By Ruth A. Ringelstetter
Joann and I so look forward to any time we can spend in Amish country. The pace of life just seems slower in those areas for the most part. We always look forward to hearing the clip clop of horses' hooves even before a buggy comes into view.
One of our favorite things about visiting Amish country is getting old fashioned raised donuts at the bakery, just like the ones our mother made when we were kids. You have to plan your visit because many of the bakeries are only open on Fridays and Saturdays, and some only make their famous donuts on Saturdays.
This past Friday, we decided to take a day trip to the Amish area of Columbia and Green Lake counties. Our plan was to arrive at the bakery around the time they opened so we could have donuts for breakfast at a reasonable time and try to avoid the crowds. Fall can bring tour buses to the area and the bakery is small. Often the line goes out the door and up the sidewalk to the parking area. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that we failed in our quest.
As anyone who knows us is aware, we’re easily distracted and, since we were driving in the daylight, we were noticing things in small towns along our route that we hadn’t noticed before. We just had to stop and capture what we saw.
When we finally made it to the bakery entrance, several cars were just turning in from the other direction and, as Joann turned in behind them, we saw a big line of cars coming. And even though the parking lot was relatively empty, people were driving crazily, like if they didn’t speed and swerve around, they wouldn’t get a space. They seemed to be playing demolition derby.
There are a lot of Amish businesses in the area and traffic is always worse near those. But if you get away from those roads, traffic gets better and you can enjoy the quiet as you pass Amish farms and schools. You can also hear the buggies coming down the road.
One of our stops was at an Amish school in the area. The Amish are very resourceful and will reuse what we, the “English,” no longer use. In the case of this school, they have re-used old playground equipment that those of us who are older played on but which is no longer considered safe.
Across from one of the Amish stores in the area were these Texas Longhorn cattle. It took a little while for Joann to get a picture because most animals don’t understand posing and do exactly as they please. This mother and baby finally cooperated.
After breakfast at the bakery and a stop to check out fall produce, we headed out into the country. The sky for the whole day was amazing and we had to take advantage of it.
We found only one farm with corn shocks already in the field, but knowing that crops were planted very late this year because of spring rains, we weren’t really surprised. We’re just hoping that the weather starts cooperating so that fields dry a little and farmers are able to harvest.
We ended our day later than we had planned but, as I said, the sky had excellent character all day long and we had to take advantage of it.
Happy Shunpiking!
Ruth
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
Shunpiking To Heaven Backroads Blog
Showing posts with label Amish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amish. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Spring in Ohio's Amish Country
By Joann M. Ringelstetter
In our last blog post, Ruth reminisced about playing baseball when we were kids. It reminded me of an old-fashioned ball diamond we discovered in the spring of 2012 at Weaver’s Parochial School in rural Ohio. Here’s the view of the school from first base, with an old wooden backstop to the left of the school.
After having some fun on the ball diamond, we stood in front of the school, discussing the beautiful tile design on the front of the school. In lighter-colored tiles, it spelled out “Dist. 5, 1937,” so we assume this was originally a public school built in 1937.
We also discussed the pony barn located in front of the school. In the early days when most kids walked to school, there were sometimes pony barns for those kids who were lucky enough to ride a horse to school. We believe that Weaver’s School was a Mennonite school, so this pony barn could have been built by them after they took over the school.
As we stood there enjoying the rural countryside, an Amish buggy pulling a cart came around the corner and stopped near us. An Amish man got out of the buggy and began chatting with us. He told us he was having a problem with his cart and he was wondering if we would drive him quite a few miles to have a part fixed. We had a lot on our schedule for the day and were heading in the opposite direction, but we seriously considered his request. After all, we’d want someone to help us out if we were having trouble.
However, it soon became clear that he wanted us to wait with him while the part was being fixed so we could drive him back. This would have not only consumed our day but would have thrown a wrench in our whole trip schedule. So, as much as we hated to do it, we declined his request. He understood and thanked us kindly for at least considering it.
After leaving Weaver School, we explored more of the Amish areas of rural Holmes County. And one of the things we stumbled on was Millers Buggy Shop, where they sold Amish buggies and carriages.
And there’s nothing we like better than seeing teams of Amish workhorses. Since it was planting season, we didn’t have to work hard to find these teams of horses pulling the horse-drawn farm equipment to prepare the soil for planting.
