Amish Country

hi I'm will Howard and we're in the breadbasket of the mid-atlantic in Lancaster County Pennsylvania the heart of Amish country spend a little time with me we're going to take a carriage tour talk to the Amish and see what life is all about we are in kitchen Kettle village in Lancaster County and we're here with Reuben Stoll fost and Sarah Jane so you take tours out of here several times a day 12 months a year right we did yep and tell us where we're going to go we're going to do a very beautiful 35 minute ride it's a four mile backcountry ride the other ride that we have also is a covered bridge ride and that is the only buggy ride that goes through a real covered bridge on a backcountry Road this ride is a beautiful four mile 35 minute ride and then we're going to take the option and we're going to stop right on an Amish farm where we can take our visitors and show them the real working Amish form that's great now you grew up in an Amish family I did okay but you did not become Amish is that right that's right no sir gene you're Amish is that great okay um tell me about the experience of growing up but both of you it's a great life it's like I say it's a great life but my children are nama so but it is it's very good life we would have a different country if 80 percent of the kids could grow up with the values of the Amish people it will change our country and one generation sure could wonderful lifestyle the children learn at a very young age they learn responsibility they learn accountability they learn to be a part of things rather than feeling like the world owes them something they want to contribute to the world and contribute to society so they look at what they can do that helps people rather than look at what they can do to get things from people free of charge how many brothers and sisters did you have I have three brothers and one sister okay and then how many do you have okay don't typically Amish families have like seven or eight children they do the average seven-day children many of the families will have 10 to 12 children very common Wow Wow and they're totally self supported I don't sit well I see some wires here but when earlier we were going around there in a wire so there's no telephones no of no power no power the farms are totally uncoated self-sufficient they have a diesel engine on the form that runs the milking system and it also runs the cooling system to keep the milk cool and an air compressor they have power tools but they're always air generally air motors and on the diesel engine that will also run the cooling system that keeps the milk picked up every other day by a tank truck a lot of the milk from this area goes to the Land O'Lakes butter company oh cool cool so the Amish have their own school system they do and how many years ago to that start around 45 50 years ago did that have anything to do with the when the American schools stops a prayer about the same time no it had to do with the public school system not wanting to sponsor the one-room schoolhouses anymore and the Amish people didn't want their children going to public schools then at that time the Amish people started their own private school system to Main one room schoolhouse so that's what's behind us right now this the one is that a one-room schoolhouse that is a one-room schoolhouse and they're presently teaching grade 1 through 8 all in one classroom with one teacher now and then the teacher has a helper but primarily it's all done with one teacher they average around 30 to 35 students per school house and you'll see these little school houses every two to three mile throughout the area and they have for state reasons they have to maintain the same standards as you open public school house right they do with the exception of they only go to the eighth grade they teach grade 1 through 8 all in that classroom the Amish people actually think it's a waste of time for the kids to be sitting in high school and in college they want their children doing something productive so after the eighth grade the teenagers work right along with the adults doing some type of trade or forming however in Pennsylvania you need to go to school until you're 16 but the Amish and the government compromised and the children go to school until they're 15 so after the eighth grade most of them are only 14 so they end up going to school once a week generally on a Monday but the other four days that they're not going to school they keep a diary and that diary gets handed in to the school board and that's how the Amish and the government came to a compromise why don't they like electricity the Amish are merely a religion they're not a nationality they live the way they do because they think by living without the modern conveniences they can live a more simple more fully right so they have certain things but they don't go modern completely because they don't want to be like the rest of the world people feel sorry for the Amish people might look like they have a hard life and guess what the Amish people feel sorry for us because for them it's safe and it's secure and that's why most Amish joven want to choose to fail because there's no divorce among the Amish they look out for each other they take care of each other they're very tightly knit they actually keep at least 80% of the children that grow up Amish new name because it's a safety net for them why didn't you become Amish if it's personal your salesperson oh no for me it really depended whether I was going to meet an Amish girl or not arms okay a very small percentage of the Amish kids are a little more aggressive like I used to be and they have cars and they go out and all that most of those kids end up selling their cars again and going back to the Amish Way of life but once in a while someone like myself besides not to go back to the Amish Way of life again if you become you become Amish by being baptized is that correct you become a member of the Amish church by being water baptized I see okay and is that full immersion water or excess sprinkling breeze okay and once if you are baptized and go in are there consequences than if you if you go leave a little more complicated if we decide to leave the Amish church after you're a member like my sister and her husband they left the Amish Way of life after they were married that they were all in the Amish church are you shunned that I am NOT shun because I was never a member of Amish church but they are Sean they still have a very good relationship with my parents my parents go to their house they come to my parents house but they don't sit down to eat at the same table as my sister