My 15 year old son and I both love history and learning about different cultures, so visiting the Amish in the Lancaster area was on our list for our summer trip. We were really surprised at the interesting nature of the Amish Experience “show”-it’s a very unique film with physical affects such as a misty rain and some other things (I won’t spoil it for you). 😊
We took several tours including one that took us on a small bus driving through the gorgeous farmland as the driver discusses Amish life. Another, our favorite, took us in a small group to visit the homes/farms of three Amish families. Hannah lived in a very nice, newer home with a huge kitchen built to handle meals with her large extended family. She showed us her sewing activities, her canning, and talked about their life. They had a really nice, clean stable with three horses and kept not only their own buggies there but also her son’s from next door. Her garden was beautiful as were her flowers. Her adorable grandson walked around with us. He only spoke Pennsylvania Dutch (a German dialect)-he’ll either learn English when he’s older or when he goes to school.
Susan had a nice home, but smaller and very old (maybe 1860s?). We just sat and
chatted with her which was delightful. We ended up talking about 9/11 and it was interesting to hear what she had learned by word of mouth. She made adorable pot holders and her husband made beautiful wooden baskets that fold flat.
Our final stop was at “Farmer John’s” dairy barn. He had about 35 milk cows and did a terrific job explaining his operation (the stainless steel cooling tank was operated by a big diesel engine in a shack behind the barn. He obviously cared so much about bringing a healthy milk supply to others and his sophistication about his operation was beyond what we expected. He was cute, interesting and teased our tour host, which was fun. The sad part
was that milk prices had stayed too low too long so he was having to sell off his herd and go to work for someone (our tour host
told us this and we saw the auction sign outside his home), but we didn’t speak of it with him.
I highly recommend this wonderful tour-it will be a once in a lifetime experience to learn about these interesting and good people who live a much simpler (and perhaps more fulfilled) life than the rest of us do.
Odpowiedź od gospodarza
Aug 2018
Dear MackinacMegan,
Wow! What a great review. We really appreciate you taking the time to go into depth about the tour, our Amish Friends and "Jacob's Choice" our multi-media presentation on the Amish.
Thank you for saying such nice things and we hope to see you again!