Ohio Amish Country and beyond

As the incredibly hot (90's) and humid (75%) weather stuck us to anything we touched, we drove deeper into the heartland of America. We had spent a sticky night in a park in Lexington, using our outdoor shower for the first time. We felt great for about 10 minutes then the stickiness was back. Our first stop the following morning was Malabar Farm, the only working farm in the Ohio State Park system. It was built by Louis Bromfield, a well known early 1900's author. It has some animals, barns and a beautiful big house that is in the process of refurbishment.

Using our books and maps to guide us, we wove our way deeper into Amish country. We did a pretty good job of not behaving like the typical American tourist in a foreign land; trying not to stare at buggies, funny haircuts and beards, unusual clothing, ...but there were some moments. Dammit, what do you expect from us? We are tourists in a RV! Anyway, plenty of the kids back home also have funny haircuts and wear unusual clothing. Right?

We had a nice time at Heini's Place, a cheese and goodie factory. Not only was it air conditioned but you could eat all the samples you wished from over 30 kinds of cheese and 12 kinds of fudge. After eating enough to count for lunch and buying even more to take with us, we went on a short tour led by an elderly Amish gentleman who had worked there for many years. "When I was a young man...." He gave us the history of Heini's and then a tour of the facility where they were not making cheese at that particular time. A notable fact is that they only buy milk from farmers who milk their cows by hand. Their cheeses taste so good because they use milk from happy, stress free cows. He told a very funny story about a farmer with a bad batch of butter....

    As the story goes, a local farmer would save up the cream from his milk cows each week to make his own household butter and also enough to sell locally for additional income.

   One time, when he began to make the butter, he discovered that a rat had fallen into the cream, drowned and settled to the bottom sometime during the week. He didn't want to lose a whole weeks worth of income so, discarding the rat, he went ahead and made his butter and brought the entire batch to the local store to sell.

   He thought to exchange his households portion for fresh store butter and proposed this to the store owner. "That seems strange to me." said the merchant. "Why would you want to trade equal amounts of your good butter for some other?"

   "I cannot lie to you." the farmer replied, "A rat died in the cream but I'm sure that it tastes alright and perhaps we can keep this little incident a secret between us. I will take a smaller amount in exchange and you can sell the rest for profit. Besides, what people don't know won't hurt them."

   "That is certainly true." replied the merchant and accepted the farmer's butter. Taking it to the back of the store, the merchant soon returned with the farmer's very own butter, now reshaped and neatly packaged in store wrapping paper.

   "Here you go." said the merchant to the farmer, handing him the repackaged rat butter. "As you say, what people don't know won't hurt them." And each gave a knowing wink to the other.

A stop at the Mennonite and Amish Heritage Center gave us a greater understanding of their beliefs and culture. They had an excellent video presentation and I appreciated the chance to learn about them without feeling like a voyeur or observer as they go about their lives in their communities. Their farms are simple and beautiful, they only farm the amount of land that they can work themselves with simple tools and horses. They raise enough to feed their families and sell locally. Many use their crafts, carpentry skills, and cooking skills to augment family incomes. They are not entirely off the grid but using electricity requires permission from the bishop. For instance, its OK to use battery powered tools where the batteries are charged by a generator but they cannot use the generator or an engine directly. We watched a video about the typical barn raisings that they do on occasion. With the foundation laid and the materials organized, 3-400 men can raise a large post and beam barn by lunchtime (starting before dawn). It was an amazing thing to watch, with just a few men in charge they have everyone working like bees in a hive, each one knowing the task and having the skill to do it efficiently and as a team.

The Amish wish for a slower paced life with an emphasis on family and community, and an independence from the outside world (hence the buggies, self insurance, small schools, home churches and a very tight knit community). A typical farm may house four generations of the family – each person fulfilling their own important role in support of the others. They believe in non-conformity to the larger society but extreme conformity in their own community. I am sure there are what we would consider hardships in their daily lives, but it also seems like a very successful model for a sustainable future. I loved the well tended farms, bountiful fields and beautiful horses and buggies that we saw, they certainly are skilled farmers and know how to build elegant and useful equipment. Everyone we spoke with was very friendly and polite, and even as we drove the backroads through the rich and green farmland most of those who looked our way would typically smile and wave to us.

We had an early dinner at an Amish styled restaurant (excellent food) before heading out to our boon-docking  destination for the night.  A long hot, sticky drive, slowed by construction and detours eventually brought us to David & Sarah's beautiful home south of Pittsburg about 9:30 that evening. We plugged into their electricity and used our air conditioning for the first time. It is noisier than the quiet we are used to but it worked well enough for us to sleep thru the heat. It would've worked better if it also wasn't so danged humid.

Sarah, David and their three sons Jonah, Levi and Abraham live on a lovely acreage surrounded by woods. David has worked really hard to make the place a little boy wonderland: big play scape, lawns, a pond, dirt bike trail, fire pit, climbing wall, trampoline. and swings. Sarah and David are both pilots in the National Guard, so they have an interesting schedule with deployments and local work. They somehow fit in RVing, climbing, canoeing, backpacking and biking. David is obviously very skilled at carpentry and any kind of project. Thayer was having an extreme bout of shop envy while we toured the garage and David's shop area. We enjoyed our short visit with them.

With a day of driving ahead of us we cranked up the air conditioning and got on the freeway, heading for Erie, PA on our way to Niagara Falls, Ontario. We took a break midday to stop in Erie at Presque Island SP for some biking and swimming. Again we were delighted by the great bike paths and beautiful beaches of yet another park. We went for a swim though the waters didn't seem quite as clear and inviting as other Great Lakes we have visited. We were pretty desperate for some kind of cool. We also got to see a couple of tall ships sailing by the peninsula which always makes it a good day for us. Then onward to Niagara to a hospitable boondocker site just a few miles north of the falls. Again, we were thankful for a plug-in for the air conditioning. The white noise also drowned out the big thunderstorm that rolled through. It is finally cooler this morning and temperatures are expected to plummet in the next few days to typical or even lower fall temps. We'll be happier when it happens.