Soule: I'll Tell You What It's Like To Spend A Weekend With The Amish

Could you live well without electricity? A few days on an Amish farm in Ohio showed me how it’s done. Earlier this month, husband Bruce and I delivered a cow to Harley and Sarah, who invited us to stay on a bit.

The Amish people want to keep themselves intact and apart from the modern world, which is why they hold modern technology at arm’s length. Where do they draw the line?

Here’s where my friend Harley draws it. He won’t have a telephone in the house, so he keeps it in a small building on the edge of his property, powered by his non-Amish neighbor's electricity. He won’t own or drive an automobile, but last fall he hired a driver, truck, and trailer to come to New Hampshire to pick up 11 of my Highland cows.

Electricity is not allowed, but the use of propane-powered motors is. While they can use a commercial laundromat, most Amish women do laundry using a motor, located outside the house that drives a shaft that rotates an agitator in the drum of a washtub. Sarah, our hostess, added hot water from a nearby hot-water tank and some soap and then stuffed sheets and clothes into the washtub. Later she cranked the items through a wringer into a rinse tub. After rinsing, she put each item through the wringer again, dropping the wash into a third tub. With the help of her son, Lavon, they hung the laundry on a line with a pulley system that carried the clothes high over a small pasture in the front yard.

Sarah washed a pile of laundry that would have been more than 10 loads in my electric washer. The drying made sense too. Clothes last so much longer when air dried and, except in freezing weather, it’s easy with Sarah's setup.

The families’ exquisite clothing was hand-made by Sarah. She showed me her sewing room with a treadle foot-operated Singer sewing, just like my grandmother used, and told me she shares patterns with other Amish women.

The family does a lot of canning. Sarah showed me shelves stacked with jars of peaches, onions, vegetables, and meat--enough to feed her family for a year. Sarah gave me a jar of peaches to take home.

Our visit was a peek into how my farm's namesake, Miles Smith, lived, and I’m eager to learn more. We've scheduled another trip in June to see how Harley harvests 6,000 bales of hay with horses. I can't wait!

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Carole Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm in Loudon, N.H., where she raises and sells beef and other local products. She can be reached at carolesoule60@gmail.com.