Exploring the Amish country

Steve and Kristen are living in New London Pennsylvania in a house that's owned by her brother Derek. The house is an 1840s federal on about 3 acres of beautiful grounds. It looks like it's a tremendous amount of work to keep up Kristen seems to be doing a great job of it.

 

Derek is in London as he is the right-hand man for Tim Burton's production company. The place is about 50 miles west of Philadelphia out in broken farm country. Much of the entertainment around here is provided by Sophie.

I arrived on Friday night and Saturday seemed like a good day to rest. Did a little grocery shopping and then decided that I should make some guacamole. The boneheaded maneuver was when cutting the onions and the onion rolls and I took off the tip of my pinky finger. Really wasn't the best idea and I spent the evening getting the bleeding stopped and the pain under control. It was bad enough to be serious but not bad enough to warrant professional medical attention. After a great dinner at a restaurant that they knew about I got to bed and had a fitful sleep but woke up without pain in my finger. The weather was glorious and I had found a route on ride with GPS through the Amish country and decided to give it a shot. I just have to say right here that the Garman 810 is amazing and I am very grateful to Trey for the gift that has been a big part of this trip success.
 

The weather was absolutely perfect and being a Sunday afternoon the Amish were out in their buggies traveling to meetings and socializing and whatever it is they do on the one day a week that they don't work.

The Armash Farms were large and well-maintained. It was like stepping back in time. You could tell the Amish farms either by the buggies or the fact that there were no motorized vehicles or you could look and see that there were no electric power lines running through them. Other than that they looked rather the same as the mechanized farms. Everything was simpler. There were Rowcrop's and you could see that they used crop rotation to protect their soil. All of the businesses looked like they were there to cater to the needs of that simpler way of doing things. There were harness shops and carriage shops and farm implements shops. Baked goods and vegetables were for sale everywhere. There were handsewn garments and blankets and handmade brooms you name it. It just went on and on forever and every turn brought new beauty and new things I was unfamiliar with. I kept having to remind myself that it was Sunday so no work was being done and I imagined that the next day there would be people plowing the fields and working the crops and there would be laundry hanging from the clothes lines that seemed to run from every house.