10 Things I've Learned About the Amish ~ Guest Post

My name is Beth from The imPerfect Housewife, and I'm excited to do a guest post on Mary Ann's blog today. It's fun to talk "Amish" with others who share the same interest! She and I have gotten to know each other over the past couple years and yet have never met in person. However, I do consider her one of my dearest friends. Thanks to the gift of modern technology (e-mail, Facebook, snail mail, etc.) we have become psychologists, cheerleaders, comforters, and teachers to one another. "Why do the Amish..." is something she's heard a million times, and even though there is no standard answer that encompasses all Amish, she gives examples of how things were where she was from and what she knows of other Amish out there. She's never told me, "Enough already!" when out of the blue I'll ask a weird question that I just never thought about before like, 'So do the Amish wear deodorant?' and she's had to learn about all kinds of little intricacies of life being "English" as well. (And yes, they did wear deodorant where she was from - don't tell me you weren't curious. :)

We have an Old Order Amish community about an hour and twenty minutes from my home in St. Louis, in Bowling Green, Missouri, and that's where my husband I go for little weekend getaways. The community is right outside town and they keep pretty much to themselves - no Amish restaurants, Bed & Breakfasts, or that kind of thing. It's close enough to St. Louis and yet far enough away that it's still a vacation but completely out in the country. My husband's friend from work and his wife bought a former Amish home up there that they're converting little by little. So far, just electricity and running water, but no indoor plumbing. It's a beautiful home and they keep inviting us to stay there but I told them I'm pretty sure I'm busy every day until they get bathrooms inside, oh and probably air conditioning.

The Amish community recently had their annual auction to raise money for their schools there and that is the most fun an Amish-obsessed person with a camera can have. I can't speak for all areas, but here they don't like people in their faces and don't like to pose (I think that's pretty universal, Amish or not) but they don't mind pictures from a distance or when someone's not looking - and I've got a great zoom for a cheap camera. And yes, they like to see the pictures to see if they know anyone, which is a crack up to me. That being said, some of these pics are from the auction and some are from other times we've been there and here's what I've learned about these Amish:

1. The price of hats. I never gave it much thought. Straw in the summer, wool in the winter. Well, we were in a shop there that sells hats and this was a little surprise:

Wool hats - $83.99! Whoa horsey. I asked how much the straw ones were...$9.99. 

2. They have a great sense of humor. Saw this sign in the same shop as the hats:

3. They like their pies to be cute and they know how to sell. We've seen this in other areas as well and let's face it, who wouldn't rather buy a cute pie?! I would.

4. They don't all play with faceless dolls.

The woman at the shop (Clara), whom we've come to know from going there several times, loves to talk and she's a mom who's been through it all with 12 kids (or is it 13?). Her daughter helped us one time and when I saw Clara later I told her her daughter helped us (we'll call her Hannah - that's not for anonymity but because I have no idea what her name is). Clara said, "Oh she hates to help out in the shop and I just tell her, 'Too bad'." Hmm, I can relate. I would've given her a high five if it wouldn't have been too weird. Anyway, she sells these faceless dolls and I asked her if Amish little girls really only play with faceless dolls? Nope, not there anyway. She said they played with whatever was there and had some of both.

5. Buttons vs. Pins on little girls.

  I know that little girls can have buttons until a certain age but then need to switch to pins. To me, an outsider, it's one of those 'I don't get it' rules - buttons are OK for men and children but not women. Of course I had to ask why can't women have buttons and my answer was, "I don't know." Well, okee dokee, good enough for me.

6. They're sentimental.

This is on the porch of the former Amish home our friends bought. I'd say the Eichers lived there. That's a big name in Bowling Green - Eicher. This just warms my heart and they wanted their baby's prints in the concrete. CUTE!

7. Teen guys love to look cool in their shades.

When you got it, you got it.

8. The older generation will always impart their wisdom.

9. Child care is share and share alike - at least on auction day.

10. Everyone needs a best friend.

And one to grow on...I learned that in all those Amish fiction books that take place in Berlin, Ohio, it's pronounced BERlin, not BerLIN, like in Germany.

