Have You Considered a Farm Stay in Amish Country? A look into the peaceful life at Farmstead Lodging, Ohio
This entry was written by
Administrator,
posted on
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
This guest blog post and photos were provided by Tim
Hogan. We always welcome input from visitors to our farm stays! If
you have a guest blog you would like to share, please email Michelle@farmstayus.com
My first of many stays at the Farmstead Lodging was
on the last day of summer in 2008. On the way down there from
Cleveland I was impressed by the change in the terrain, which went
from absolutely flat to being so hilly that it no longer seemed
like Ohio. Now I'm used to it, because I've lived in Holmes
County for well over a year. The decision to move here had a
lot to do with the warmth and friendship of Willis and Kathy Miller
and their children Diane, Krista and Timothy.
I read about the Millers' farm stay bed and
breakfast in a feature story in the travel section of the
"Cleveland Plain Dealer" in August, 2008. It interested me
because, unlike most of the B&Bs in Amish country, this one was
in the home of an Old Order Amish family. The day of my
arrival was warm and sunny, and before going to the house I ate at
Mrs. Yoder's Amish Kitchen, a very good restaurant about a mile
away. When I arrived at the farm I parked in the circular
gravel driveway, feeling sort of nervous. The Millers live in
a large white two-story home with their three children.
Willis's parents live in a smaller white house near the
larger one. That's a typical Amish arrangement; fathers will
often pass the farm on to a son (or daughter and her husband) and
continue to live on the property in what is known as the dawdi
haus. Dawdi is Pennsylvania Dutch (or Deitsh) for
grandpa.
My knock at the door was answered by Diane, who at that time
was 15. She called into the house, "Mom, the bed and
breakfast guy is here!" Then Timothy came to the door,
followed by his mom, Kathy. Tim and Kathy led me to an
exterior door leading into the daylit basement, and we entered the
room, which has a small kitchen and a full bath. Everything was
neat and clean, and several windows provided nice light. Two
large beds and a gas woodstove furnished the main room, along with
a dining table and a rocking chair.
I had wondered about how I would charge my cell phone, but
Kathy pointed out to me an extension cord that ran into the room
from a doorway that leads to a stairwell. The cord is
connected to an inverter, so I could use the coffee maker, charge
my phone, or, if I had chosen to bring it, run my laptop.
Otherwise, the room was equipped with propane light fixtures,
and there was no TV or phone, which pleased me. Being without
those things was part of why I wanted to stay there. The
stove, oven and refrigerator all ran on propane.
After Diane showed me the room, I followed her outside to
bring in the 30 or so Holstein milk cows from the field. The
cows are rotated among several large pastures which are defined by
a single-strand electric fence run by a generator. Diane said
that after forgetting one time to kill the power before handling
the wire, you wouldn't be likely to forget again. I was in
the field with the cows, listening to Diane and noting how the
animals knew what she wanted them to do with little prompting, when
I stepped into a steamy, freshly laid cow pie. They aren't
very pie-like when they're fresh, though. It was like
stepping into a bucket of warm chocolate cake batter that happened
to smell a whole lot more like methane than chocolate. As I
cleaned my shoe on the grass, I marveled at my stupidity, and I
noticed that Diane was so sure of her own footing that she was
wearing sandals.
We brought the cows into the barn, and I met Gear Up and
Joe, the Millers' buggy horses. Both are standardbreds,
which, for the Amish, often come from the ranks of the pacers and
trotters who make up the harness racing circuit. They are
preferred because of their even temperament, strength, and ease of
training. The disposition of a buggy horse is critical,
because on the road they are routinely passed just a few feet away
by vehicles moving at 50 or 60 miles per hour; some of those
vehicles are huge, loud semi trucks. Most buggy horses wear
blinders. The gait of pacers involves both feet on the same
side moving at the same time; trotters run with a diagonal gait.
Willis told me that Gear could pace at about 10 MPH for 12
miles with no problem, barring too many hills.
I fed Gear and Joe and then met the group of Belgian draft
horses that do the field work. Those horses towered over me,
being closer to seven feet tall than six. Depending upon what
the job is, there may be a team as large as six harnessed together.
Diane showed me the calves, including one that had been born
the day before. One was up on her feet and constantly
sticking out her tongue in anticipation of being bottle-fed.