and her husband because they're excommunicated and they won't ride with them in a vehicle when they're driving at the ride in a vehicle 100 seems kind of weird but everybody that becomes a member of the Amish church knows the consequences if they decide to leave where did the Amish come from they came from Germany in the early 1700 around 1732 they migrated to the US because of religious persecution at that time same as the Quakers same as the Quakers and amendment what's the difference between the Amish and Mennonite the Mennonite have cars and electricity where the Amish have just tell horse and buggy this is our turn signal by the way we have a battery on the buggy because we have lights for nighttime just like the Amish buggies but they there's no longer any Amish people in Germany they've all migrated to the US now and they live in lots of other areas in the United States outside of Lancaster County here where we are presently but here in Lancaster County there's around around 20 $22,000 people and they all speak German is that correct you speak and their Bibles are German their Bibles in German their church services they hold them in German so there's a German language and there's an Amish German language right the Amish there is the Amish German language is a mixture of German and English they call it you know German can you say something nice to me in Amish Sisson shab all right what's that mean it's a nice day today yes it is a nice day today and we're going to go to the beautiful farm now this farm is all wrong totally self-sufficient no electricity on this one though the milking equipment and the cooling equipment all that is run by the diesel engine and this is a real working forum where we bring visitors do that come to visit Lancaster County and want to know about the Amish group they get the ride Miss Sarah Jane or one of the other Amish people network or us or myself Sarah Jane you're a terrific driver so is this a typical Amish farm yep this is it this is where they milk the cows in the morning about 5:00 a.m. they're out here we'll actually are out here at 4:30 a.m. feeding the cows already they milk the cows in the morning then they milk them again in the evening around 5:30 and on the buggy ride we bring the people here that want to see the milking and they can actually watch them milk the cows why the Amish people are doing all their chores around the barn here like feeding the cows up in the troughs they wash them down a little bit they clean everything you see lime on the floors everything has to be sanitized and just great and how much milk would be produced out of a farm like bet the size boy I'm sorry I can't really even ask that answer that question when I grew up on an Amish farm we had chickens beef cattle and hogs and as far as for me King I really don't know but I watched these guys milk and I know they get at least three four gallons out of the cow every morning and every evening wow that's a lot of milk it's a lot of milk they also produced cheese here and other dairy products they do produce cheese at certain locations here it's very seldom that they actually produced the cheese right here on the form this milk goes to the Land O'Lakes butter company and is processed into butter tell us about the houses there seem to be additions and additions and additions this is a typical Amish house right yep you see the addition onto the farmhouse the Amish people don't put their elderly folks in retirement centers and convalescent homes they take care of their elderly folks so when the parents are done farming one of the children takes over the form generally one of the boys and the parents move to the smaller section of the farmhouse that you see right behind us that's how they look out for each other and take care of each other and they avoid putting their elderly folks into retirement homes so many it's three generations live in one house three is the maximum most of them just two it's seldom for three generations to be in one house and it's set up like a townhouse with two or three separate living quarters but now and then great grandma or great grandpa might still be living and then they have like the third section for them but that two generations is very common and they also have a bed-and-breakfast here too right this farm is very unique very very few Amish farms have a bed-and-breakfast on them however these people have a real nice cottage here it's a very beautiful two-bedroom house very nice kitchen a very nice bathroom they have sore electricity in there for you so you actually have a little bit of electricity and they bring you breakfast in the morning and they let you watch milk the cows now I've seen a lot of these on the road since we've been up here I wonder how comfortable they were they they look pretty creature creature comfortable they are they're very snazzy at the age of 16 the father buys the son a horse and a buggy that's why you see three of these buggies in here there's three boys on this form here that are still living at home but they're above the age of 16 so oh this is a contra transportation pretty neat actually yeah it's really it's comfortable you got your window you got this this this thing drops down oops get some rain or some snow you drop this down and look at this yeah okay then we got it you know a battery operated I know it's a manual manual cool and then this turning signals you get a little glove box little glove box batteries turn signals and pretty neat in cool yeah you know how you like that even got a neat little enter your light up there for you so I notice from the barns but these honest farmers have an excess quantity of material left over specifically from the cows some that I specifically got a little close to what did they do with that it's actually not excess it's a very valuable manatee for them and that's why you smell that good healthy smell good smell good open two very for me yes it's manure from the animals and it's a good fertilizer for the fields so they spread that out on the fields and then they plow it under makes a wonderful fertilizer the more they have the better and as we're driving alone you see all the beautiful farmland all the land that we see right at this point is plowed by horses and mules and no tractors and any of the fields all the homes right here in this immediate neighborhood none of them have any electricity in them so they have gasoline lanterns for lighting for nighttime they have propane gas for the heat propane for the refrigerator the stove for cooking and also the hot water heater is all propane gas yeah you don't see any wires going to the house and have you