Amish Country - Lancaster County

I loved being in Lancaster County.  I've read alot of Beverly Lewis books and hoped to do a few things while we were there.  Mostly, I just wanted to drink it all in.  Stopping at a roadside stand for homemade rootbeer was high on my list of things to do and that's what we did on our first morning there!  It was so good.  We brought some home with us but it didn't taste as good as it did in Lancaster County.

All the farms are very neat, tidy and small!  Everyone seems to have cows, horses, chickens and goats.  The barns and houses keep company with the road which felt a little unusual to me.  Land prices are VERY high there so the average farm is only 50-60 acres.  We met one Mennonite family with 400 acres and they were pretty big - they just about fell over when we told them how big our farms are here!

Of course I had to look at a lot of quilts and was so amazed at their workmanship.  So well done!  Kelly fell in love with the first quilt he saw and bought it.  I didn't want to be quite so quick but in the end I did end up getting the wall quilt that I first saw and loved!

It was harvest time so Kelly took quite a few pictures of harvest being done with horses hitched up to all types of machinery.  We didn't feel quite right taking pictures of the people themselves since we knew that posing for pictures is something that goes against their code of conduct (the Ordnung).  We took a tour of an old mill and house, poked around antique shops, drove through the countryside and just looked!  We had a hard time figuring out exactly where we were at times since the towns sort of run together.  As near as we can figure we did get through Bird-in-Hand, Strasbourg and the famous town of Intercourse.

The B and B we stayed in (Stumptown Manor) was run by a wonderful Mennonite couple that we just fell in love with.  When we left it was like saying good-bye to family.  We went to church with them on Sunday morning and relatives of theirs invited us over for lunch.  The night before we had supper with an Amish family in their home.  Can't imagine no electricity, they run most things by propane.

I loved the stars that everyone had on their walls so I managed to bring a few home with me!  The whole countryside was so lovely and picturesque it is hard to describe.  I'll post a few pictures here, hopefully it will give you a feel for the place.  I'd go back in a heartbeat.  Next stop, Holmes County, Ohio.

A pretty typical site here, lots of old homes, I loved that.  So much history here.

Got to drive through a covered bridge! :)

A team of horses plowing a field.

I've never seen a field of pumpkins except in Charlie Brown, they probably thought we were daft for taking pictures of it!

Our wonderful hostess Sharon.

Kelly in front of Stumptown Manor.