This part of Ohio is filled with beautiful Amish farms and this farm was no exception. Seeing the Amish farmer driving his team along the edge of the field towards the farm on such a lovely spring day filled our hearts with joy.
Many states have areas where the Amish have settled, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. If you’d like to take a step back in time, try driving the backroads of Amish country. It will be a respite from the fast-paced life you are probably living.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
In our last blog post, Ruth reminisced about playing baseball when we were kids. It reminded me of an old-fashioned ball diamond we discovered in the spring of 2012 at Weaver’s Parochial School in rural Ohio. Here’s the view of the school from first base, with an old wooden backstop to the left of the school.
After having some fun on the ball diamond, we stood in front of the school, discussing the beautiful tile design on the front of the school. In lighter-colored tiles, it spelled out “Dist. 5, 1937,” so we assume this was originally a public school built in 1937.
We also discussed the pony barn located in front of the school. In the early days when most kids walked to school, there were sometimes pony barns for those kids who were lucky enough to ride a horse to school. We believe that Weaver’s School was a Mennonite school, so this pony barn could have been built by them after they took over the school.
As we stood there enjoying the rural countryside, an Amish buggy pulling a cart came around the corner and stopped near us. An Amish man got out of the buggy and began chatting with us. He told us he was having a problem with his cart and he was wondering if we would drive him quite a few miles to have a part fixed. We had a lot on our schedule for the day and were heading in the opposite direction, but we seriously considered his request. After all, we’d want someone to help us out if we were having trouble.
However, it soon became clear that he wanted us to wait with him while the part was being fixed so we could drive him back. This would have not only consumed our day but would have thrown a wrench in our whole trip schedule. So, as much as we hated to do it, we declined his request. He understood and thanked us kindly for at least considering it.
After leaving Weaver School, we explored more of the Amish areas of rural Holmes County. And one of the things we stumbled on was Millers Buggy Shop, where they sold Amish buggies and carriages.
And there’s nothing we like better than seeing teams of Amish workhorses. Since it was planting season, we didn’t have to work hard to find these teams of horses pulling the horse-drawn farm equipment to prepare the soil for planting.
This part of Ohio is filled with beautiful Amish farms and this farm was no exception. Seeing the Amish farmer driving his team along the edge of the field towards the farm on such a lovely spring day filled our hearts with joy.
Many states have areas where the Amish have settled, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. If you’d like to take a step back in time, try driving the backroads of Amish country. It will be a respite from the fast-paced life you are probably living.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
Sunday, July 1, 2018
The Rest of the Story
By Joann M. Ringelstetter
In our last blog post, Ruth told the story of the fun we had with some people we met at lunch in Shawnee, Ohio in the spring of 2012. What she didn’t tell you was what happened prior to lunch that day and a related occurrence a day and a half later many miles away.
Prior to arriving in Shawnee, we had stopped to get gas and bought a big bag of ice for the cooler. Rather than mess with the cooler at the gas station, we decided we’d wait until we got to a park in Shawnee to do that. Irwin, our trusty GPS, does a fairly good job of telling us where parks are located, so we followed his directions to take us to the one park he knew about.
Irwin guided us along the main street where there were many old historic buildings that we would have liked to photograph immediately. But we knew we needed to get to the park to take care of the cooler. So, we turned down a side street off the main drag and followed Irwin’s directions. He said the park was at the end of the block. When we got there, unfortunately, there was no park. After expressing our frustration to Irwin, we turned around and headed back towards the main street to find someone who could tell us if there was another park in town.
But we were worried about the ice melting in the bag, so we pulled over on that street to deal with the cooler. On one side of the street, there was just a wooded area. On the other side there was a hill with a house on top. And near that house was a storage shed that had been painted with a “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco” sign. We pulled the cooler from the cargo area, unloaded all the food, drained it, replaced the ice, and reloaded it. Then we tried to find someone who could tell us if the town had another park. Luckily, it did and that’s where we met the two women with the hungry children.
That night, we stayed at a motel in Athens, which is about 40 minutes south of Shawnee. The next day we started heading north (in our usual roundabout way). We planned to stay overnight in Berlin so we could explore the Amish countryside the following day. As the crow flies, Berlin is about 2.5 hours from Athens, but we spent the day zig-zagging along the backroads of central Ohio, admiring many beautiful farms along the way.
And we passed through many small towns where we explored the streets for special treasures, like this service station sign for Buick and Ford cars, along with Firestone Tires.
