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MORE ABOUT THE AMISH
Another aspect  of our Beaver Creek Lodge that is very unique and intriguing is that it is located right in the middle of the large Old Order Amish community. In many ways, this is like taking a vacation or a time machine back to the 18th or 19th century. This very friendly society of extremely hard working folks warms my heart every time I drive through it, and see scenes of 5 in hand work horses plowing the fields, or entire families working bare foot in their gardens. And of course, there are also the many road side farm stands that sell everything from fresh vegetables and berries, butter and cheese, pies and pastries, jellies and jams, to quilts and baskets and other assorted crafts done by hand. I feel privileged to live amongst these wonderful folks who seemingly somehow knew (over 200 years ago) the devastating effects that modern civilization would have on our earth and had the courage and conviction to maintain a simple life style that is friendly to our planet. These Amish are my new heroes.
We have several Amish friends who have helped to work on this property and built the new unpainted storage shed you will see in the back of the house. Jacob Shetler is my age (early 60s) and has 9 children and 29 grandchildren. His brother has 89 grandchildren if you can imagine! He says he has to write their names down to remember them all. When I told Jacob that I have one grandchild he looked at me with a smile and said -- "Dale, this is good!" He looks and reminds me of Jerry Garcia, rimmed glasses and all! Go figure!! Jacob built our shed and sells them locally if you want an extremely well built shed for a very reasonable price. His  daughter has one of the produce stands you will find in the area. We find the Amish folks to be simply amazing. You will view some of their work horses and live stock grazing in the pasture across beaver creek from our sun room.
I just finished reading a new book written by Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, an associate professor of linguistic anthropology at the State University of NY at Potsdam, called "Train Up a Child -- Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools". It explores how the private schools in these Old Order communities reflect and perpetuate their church-community values and life styles. It also has a wealth of information about their life styles, practices and values that I found fascinating. You will find a copy of this book amongst our other books available for your to read in our small library.
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