Amish Country

Journal entry Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

This was outside a grocery store

This picture is blurry but that's just as well
since they don't want their faces in pictures.

We headed toward Lancaster and even before we got there we saw Amish and Mennonite farmers. It was really cool to get glimpses of them out working naturally in places that weren’t for tourists. We saw one man and his daughter on a horse-pulled plow, and then a young girl with a delighted grin trotting down the road in a tiny surrey. I saw a line of towels hanging on a line that were arranged in order of size, with the bath towels slowly shrinking to washcloths. It would have made a cool photo.

 

In Lancaster we went to a farm that had been turned into a tourist place. We took a tour where they showed us all the rooms and talked about the Amish way of life. Outside there were lots of out buildings with a kitchen for cooking in hot weather so as not to heat the house, barns, and big dryers.

This one-room schoolhouse had a quilt rack in the front

In the woodworking shop there was a whittler and wood burner who had some of his work on display. He’d made a rooster about twice the size of the head of a pin, complete with a feathery tail.

I collect key chains and have about 30 of them at home. I was delighted to have him make me a specialized key chain, with whatever designs I asked for on both sides. The bird is in honor of me, of course, but I had him make it a Cardinal because we saw one hanging around the farm. So bright and pretty! We don’t have them where I live.

Then we stopped at Hershey factory. We went on a tour of a simulation of the factory with silly, singing cows. It had little carts that went on a continuous loop, each with their own speakers, so you could climb on at any time. I hadn’t realized quite how much work and how many steps it takes to get from the cocoa beans to the chocolate.

Cocoa beans

Cocoa butter

 Check back next Friday for the next installment!