That evening, we checked into our motel in the heart of Amish country and, as we were unpacking the car, we noticed a woman watching us and looking like she had something she wanted to say to us. Finally, she approached us and said, “I feel like I know you.” Well, she didn’t look familiar to us and we didn’t have the same feeling about her. So, we waited to hear more.
She then asked us if we had been in Shawnee the day before. We said that, yes, we had been in Shawnee, and we were thinking that maybe she had passed us on the street while we were busy photographing. But then she asked if we had pulled over on the side of the road and emptied our cooler. Again, we said that we had, and we were trying to figure out how she knew that because no one had passed by while we did that. Also, here we were two hours north of Shawnee and someone was describing our exact movements in Shawnee the day before.
The woman then sheepishly explained that she lived in the house on the hill, with the Mail Pouch Tobacco shed, and that she was watching us the whole time, trying to figure out what the heck we were doing. Well, we had a good laugh over that and we ended up talking with her for quite a while before wrapping up our day and figuring out where we would be at first light the next morning.
As the famous radio storyteller Paul Harvey used to say at the end of his broadcasts, "And now you know the rest of the story."
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
In our last blog post, Ruth told the story of the fun we had with some people we met at lunch in Shawnee, Ohio in the spring of 2012. What she didn’t tell you was what happened prior to lunch that day and a related occurrence a day and a half later many miles away.
Prior to arriving in Shawnee, we had stopped to get gas and bought a big bag of ice for the cooler. Rather than mess with the cooler at the gas station, we decided we’d wait until we got to a park in Shawnee to do that. Irwin, our trusty GPS, does a fairly good job of telling us where parks are located, so we followed his directions to take us to the one park he knew about.
Irwin guided us along the main street where there were many old historic buildings that we would have liked to photograph immediately. But we knew we needed to get to the park to take care of the cooler. So, we turned down a side street off the main drag and followed Irwin’s directions. He said the park was at the end of the block. When we got there, unfortunately, there was no park. After expressing our frustration to Irwin, we turned around and headed back towards the main street to find someone who could tell us if there was another park in town.
But we were worried about the ice melting in the bag, so we pulled over on that street to deal with the cooler. On one side of the street, there was just a wooded area. On the other side there was a hill with a house on top. And near that house was a storage shed that had been painted with a “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco” sign. We pulled the cooler from the cargo area, unloaded all the food, drained it, replaced the ice, and reloaded it. Then we tried to find someone who could tell us if the town had another park. Luckily, it did and that’s where we met the two women with the hungry children.
That night, we stayed at a motel in Athens, which is about 40 minutes south of Shawnee. The next day we started heading north (in our usual roundabout way). We planned to stay overnight in Berlin so we could explore the Amish countryside the following day. As the crow flies, Berlin is about 2.5 hours from Athens, but we spent the day zig-zagging along the backroads of central Ohio, admiring many beautiful farms along the way.
And we passed through many small towns where we explored the streets for special treasures, like this service station sign for Buick and Ford cars, along with Firestone Tires.
That evening, we checked into our motel in the heart of Amish country and, as we were unpacking the car, we noticed a woman watching us and looking like she had something she wanted to say to us. Finally, she approached us and said, “I feel like I know you.” Well, she didn’t look familiar to us and we didn’t have the same feeling about her. So, we waited to hear more.
She then asked us if we had been in Shawnee the day before. We said that, yes, we had been in Shawnee, and we were thinking that maybe she had passed us on the street while we were busy photographing. But then she asked if we had pulled over on the side of the road and emptied our cooler. Again, we said that we had, and we were trying to figure out how she knew that because no one had passed by while we did that. Also, here we were two hours north of Shawnee and someone was describing our exact movements in Shawnee the day before.
The woman then sheepishly explained that she lived in the house on the hill, with the Mail Pouch Tobacco shed, and that she was watching us the whole time, trying to figure out what the heck we were doing. Well, we had a good laugh over that and we ended up talking with her for quite a while before wrapping up our day and figuring out where we would be at first light the next morning.
As the famous radio storyteller Paul Harvey used to say at the end of his broadcasts, "And now you know the rest of the story."
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Photos in this blog post can be purchased as wall art, paper prints, downloads, phone cases, and keepsakes by clicking on the photo. You will be taken to the gallery website where you will see a big blue "BUY" button. Or to see all photos available, click on the "Browse Galleries" button on the menu at the top of this page. Thank you for your interest!