noticed you don't see any Amish churches that's true one more Amish church buildings they have the church services in their homes so they move from house to house to have their church services just like the forum house that we've been to the Amish of church every other Sunday not every Sunday but every other Sunday and then it's about two hours and 45 minutes on wooden benches so the church services the weddings and the funerals all that is held right in the home and interestingly a church service is all day that so they have the church service in the morning the ceremony which couples get married during that two hour and 45 minute ceremony and then after the ceremony they have a huge dinner for everybody we would call it a dinner they call it a lunch it's like a five course meal everybody sits down and eats most wonderful meal that you can find anywhere no restaurant can match that then they sang hymns in the afternoon we sit around the fellowship they sing hymns in the evening they serve a large dinner a good three-course dinner then they sang more hymns until about 7:00 7:30 in the evening and then the weddings over to an all-day event and it's on Tuesdays and Thursdays in November and December but there's so many weddings in November in December that just in the last couple of years they started having weddings in March also Oh on Tuesdays and Thursdays so that they have a day in between the weddings to clean up or to prepare for the next wedding if there's a couple weddings in the same family or the same neighborhood how many in these church groups and how many Amish are there in the county here this county has around 20 22 thousand people and the church districts are divided up into districts about 20 25 families per church district and each church district has two ministers a deacon and an elder and then there is also the bishop and the bishop is the top and he oversees two or three church just do they have a pope hope oh it's the bishop focus up several top guys 31 minutes okay we need way more I covered the schoolhouse and that they only go to the eighth grade here that's a good one right yeah but I can't act you ready okay I'll start off by asking we ready rolling tape so what's the one major industry in Lancaster County probably tourism V first right tourism probably and then fun you see lots of forms especially as you're driving along you see these big country towers are storage containers by the way on the schoolhouse tractor but these concrete towers are storage containers for the poor now the modern farmers guys with electricity they just push a button and a piece of machinery brings that corn down out of the silos but the Amish people when I did this until I was 18 years old they climb up the inside of the silo then have a pill about 14 inches wide and they skim a couple inches of porn off the silo all the way around and they throw that down a chute and they do that every morning and every evening and that's how they have enough corn to get through to the next corn crop I grew up working on an Amish farm I worked on an Amish farm until I was 18 years old and it used to take me about 20 25 days to do all the pound with the horses and the mules my neighbor he would come out across the street with his big tractor and he'd be done in two or three days I would think oh man that just doesn't seem quite fair it was my first indication that maybe I wouldn't be sticking it out so a very small percentage of the Amish kids are a little more aggressive like I used to be in the App cars and they go out and all those are actually the ones you see some of these networks make reality shows out of they're going through very fake very bad I never watched any of those reality shows they're very untrue they just make a big show out of things but a lot of views of the kids a little more aggressive like I used to be in they have cars and they go out and all but I had to wait until I was 18 years old to buy my first car and they've got my driver's license because my dad's open sign for me to get a car when I bought my first car the roof nearly came off the house I haven't felt my car down the street at the neighbors I wasn't allowed to bring it home because my parents wouldn't be to get rid of that thing and drive a horse and buggy there's still Amish kids will do that but it's a very small percentage of the Amish kids that have cars like that most of them actually stay with the horse and buggy and even a lot of the Amish boys that end up with cars guess what they end up selling their cars and going back to the Amish Way of life again why because it's secure it's comfortable with the Amish people they keep at least 80 percent or more of their kids very few religions can keep that many of their youth but it's a safe way as well because there's no divorce among the armed they look out for each other they take care of each other so it's a safety net for a lot of the kids to remain Amish is this the largest populated Amish area in the country Lancaster County Pennsylvania which is where we are here is the second largest area the largest area is Holmes County Ohio there's Amish and around 21 22 states and marry lots of other areas I have an Amish brother who married an all Amish girl in Indiana and he lives on Indiana is actually an Amish preacher and the summer his daughter got married so I got to go to an Amish wedding very needed spare how many Mennonites are here there are about the same amount of Mennonites as there are Amish people the Mennonites have cars and electricity a lot of the same values as Amish people but a few more amenities if anybody would like to come to Lancaster County and and taking care of tried with you and and all of your people how where do they go and and what's your website we are located in the kitchen Kettle village the name of the company is AAA buggy rides and that's for Amish all around and wwa a a buggy rides as a website or you can just type in buggy rides search and will pop up and we're located right in the kitchen kettle village in the heart of the Amish country Ruben thanks so much has been a great tour it's been a pleasure thank you Sarah Jane you may remember the movie witness that was filmed in this town starring Kelly McGillis and Harrison Ford it's true that the Amish do not have phones but they do have access to this phone booth phone works it was the one used in the filming of that movie this is will Howard signing off

Channel: VisitorsTvNetwork

Views: 260,647

Rating: 4.7961335 out of 5

Keywords: Amish Country, Lancaster County

Id: q05nvi4ANx8

Length: 23min 38sec (1418 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 16 2012