it comes to what they can and cannot own and do. Sometimes to me it seems as though the way they live boarder lines on being hypocritical. Yet I seriously admire their sense of community, dedication to their faith and their family.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Yes they sense of family stays incredibly intact we are much more of a throw away
society be it car's or homes or family

 

[drumstick diva]

SCG use a FACEMASK !!! The air breathed in is so much warmer, I have often unzipped my jacket. If you take the mask off you quickly realize HOW WELL it works. I also hate when my eye lashes freeze - icky

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Bruceha2000, the Amish do use small motors and even large motors if the need arises. The man we bought our farm from ran a cabinet making business. He ran his machinery using a diesel engine. His wife's wringer washing machine was ran by a gas powered motor. All of the Amish harvest their firewood using chain saws and most use top of the line machines.

The gentleman who gave me my eggs operates a small motor/engine repair shop and admits that he has trouble with electrical schematics. My husband has gone over to help him sort out problems with wiring on different repair jobs. He sells everything from barn lime to chain saw blades in his shop.

It isn't easy to understand the Amish way. One young Amish man we know once told us that sometimes he doesn't even understand why they do the things they do. But evidently, it's okay for them to use power tools, even drive tractors as long as they do not own them.

I could never be a member of that club. I wouldn't be able to keep up with all the rules.

One of my first jobs was working for the Amish in Southern Maryland. I had this romantic idea of how they were supposed to be. I spent an entire summer with them, and was even allowed in some houses. I have a much better understanding of them after that.

They have generators, but cannot connect to our power grid (that's the biggie). They have refrigerators and freezers that run on generators. Some use cell phones, others believe that is being connected to our grid and they use pay phones scattered throughout the community. I didn't have any in my community with tractors, they still used horses for farm work, or at least did back then (that was before cell phones, too). They use our banks and our libraries and shop at the grocery and hardware stores.They buy up a lot of the treadle sewing machines in the area.

They make amazing shoo-fly pie.

I once ran over their kitten. They were very matter of fact about it. I was the only one that cried.

 

[chickadoodles]

We have a large Mennonite community here. They work outside the home, have cars and use electric. But other things still have to stay very simple. One man made a rather pretty wrought iron gate. They made him take it down. Some of the ladies opened a bakery in near the Walmart in a near by town. (30 miles) is near for us here. lol

I have seen some ladies driving tractors and plowing fields around here. My dh knows most of them around here. Some of the men take my dh home made cinnamon rolls and boy are they good!

 

[miss heny]

We used to live in the middle of Mennonite country, and the female role is purely based on what color cap they wore. Unfortunately I have little respect for them in our area due to lack of willing to help make the county better even though they complain about it all the time :/

 

[pennyJo1960]

I never lived in the area they are in but find it very interesting to hear
interactions you all have had with them and truthfully I think once it is all
said and done we may all look to them to survive before our lifetimes are
gone

 

[microchick]

It would be hard for any modern woman to become "Amish". Every part of their life is covered by tradition and doctrine. Their finished dresses cannot be totally finished. Doctrine tells them how many straight pins and safety pins must remain in the dress once it is 'completed'. In the Amish world, it's a mans world in the true sense of the word. Women, once they have children, their job is in the home where they cook for large families, grow gardens to feed their families, preserve meat and vegetables. We went into one neighbor's house one fall to find the women busily making Bologna. They had ground over 100 pounds of beef (later found out Bossy had died calving and Bossy was being turned into lunch meat) The Bologna mixture was laid out on three folding banquet tables and piled 2 feet tall. As I watched, the girls were busy cramming the mix into jars. The smell was wonderful. The work undoubtedly backbreaking.

The culture for women has truly been stuck back in the early 1800s. I told my husband the other day that you see Amish boys of all ages and me riding horseback, but you never see a girl or a woman on a horse. Driving a buggy or cart all the time, but never on horseback. If they aren't in a buggy or cart, they are on foot and in the spring and summer time, into the fall, they are on foot barefooted as are the children of both sexes. Seeing a youth cantering up the road on a small horse, I commented to my DH that it was a shame that the women didn't get to experience the thrill of riding a horse and feeling it's muscles work under you and feel the wind on your face and in your hair.

Penny1960, their knowledge of preserving their own food surpasses anything I've ever encountered. Buy a refrigerator? Nope. They buy a derelict freezer, cut ice from their pond with a chain saw and bingo. Refrigerator. Or build an ice house using foot thick sheets of Styrofoam over a wood frame and then spray the who kit and caboodle with spray foam. They once again line it with pond ice and straw and the structure becomes a walk in freezer and the ice lasts till the following August. They avoid modern medicine until there is no alternative and are experts when it comes to herbology and homeopathic medicine. They disdain vaccinations. I've read posters hung in Amish establishments warning people that they are allowing themselves to be injected with pus if they get them. Yet they sell bottles of Penicillin by the 500cc bottle at the local feed store and will doctor their animals without hesitation.

It's a mixed up screwed up crazy old world all right. But they are survivors and one of the fastest growing sub-cultures in the country, mostly due to their large families. 12 kids? Not unusual. You have to admire those women.

Superchemicalgirl, they are not allowed generators in the community around us, nor cell phones although 8 miles away that community is allowed cell phones. You always see a horse or a buggy tethered outside the local phone booth. They do not own tractors but they can borrow and drive them. Two summers ago, they hayed our pastures. It was fun to watch the horse drawn hay mower come in and cut the grass and the next day come back with a horse drawn hay rake. We were expecting the horse drawn baler to show up after that but nope, here came the Amish driven tractor pulling the baler. Some of the farmers use horse drawn balers but the group that does the fields on our road said their was was faster and they were able to harvest hay.