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Caught by the Google Street View Car
By James, the Long, Dark, and Handsome Buick
Happy Autumn, everyone! Joann, Ruth, and I have once again begun our backroads search for fall color. Today, as we headed west in the early morning hours, I was reminded of the tour of Amish country that Joann and I gave to her friends last fall. Here’s a photo of one of the many Amish buggies we saw on that trip.
We had a lot of fun that day, as chronicled by Joann in her Autumn Shunpiking blog story. And, as usual, the day passed by much too quickly and we were soon on our way back home. But there was a little more to the story. As we headed southeast on Highway 56 towards Richland Center, Joann noticed the Google Street View car heading toward Highway 56 on County Road Z from the south. As we passed the intersection, Joann took her foot off my gas pedal to make sure the Google car had enough time to photograph us.
When we got home, she told Ruth about it and then promptly forgot all about it. Ruth knew that it takes Google quite some time to update the street view photos, so she checked a couple of different times and didn’t find us at that intersection. However, on July 11, she checked again and there we were, passing by Fancy Creek Cemetery as the Google car photographed us.
I don’t mean to brag or anything, but don’t I look good!? Autumn will come and go quickly, as it always does. So take some time to do a little shunpiking on the backroads and maybe, just maybe you’ll end up on Google maps, too.
Happy Shunpiking!
James
Happy Autumn, everyone! Joann, Ruth, and I have once again begun our backroads search for fall color. Today, as we headed west in the early morning hours, I was reminded of the tour of Amish country that Joann and I gave to her friends last fall. Here’s a photo of one of the many Amish buggies we saw on that trip.
We had a lot of fun that day, as chronicled by Joann in her Autumn Shunpiking blog story. And, as usual, the day passed by much too quickly and we were soon on our way back home. But there was a little more to the story. As we headed southeast on Highway 56 towards Richland Center, Joann noticed the Google Street View car heading toward Highway 56 on County Road Z from the south. As we passed the intersection, Joann took her foot off my gas pedal to make sure the Google car had enough time to photograph us.
When we got home, she told Ruth about it and then promptly forgot all about it. Ruth knew that it takes Google quite some time to update the street view photos, so she checked a couple of different times and didn’t find us at that intersection. However, on July 11, she checked again and there we were, passing by Fancy Creek Cemetery as the Google car photographed us.
I don’t mean to brag or anything, but don’t I look good!? Autumn will come and go quickly, as it always does. So take some time to do a little shunpiking on the backroads and maybe, just maybe you’ll end up on Google maps, too.
Happy Shunpiking!
James
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Autumn Shunpiking
By Joann M. Ringelstetter
This past summer, my friends, Julaine and Marlys, asked me if I would take them shunpiking on the backroads of Vernon County again this fall. I quickly agreed and, just as quickly, they picked a date in October and put it on their calendars.
At the end of September, they started counting the days until we would be meandering along the roads of Amish country and stopping at Amish farms, cheese factories, and bakeries. On October 11, we departed at 7:00 am and headed west. Our first planned stop was Wildcat Mountain State Park, where we enjoyed the scenic overlook.
After that, we shunpiked down in the valleys and up on the ridges on our way to the Amish cheese factory. First we passed an Amish farm where the corn had been harvested, leaving a field of old-fashioned corn shocks.
Just down the road from the corn shocks, we passed a home with an amusing autumn display where the male scarecrow was mooning towards the road. As we approached it to take pictures, the owner came out and told us that they had gotten bored with their traditional autumn display, so they decided to try something different. He said it was drawing lots of attention. It surely drew ours and we had a good laugh over it.
When I was planning our trip the night before, I had noticed a little cemetery on the map between Wildcat Mountain and the cheese factory. It had a name that was too interesting to ignore – the Bad Axe Cemetery. So we looked for it and as we pulled up to it, we noticed that the sheep from the pasture next to the cemetery had jumped the fence and were wandering around in the cemetery.
As we got out of the car to explore the cemetery, the sheep took on a guilty look as if to say, “Oh-oh, we’ve been caught in the act,” and quickly jumped back into the pasture. Now I know where the saying “looking sheepish” comes from.
There was a sign near the road that explained the history of the church that used to be next to the cemetery. As I read the sign, I heard the wonderful clip-clop of horse hooves as one Amish buggy after another passed by the Bad Axe Cemetery.