On a dairy farm, female cows are desired and the bulls that
are born will quickly go to auction.
The herd is milked at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m., but not by hand.
A generator runs a milking machine; it's a concession to
modernity that Old Order Amish are permitted. Whoever is
milking draws some fluid out of each of the four teats and then
dips them in iodine. After they are dried, the teats are
connected to the milker, which is attached to a vacuum line.
The volume of milk is measured in pounds; eight pounds equals
one gallon. The normal output for one cow is 50 pounds per
day, but after calving the output can reach 100
pounds.
Kathy showed me the milking room, and while she shuttled the
cow in from an adjoining barn, we chatted about her way of life.
Amish children attend school only through the
8th grade, at which time their education
continues in the home, not only in the ways of agriculture for the
farm children, but in values as well. The U.S. Supreme Court
has upheld the practice of ending formal schooling after
8th grade as integral to the religious
beliefs of the Amish. Many Amish children attend parochial
schools, which are typically one-room buildings that house all
eight grades. All three Miller children attended or attend
Mount Hope Elementary School, a public school which only Amish
children currently attend. Buses provide transportation, and
the teachers in the school are not Amish (which means they are
English, as the Amish would say).
As darkness fell, I lit the propane lamps in my room.
When it was fully dark, I went outside and admired the vast,
starry, moonless sky. A shooting star fell to the west and I
wished upon it. Just the week before, a seven-year-old Amish
boy had been killed in Ashtabula County when the buggy in which he
and his brothers were riding was broadsided by a van that had run a
stop sign. I prayed (or wished, although in this case it was
the same thing) for his soul and for some semblance of peace for
his family, and also for the healing of his three critically
injured brothers. Coincidentally, the boys' surname is
Miller, a very common Amish name. I thought of Timothy, who
at the time was also seven, and full of life and wonder and
astounding energy, and it made me want to cry.
Near total darkness. That's what you find at the
intersection of County Road 77 and State Route 241 after (in
September, anyway) 10 p.m. or so. Long before that, though,
all the lights but mine were extinguished in the Miller house.
When my lights went out, there was just darkness.
Darkness like the kind we English see only when the power
goes out. No street lights, no house lights, no driveway
lights, no traffic lights, no lights. Sometimes a car will go
by and the intensity of it headlights seems out of
place.
The next morning I enjoyed some of Kathy's delicious baked
goods and then went outside to watch Willis hitch up a four-Belgian
team to the tiller. The horses are ridiculously large and
very good looking, with light brown coats, blonde manes and tails
and white stockings. Most are geldings, and it takes quite a
bit of hardware and leather to get them situated in harness.
When they were ready to go, Willis invited me up onto the
tiller to ride out to the field with him. Willis had the only
seat, and I stood next to him kind of precariously. We rode
west across the property to the field in question, where I jumped
down and watched Willis start the blades turning and go to work.
Eight hours later, eight acres had been tilled, and the
Belgians looked none the worse for wear, but Willis was very
dirty.
I enjoyed an evening meal with the Millers, and it was like
something out of an old movie, where a pioneer family welcomes a
guest with heaping platters of utterly delicious food. Willis
told me that his family begins each meal with a silent prayer, and
we all bowed our heads until he said "amen." Then the bowl of
mashed potatoes was passed around, followed by the gravy, green
beans, wonderfully seasoned chicken breast strips, homemade
applesauce and finally custard pie. Willis encouraged me to
have more of everything, which did not present a problem for me.
The meal was, without a doubt, one of the most enjoyable I've
ever had.
I've known the Millers now for more than two years, and have
lived in the heart of Amish Country for over a year. The
Amish have a remarkable closeness of family that is so rare these
days, and they possess the diligence required to complete every
task faithfully and well, from quilt making and cooking to plowing
and butchering. They gently instill in their children a
commitment to excellence that is driven not by pride or ego, but by
love of God and neighbor. They truly are remarkable people
and I am always grateful to be among them. There are about 150,000
Amish in the U.S. with 19,000 or so living in eastern Holmes
County. The tri-county area of Holmes, Wayne and Tuscarawas
represents the largest Amish settlement in the world.
-Tim Hogan
This entry was written by
Administrator,
posted on
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
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