I always felt with a lot of them that there was just a real wide chasm separating us and try as I might I could never bridge that chasm. Maybe it's because I wear my hair super short or because I wear jeans and t-shirts for everyday wear, I dunno. I'm a firm believer that God is more concerned on what is in a man or woman's heart over what he or she is wearing when they clean out the chicken coop. The men are friendlier and have learned that they can talk business with me as well as my husband. Something that just doesn't happen in their world and it has been hard earned on my part. Which reminds me, I need to go down the road and dicker with the Small Motor Repair shop owner's son for hatching eggs. I'm absolutely bombing in my search for OEGB eggs.

 

[ronott1]

It would be hard for any modern woman to become "Amish". Every part of their life is covered by tradition and doctrine. Their finished dresses cannot be totally finished. Doctrine tells them how many straight pins and safety pins must remain in the dress once it is 'completed'. In the Amish world, it's a mans world in the true sense of the word. Women, once they have children, their job is in the home where they cook for large families, grow gardens to feed their families, preserve meat and vegetables. We went into one neighbor's house one fall to find the women busily making Bologna. They had ground over 100 pounds of beef (later found out Bossy had died calving and Bossy was being turned into lunch meat) The Bologna mixture was laid out on three folding banquet tables and piled 2 feet tall. As I watched, the girls were busy cramming the mix into jars. The smell was wonderful. The work undoubtedly backbreaking.

The culture for women has truly been stuck back in the early 1800s. I told my husband the other day that you see Amish boys of all ages and me riding horseback, but you never see a girl or a woman on a horse. Driving a buggy or cart all the time, but never on horseback. If they aren't in a buggy or cart, they are on foot and in the spring and summer time, into the fall, they are on foot barefooted as are the children of both sexes. Seeing a youth cantering up the road on a small horse, I commented to my DH that it was a shame that the women didn't get to experience the thrill of riding a horse and feeling it's muscles work under you and feel the wind on your face and in your hair.

Penny1960, their knowledge of preserving their own food surpasses anything I've ever encountered. Buy a refrigerator? Nope. They buy a derelict freezer, cut ice from their pond with a chain saw and bingo. Refrigerator. Or build an ice house using foot thick sheets of Styrofoam over a wood frame and then spray the who kit and caboodle with spray foam. They once again line it with pond ice and straw and the structure becomes a walk in freezer and the ice lasts till the following August. They avoid modern medicine until there is no alternative and are experts when it comes to herbology and homeopathic medicine. They disdain vaccinations. I've read posters hung in Amish establishments warning people that they are allowing themselves to be injected with pus if they get them. Yet they sell bottles of Penicillin by the 500cc bottle at the local feed store and will doctor their animals without hesitation.

It's a mixed up screwed up crazy old world all right. But they are survivors and one of the fastest growing sub-cultures in the country, mostly due to their large families. 12 kids? Not unusual. You have to admire those women.

Superchemicalgirl, they are not allowed generators in the community around us, nor cell phones although 8 miles away that community is allowed cell phones. You always see a horse or a buggy tethered outside the local phone booth. They do not own tractors but they can borrow and drive them. Two summers ago, they hayed our pastures. It was fun to watch the horse drawn hay mower come in and cut the grass and the next day come back with a horse drawn hay rake. We were expecting the horse drawn baler to show up after that but nope, here came the Amish driven tractor pulling the baler. Some of the farmers use horse drawn balers but the group that does the fields on our road said their was was faster and they were able to harvest hay.

I always felt with a lot of them that there was just a real wide chasm separating us and try as I might I could never bridge that chasm. Maybe it's because I wear my hair super short or because I wear jeans and t-shirts for everyday wear, I dunno. I'm a firm believer that God is more concerned on what is in a man or woman's heart over what he or she is wearing when they clean out the chicken coop. The men are friendlier and have learned that they can talk business with me as well as my husband. Something that just doesn't happen in their world and it has been hard earned on my part. Which reminds me, I need to go down the road and dicker with the Small Motor Repair shop owner's son for hatching eggs. I'm absolutely bombing in my search for OEGB eggs.

The separation between you and Amish does not have anything to do with the way you look. It is a characteristic of the way groups like that work.

Go Here for breeders of OEGB:

http://www.standardbreedpoultry.com/bantam_chickens_for_sale.php

Click on the under game bantam click the down arrow next to old English game and look for breeders of the type you want. It looks like there are a lot of them and hopefully you will find someone willing to sell eggs.

Check with Urch Turnland too:

 

[Beer can]

I've always admired the Amish (not the rules), IMHO the world would be a better place environmentally, spiritually, healthier, if we lived like our ancestors did, not all of it but the farming part and being self sufficient. Today, bigger badder faster quicker and the mighty dollar, ohh my!
Amish are odd in some respects. Watched a youtube vid recently of a amish team of horses pulling a wagon with a gas motor that powered a chopper blowing corn silage into a another big wagon (it was a large team of horses) another team switched the wagon when it was full and brought it back to the farm where they had a big tractor... Their 'religious leaders' didn't allow tractors in the field but they could have them at the farm. At least the horses had a job and a purpose I guess.
We have a Amish family here that actually rides in their horse and buggy to go to a Kmart Lol!
Have a really nice Mennonite store near here I like to go to occasionally, best deli and prices around. They have tons of different spices in bulk for less than the grocery stores sell for those tiny containers.