In 1867-68, Irish immigrants built a white frame church on this site and dedicated it to St. Patrick. Over the years, priests from various surrounding parishes served as pastors to St. Patrick’s. Unfortunately, in 1936, the church burned to the ground due to a lightning strike. The name Bad Axe comes from Vernon County’s original name and the cemetery is all that remains on the site today.
The Amish cheese factory was officially our second stop, but we were having quite a busy day before we got there. Somewhere along the way, we stopped at an Amish candy store and, although we all said we certainly didn’t need candy, each of us left with something sweet. We also passed an old gas tank with a smiley face that I couldn’t resist capturing.
Finally we reached the cheese factory and, just as we were purchasing our cheese, a tour bus full of people arrived and began unloading. So we made a quick exit and headed on down the road. Our next stop was a favorite Amish bakery. As we pulled into the farm, we discovered four Amish buggies parked next to the barn.
When we opened the door to the bakery, we were overwhelmed by the smell of freshly baked bread, pies, and….what’s this?...doughnuts?.....on a Thursday?! If you’re familiar with Amish bakeries in Wisconsin, you know that most of them are open only on Friday and Saturday. And if they are open other days, they only have doughnuts on Friday and Saturday. These doughnuts are such a treat to me because they are exactly like my mother used to make when we were kids. You know, the raised kind with the thin glaze on them. I usually don’t eat wheat, but I make an exception once or twice a year when I get the chance to have an old-fashioned raised doughnut from an Amish bakery.
There were two Amish women who were very busy working in the kitchen. When I told them I was surprised to find doughnuts on a Thursday, they said it was because there were two tour buses arriving soon and they were trying to make enough baked goods to satisfy the crowd. So, again, we hurried with our purchases and hit the road before the tour buses arrived.
Next we headed towards Westby where we planned to have lunch but, as it usually goes when we’re shunpiking, I had a couple of stops to make on the way.
Before we could even make those stops, however, we passed an Amish farm with a vegetable stand. So we drove down the driveway and bought a pumpkin and some vegetables. Standing near the vegetable stand was a horse and buggy.
Ruth had told me about a couple of one-room schools, so we tried to find them. The first one was a bust, so I think I didn’t quite have the right location. But we did manage to find the second one, which is called Rognstad School.
I don’t know much about this school other than it is a one-room schoolhouse with a front gable and clapboard siding. There is an old outhouse in the back.
The best part of shunpiking is enjoying it with others. So before leaving the school, I put my camera on my tripod and set the timer so that we could have a picture of the three of us to remember this wonderful trip.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
This past summer, my friends, Julaine and Marlys, asked me if I would take them shunpiking on the backroads of Vernon County again this fall. I quickly agreed and, just as quickly, they picked a date in October and put it on their calendars.
At the end of September, they started counting the days until we would be meandering along the roads of Amish country and stopping at Amish farms, cheese factories, and bakeries. On October 11, we departed at 7:00 am and headed west. Our first planned stop was Wildcat Mountain State Park, where we enjoyed the scenic overlook.
After that, we shunpiked down in the valleys and up on the ridges on our way to the Amish cheese factory. First we passed an Amish farm where the corn had been harvested, leaving a field of old-fashioned corn shocks.
Just down the road from the corn shocks, we passed a home with an amusing autumn display where the male scarecrow was mooning towards the road. As we approached it to take pictures, the owner came out and told us that they had gotten bored with their traditional autumn display, so they decided to try something different. He said it was drawing lots of attention. It surely drew ours and we had a good laugh over it.
When I was planning our trip the night before, I had noticed a little cemetery on the map between Wildcat Mountain and the cheese factory. It had a name that was too interesting to ignore – the Bad Axe Cemetery. So we looked for it and as we pulled up to it, we noticed that the sheep from the pasture next to the cemetery had jumped the fence and were wandering around in the cemetery.
As we got out of the car to explore the cemetery, the sheep took on a guilty look as if to say, “Oh-oh, we’ve been caught in the act,” and quickly jumped back into the pasture. Now I know where the saying “looking sheepish” comes from.
There was a sign near the road that explained the history of the church that used to be next to the cemetery. As I read the sign, I heard the wonderful clip-clop of horse hooves as one Amish buggy after another passed by the Bad Axe Cemetery.
