Amish Weekend

Be sure to read Beth's posts here and here first.  I've posted some additional pictures to tell more of the story. I'm short on words so I'll just write a bit about the pictures.

The cows are milked twice a day.

Don't try this at home.

In the hen house. The eggs are collected once a day. 50 hens = 50+ eggs.

The Bull. It's actually very unusual for dairy farms to have a bull. They are mean. Most farms use artificial insemination. But not the Smuckers!  With 60 cows, that makes for one busy bull.

Captain Janet. Check out that cow behind her.

Unpasteurized milk. The milk man comes every other day but never on Sunday.

More dairy cows (and a couple of chickens).

Eggs. Mrs. Smuckers gave each of us a dozen eggs before we left. And we got to pick tomatoes and peppers from her garden.

The Smuckers' new buggy. It has battery powered tail lights.

All pimped-out on the inside. That's a Pioneer sound system.

Chickens!

Rooster.

Horses. The road you see is Kessler, part of the road race course.

Crowing rooster.

Marvin (Mrs. Smuckers 10th and youngest child) on his trike. He was FAST on that thing!

On our buggy ride we ran into some folks from Artemis. We also went by the boys' school, a turkey farm, and the homes of several family members.

The road race. Look very close and you can see Dave O in the break. Our Amish friends were able to cheer for the racers because they go to church every other Sunday and this Sunday was off.

We learned so much about the Amish this weekend and can't wait to go back and visit the Smuckers. Here are some random thoughts and tidbits:

They don't use rubber except on their bicycles. Speaking of which, somehow they wound up with a presta valve and were confused by it. Sonja and I left them our pump.

Their scriptures are written in German and their sermons are also in German, even though they speak Pennsylvania Dutch at home. Mrs. Smucker admitted to peeking at the English translation at church.

They can ride in cars just not own them or drive. When they have to travel long distances they use a taxi service.

They were thoroughly interested in our bikes and racing. Some of the boys even rode Janet's bike. And after the race on Sunday, they were waiting with bated breath for us to return and tell them all about it. I actually didn't think we were ever going to get out of there. But I would have been ok with that.

A truly amazing and unforgettable experience. We can learn a lot from them and we only hope to be able to return the favor some day. And no poaching our host family next year. We've already claimed them.