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.