In 1867-68, Irish immigrants built a white frame church on this site and dedicated it to St. Patrick. Over the years, priests from various surrounding parishes served as pastors to St. Patrick’s. Unfortunately, in 1936, the church burned to the ground due to a lightning strike. The name Bad Axe comes from Vernon County’s original name and the cemetery is all that remains on the site today.
The Amish cheese factory was officially our second stop, but we were having quite a busy day before we got there. Somewhere along the way, we stopped at an Amish candy store and, although we all said we certainly didn’t need candy, each of us left with something sweet. We also passed an old gas tank with a smiley face that I couldn’t resist capturing.
Finally we reached the cheese factory and, just as we were purchasing our cheese, a tour bus full of people arrived and began unloading. So we made a quick exit and headed on down the road. Our next stop was a favorite Amish bakery. As we pulled into the farm, we discovered four Amish buggies parked next to the barn.
When we opened the door to the bakery, we were overwhelmed by the smell of freshly baked bread, pies, and….what’s this?...doughnuts?.....on a Thursday?! If you’re familiar with Amish bakeries in Wisconsin, you know that most of them are open only on Friday and Saturday. And if they are open other days, they only have doughnuts on Friday and Saturday. These doughnuts are such a treat to me because they are exactly like my mother used to make when we were kids. You know, the raised kind with the thin glaze on them. I usually don’t eat wheat, but I make an exception once or twice a year when I get the chance to have an old-fashioned raised doughnut from an Amish bakery.
There were two Amish women who were very busy working in the kitchen. When I told them I was surprised to find doughnuts on a Thursday, they said it was because there were two tour buses arriving soon and they were trying to make enough baked goods to satisfy the crowd. So, again, we hurried with our purchases and hit the road before the tour buses arrived.
Next we headed towards Westby where we planned to have lunch but, as it usually goes when we’re shunpiking, I had a couple of stops to make on the way.
Before we could even make those stops, however, we passed an Amish farm with a vegetable stand. So we drove down the driveway and bought a pumpkin and some vegetables. Standing near the vegetable stand was a horse and buggy.
Ruth had told me about a couple of one-room schools, so we tried to find them. The first one was a bust, so I think I didn’t quite have the right location. But we did manage to find the second one, which is called Rognstad School.
I don’t know much about this school other than it is a one-room schoolhouse with a front gable and clapboard siding. There is an old outhouse in the back.
The best part of shunpiking is enjoying it with others. So before leaving the school, I put my camera on my tripod and set the timer so that we could have a picture of the three of us to remember this wonderful trip.
Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
Sunday, July 1, 2012
A Change of Pace
By Joann M. Ringelstetter
One of the goals of our trip to Ohio this year was to spend a day in Amish country, so on the eighth day of the trip, we did just that. We had arrived in the area the evening before and drove around a bit before checking into our motel. Just outside of the town where we were going to stay, we saw a sign for an Amish bakery, so we made a mental note to stop there for breakfast.
The next morning, we headed out at dawn, stopping in a small town nearby to photograph an old mill building, and then out into the country where we photographed a country church and cemetery, some Amish and Mennonite farms, and some llamas at an area llama farm. At the llama farm, which was located at a crossroads, a car pulled up and the woman driving asked for directions. Ruth looked at the Ohio gazetteer and we pointed her in the right direction and then discussed that she must have been a Mennonite because she was driving a car rather than a horse and buggy.
Just down the road from the llama farm, we saw a beautiful farm and stopped along the gravel road to take a few pictures. As I set up my tripod, an old Amish gentleman in a buckboard wagon pulled up beside us. We talked for a few minutes and then I told him that I needed him to educate me. He said that he would try. So I asked him how to tell the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites.
He agreed that the woman driving the car was likely a Mennonite. And he explained that you could tell a Mennonite farm from an Amish farm by whether or not there was electricity running to the farm. I told him that I had assumed the farm in front of us was Mennonite and he confirmed that it was. It wasn’t easy to see, but there was a utility pole and there wasn’t a windmill for power like you see on Amish farms.
Then I asked if you could tell by the way people dressed and he said that it was more difficult to distinguish between the two. He told me that both the Amish and the Mennonites wear plain colors rather than patterns, but that the Mennonites wear more pastel colors than the Amish, who typically wear darker colors. But he also cautioned me that some of the Amish were beginning to wear lighter colors, so it might be hard to tell.