As the Amish themselves always say, they're just like everybody else, and in so many ways they are. It's also fun to see the little ways that they're different as well though. Thanks to Mary Ann for having me post today ~ it's fun to share with new readers! Have a great day ~

Guest Post

My friend Monica kindly agreed to do a guest post for me. If you have never visited her blog I would suggest that you check it out. She is a great writer and I always enjoy my visits there.

Thanks to Maryann for selecting me as a guest-poster. I'm sincerely honored! Having had a recent experience with an errant mini pony that turned into a minor fiasco, I'd like to share this remembrance of a horse I encountered in my childhood, almost twenty years ago.

For my tenth birthday, my parents gave me an unlikely gift. Horseback riding lessons. I say this was unusual since it wasn't anything I had asked for, and I did not have any great interest in horses. I liked horses in the way that all animals intrigued me, but hadn't shown much equine interest beyond petting a horse. Besides, in the public school I attended girls talked of dance lessons and Girl Scout memberships, both things that I had asked to be part of to no avail. My parents would tell me that we didn't have the money, but more likely the truth lay closer to those things not being in sync with who we were as "a separate people". To say that my parents valued the practical would be a colossal understatement. But I didn't push for those things either, as there were more important things to lobby for such as not having to wear knee socks every day to school.

Every Saturday morning I would pull on a pair of blue jeans under my long dress and be dropped off a few miles away at some stables where a young woman named Cheryl taught me to ride horses. Actually, we started with a pony named Copper. Cheryl taught me how to saddle Copper, how to hold the reins, and how to hold my hand out flat when feeding the pony an apple so he didn't bite my fingers off. Sometimes, after the morning's lesson after my hair had become undone, Cheryl would braid my hair while I stood behind Copper braiding his tail, as he quietly slept while standing up in his stall. Yes, I came to love Copper.

During my final lessons, I graduated to riding tall, beautiful, glossy horses that appeared enormous to me in size and impossibly powerful. Cheryl and I would trot our horses through the woods on the edge of the pasture while I wondered whether horses would become a permanent part of my life. When my lessons ended, I was sad though my mother told me we could always visit Copper and bring him an apple.

Not long after my lessons, my father and I were visiting his cousin whose neighbor had some riding horses. It was a sunny, Saturday afternoon and dad thought it would be nice for us to spend the afternoon riding horses together. The neighbor's daughter saddled the horses for us and helped me on to a lovely dark Quarter horse. Things were good at first, but after only a few minutes, something in the horse's temperament changed drastically. It would not respond to my "gee" and "haw" commands and instead broke into a straight gallop. Suddenly, the horse worked up to a full run as I held tight and leaned in closer. I knew the horse was out of control, and remember looking down at the ground trying to weigh my choice of jumping off and possibly getting hurt, or staying on, and possibly getting hurt. At the back pasture, my cousin Elam (working as a hired man at the neighbor's) was kneeling on the ground mending some fence. The horse charged for him, and I looked down to see his surprised face as the horse leaped over Elam and the fence in a graceful and unexpected jump. And then, just as suddenly as my runaway horse started, he slowed to a trot and circled back stopping not far from a group of adults who had helplessly witnessed the spectacle. There is little doubt that they let out a collective exhale as I dismounted the temperamental horse. Later, dad said that I had looked like a racehorse jockey on the back of that horse, and commended me on the decision to not jump off when the horse bolted.

I did not do much horseback riding after that, finding activities such as swimming and helping the boys to build tree forts in the woods behind our house much more interesting. But years later, I was grateful that my parents had arranged for those lessons. When I went to live with my Old Order aunt and uncle, I was not in the least intimidated by the driving horses, and could confront a team of Belgian drafts with ease. Now, interaction with horses is rare for me, but I'm still fond of horses and remain vigilant for their surprise appearances in my life. They seem to remain on the periphery and then pop up at unexpected moments, the very definition of a "dark horse".