Friday May 1
Started out today by going back to the restaurant where i had dinner last night. Wanted to get a pic of the area a little away from the restaurant for horse and buggy parking including horse manure on the ground.
Then I took a drive down to the south a litte way to get some pics of amish life. An interesting thing is the contrasts in life. About 1/2 the farm houses dont have electricity connections. Yet almost every home has at least one sideline and some two.Almost any kind of home industry you can think of. Many times these industrys have grown into major businesses. The biggest example is Wayne Dalton- they have a huge office and manufacturing plant. The second thing you can see in some of these pics isthe simplehome life - clothes washed without eletricity and hng outside to dry. Then another thing, they do not want pics taken of them they think it is a show of vanity . To get the one pic of the man and woman to show typical dress, I had to do a drive-by shooting out of the window.
Then I went to a typical farm for a tour and talk about amish life. It seems there are two brands of the same thing in the area amish and menonites. The Menonites generally are more tuned into our life style They use electricity and cars and send their children to our schools. Th amish dont drive cars, they dont use elecricity, and they dress in the type of clothes in the pics. Their children go to school to only the eight grade. They are the ones still riding horse and buggy.But, they work hard. If you drive through the ountryside afgter dinner, some of them are still working in the fields. Forgot to mention they use horses to work fields- no tractor.
Forgot to mention that I took a side trip to a cheese factory. Thats two of the pics They make swiss cheese Guggisberg cheese factory. Never had seen this operation before. Bought some cheese-it is very good.
Very educational place.
Tomorrow I Plan to take a day trip to Wright-Patterson air base.