Broke, but happy!: Ohio Amish Country

This summer our "big" vacation was to go to Ohio Amish country and take Brandon's dad. He had never been up there where the Amish still use horses to plow the fields, cut and bale the hay, and for transportation. So we rented an old Amish house in Millersburg and went up there for a week. The house we rented was affiliated with a barn next door that had been converted into a beautiful bed and breakfast. We were able to go over there every morning and eat a home cooked meal and mingle with the other guests. The owners would talk about the area and give you advice on where to visit that would be off the normal tourist areas. We were told about a family of 12 (10 kids under the age of 12) WOW!! that were low order Amish, which means they haven't came away from the original hard core beliefs of the old Amish ways. The mother and girls made baskets and sold them to supplement the household income. Meeting this family was the highlight of my week. They were very friendly and humble people. We met them one day while Abigail was sleeping and I used that as an excuse to go back again when Abigail was awake! All the little kids were working in there front garden while we were there. I wish I could have pictures of there farm and family, but of course the Amish don't allow pictures of themselves to be taken so I knew better than to take them. I did however sneak a few pictures throughout the week of some of the sights we saw. These are some of the pictures from the old cheesemakers house (circa 1900) that we stayed in. Of course it was decorated and furnished more modernly than it would have been back then!

Side view of house

Dining Room

Living Room (Notice big chunky floor model TV...but it did have cable!)

Kids Room

Me and Brandon's Room

John's Room

Water Lillies...MY FAVORITE!

John cutting up Dolly some fresh apples out of our yard!

View from deck. I wish I had a deck with table at home but I seriously doubt I could enjoy it as much as I was able to enjoy this one!

Horses and plow

Mother and 3 children headed home after yard sale and animal auction in Mt. Hope. Looks like little boy got him a baseball helmet. Kids are big into baseball up there too!

Paw Paw John gets a close encounter with a giant elk.

Abigail hand feeding a gigantic Watusi! This was right before she dropped her white sweater off the wagon and it got trampled by a huge group of reindeer! We rescued it with the handle of a buggy whip. That was crazy!!! We made up a new verse to Grandma got ran over by a reindeer!

Chicken house. I wish ours around the house could look this good!

Farm at Walnut Creek

Me and the girls on the wagon ride at Walnut Creek Farm

We were actually lucky to have been visiting when the ferrier was there shoeing the horses. They have fancy set up to protect themselves and make it a lot easier on them.