By this time, it was around 8:30 a.m., and we had been photographing since 5:30 a.m., so we were getting rather hungry. I asked him if he could direct us to the Amish bakery. His eyes lit up and he told me that they had huge cream sticks and they were the best in the area. I told him to have a wonderful day and he and his horse headed up the road.
As is typical for us, we stopped to photograph more Amish farms and buggies on our way to the bakery.
It was 10:00 a.m. before we finally arrived at the bakery. Everything looked and smelled so good. We considered the cream sticks and the fry pies, but settled on a doughnut and a cinnamon roll. They were both delicious. As we were leaving the bakery, we photographed what we thought was an outhouse. Later we discovered that it is actually an Amish telephone booth.
We had worked so hard the first seven days of the trip that this day in the slower paced Amish country was a welcome change and very relaxing. Speaking of a change of pace, we have decided to change the pace of our blog posts going forward. We have been writing these detailed blogs every week for three years, which has required an extreme amount of time, dedication, and discipline.
We have some other goals for our photography business to which we haven’t been able to devote any time. Therefore, these detailed blog posts that often require extensive research will be featured every other week. On the opposite weeks, we may or may not post. If we do, they will be shorter posts about photos that don’t require as much time and effort. We value our readers, so we hope you’ll understand and that you’ll keep reading our stories.
Stay tuned and Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
One of the goals of our trip to Ohio this year was to spend a day in Amish country, so on the eighth day of the trip, we did just that. We had arrived in the area the evening before and drove around a bit before checking into our motel. Just outside of the town where we were going to stay, we saw a sign for an Amish bakery, so we made a mental note to stop there for breakfast.
The next morning, we headed out at dawn, stopping in a small town nearby to photograph an old mill building, and then out into the country where we photographed a country church and cemetery, some Amish and Mennonite farms, and some llamas at an area llama farm. At the llama farm, which was located at a crossroads, a car pulled up and the woman driving asked for directions. Ruth looked at the Ohio gazetteer and we pointed her in the right direction and then discussed that she must have been a Mennonite because she was driving a car rather than a horse and buggy.
Just down the road from the llama farm, we saw a beautiful farm and stopped along the gravel road to take a few pictures. As I set up my tripod, an old Amish gentleman in a buckboard wagon pulled up beside us. We talked for a few minutes and then I told him that I needed him to educate me. He said that he would try. So I asked him how to tell the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites.
He agreed that the woman driving the car was likely a Mennonite. And he explained that you could tell a Mennonite farm from an Amish farm by whether or not there was electricity running to the farm. I told him that I had assumed the farm in front of us was Mennonite and he confirmed that it was. It wasn’t easy to see, but there was a utility pole and there wasn’t a windmill for power like you see on Amish farms.
Then I asked if you could tell by the way people dressed and he said that it was more difficult to distinguish between the two. He told me that both the Amish and the Mennonites wear plain colors rather than patterns, but that the Mennonites wear more pastel colors than the Amish, who typically wear darker colors. But he also cautioned me that some of the Amish were beginning to wear lighter colors, so it might be hard to tell.
By this time, it was around 8:30 a.m., and we had been photographing since 5:30 a.m., so we were getting rather hungry. I asked him if he could direct us to the Amish bakery. His eyes lit up and he told me that they had huge cream sticks and they were the best in the area. I told him to have a wonderful day and he and his horse headed up the road.
As is typical for us, we stopped to photograph more Amish farms and buggies on our way to the bakery.
It was 10:00 a.m. before we finally arrived at the bakery. Everything looked and smelled so good. We considered the cream sticks and the fry pies, but settled on a doughnut and a cinnamon roll. They were both delicious. As we were leaving the bakery, we photographed what we thought was an outhouse. Later we discovered that it is actually an Amish telephone booth.
We had worked so hard the first seven days of the trip that this day in the slower paced Amish country was a welcome change and very relaxing. Speaking of a change of pace, we have decided to change the pace of our blog posts going forward. We have been writing these detailed blogs every week for three years, which has required an extreme amount of time, dedication, and discipline.
We have some other goals for our photography business to which we haven’t been able to devote any time. Therefore, these detailed blog posts that often require extensive research will be featured every other week. On the opposite weeks, we may or may not post. If we do, they will be shorter posts about photos that don’t require as much time and effort. We value our readers, so we hope you’ll understand and that you’ll keep reading our stories.
Stay tuned and Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
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