Amish Country at Last!

Saturday, March 14 ~ Tuesday, March 17

Amish Buggy at the Bank

Despite the stress of driving an unfamiliar car on a tangle of highways, surrounded by exceedingly impatient drivers, I practically tingled as we entered Lancaster County, the area known as “Amish country”. I wouldn't want to be called obsessed with the Amish, but it is fair to say that I am very, very intrigued. Every since Beverly Lewis first published The Crossroad and The Postcard, I have been reading Amish fiction.

 I have tried to stick with authors who have a background knowledge of “plain people”, but even so, with a little discernment it becomes obvious that much of it is highly fictionalized. Recently I bought a book for my Nook entitled, Plain Answers about the Amish Life, by Mindy Starns Clark. This well researched book attempts to dispel some of the strange ideas floating around about these unique people who seem to be stuck in time.

My ultimate dream was to actually stay in an Amish home and have a one-on-one conversation with an Amish person ~ in English please, not Pennsylvania-Dutch. I never even took high school German so my knowledge of their curious language is, well, about nil.

After driving around in a drizzling fog due to a wonky GPS, we finally saw the sign for Chris and Katie's farm. We would be staying in their guesthouse, which adjoined their house. Faced with a bewildering cluster of buildings and outbuildings, we just parked the car in the middle of the driveway and hesitatingly got out. Soon we were greeted by boisterous pack of dogs and an enthusiastic, if somewhat high-pitched welcome from an open doorway. We'd found the right place and for a few days we were home.

Alyssa and Katie on the Guesthouse Steps

The guesthouse wing was added on several years ago as a home for one of their eight children. They lived there for seven years before moving their family into a bigger house nearby. Down a half flight of stairs, tucked under the guest house, was Katie's quilt shop. Other than being closed on Sunday, Katie's shop seemed to be open anytime customers wanted to drop by. Also stopping by and ducking under her line full of freshly washed clothes were the many women who created the beautiful quilts and other items sold.

Beautiful, Hand Quilted Pillows that Unfold into Blankets

Besides the quilt shop, the Stotlzfus family has a couple of other enterprises. Chris, a quiet man with a long curly beard, seems to do most of the work with their 9,000+ chickens. Housed in two long buildings, they obviously are not free-range. Eggs are picked up once a week by a truck but we were welcome to help ourselves any time.

According to Chris, raising beef cattle is just a hobby. They said that they have about nine or ten head of Angus and one Italian breed bull. When we went out to visit the barn, Trina, the eight-year-old boxer, insisted on joining our expedition. Inside the very fragrant barn we discovered that there were actually twenty animals, including the block-headed bull and a shy, rather unused Standard-bred driving horse.

Sweet Little Heifers

 We had a bit of a challenge because Trina-the-boxer likes to come in and tease the cows. She also doesn't come when called and even when she's dragged out by the collar, she opens the barn door with her nose. The bull was a bit saucy and I threatened to punch him in the nose if he didn't calm down. Brave of me with his head between the bars, wasn't it?