August 2015 – During our stay in the Finger Lakes of New York, we got very accustomed to hearing the clip-clop of horses’ hooves as the Amish made their way across the countryside on the back roads. These sleepy lanes are ideal for their old fashioned way of getting around, and we saw them everywhere.

Two Amish buggies pass and wave at each other on the country lanes of New York’s Finger Lakes

The heartwarming sound of the horses grew familiar during our stay

These guys move right along

The Amish live very simply, farming modest plots of land, traveling by horse and buggy, wearing hand sewn dark clothes and avoiding anything driven by a gasoline engine or electricity. These choices seem a little odd, but the nice benefit for the people who live near them is that they are preserving a way of life and use of the land that is a unique throwback to the America of 100 years ago.

Amish farms filled the countryside

We loved driving down the roads between the Finger Lakes and seeing one small farm after another. Without the Amish this land might be just ordinary house lots or huge commercial operations like everywhere else.

A classic scene from another era

Some of the lifestyle choices that the Amish make are to avoid dependence on society at large. So, living without electricity, a cell phone, TV, computers or car means they don’t have to purchase all those services or depend on the non-Amish people who provide them. It also means they live a lot more cheaply than most people!

They do, however, carry mortgages, pay taxes and buy things, so they need a way to earn a living. Many sell produce and livestock they raise on their farm or manufacture things they can sell.

The Amish are entrepreneurial and sell their goods to outsiders as well as each other.

Our special friends who live in the Finger Lakes area have befriended their Amish neighbors, and during our visit they took us to meet several Amish families so we could see the inner workings of their daily lives. Just down the street, Toby operates a chicken farm

Happy hens wander around outside on a summer afternoon.

He has 5,000 hens who lay 4,700 eggs every day. These are “free range” chickens who can come and go from their coop as much as they want. He said they tend to all go outside at dawn and dusk when the weather is good, although there are always a few stragglers who prefer to stay inside.

Things were a little more chaotic inside the coop.

He has one rooster, a big white fellow that has a room of his own at one end of the chicken coop. His door is always open, so hens can visit him and he can mingle with his female friends. I assumed he was there to help the hens get in the mood for laying, but Toby said they will lay whether a rooster is present or not. He just keeps the rooster because he likes to hear him crowing in the morning!

Down along both sides of the chicken coop there are little boxes where the hens can go in to lay. Most of them get their laying done before the afternoon, and the eggs gently roll out the backside of the box. These are then collected by hand. An automated conveyor system brings the eggs to the front of the building where they are put into cardboard egg cartons.

Eggs roll down for easy collection.

Toby knew the production of his flock right down to the egg and tabulated it on a clipboard each day. Recently he had seen a dramatic and scary drop in production — down to just 3,900 eggs a day. The veterinarian could not explain it. Toby suddenly got the idea it might be a bad batch of feed and exchanged all his feed for another batch from the feed company. Sure enough the egg production began climbing again, and it was just getting back to his usual 4,700 eggs a day when we visited!

Toby doesn’t know his hens individually, but he knows exactly how they are doing as a flock.

Perhaps what floored me most was that he had bought this flock as chicks and they had all grown up together. So, they lived as a group their whole lives. He would keep the flock for just 14 to 16 months, and then, when their production began to fall off below 4,500 eggs a day, he would retire them and sell them off to buy a new flock of chicks. Sadly, their next step after retirement would be a trasnformation into chicken nuggets.

Hollow Creek Groceries in Seneca Falls

We stopped at Hollow Creek Groceries to see what a small Amish grocery store was like. Since they do all their own cooking and make all their baked goods from scratch, the store carried many different types of flour. Cake flour, pie pastry flour, in both white and whole wheat varieties, and bread flour of several different types. It was amazing how important flour is to the Amish kitchen, considering how many modern kitchens don’t have any flour in them at all these days.

I’ve never seen so many different varieties of flour.

We also discovered that the Amish in the Finger Lakes area power their homes and businesses with piped in gas. At night their houses are as well lit as any electric house, but the lights are all propane based.

We were very fortunate one afternoon when an Amish mother and daughter stopped in to visit us in our fifth wheel trailer. They were fascinated to see our little home on wheels. As we showed them all our appliances and how they work, we found we all had a lot in common with them. Just like us, their refrigerator, range, oven and hot water heater ran on propane.

They don’t use solar power, however, which surprised me. I would think they could maintain their independence from outside society with solar power, but it isn’t something their culture has embraced, at least not in the Finger Lakes.

The Amish rely on gas power for many appliances, including lights.

We also visited an Amish dairy farm. We arrived right at milking time, and not knowing anything about farms or cows, it was quite a surprise to see the cows being hooked up to milking machines. I had expected to see the Amish do it by hand, sitting on little stools.

They laughed out loud when I told them that, and then showed us some very sophisticated stainless steel refrigerated milk tanks that kept the milk at a precise temperatures. This particular dairy farm sells all their milk and cream to an organic yogurt company.

Cows lined up for milking.

The farmers at this dairy loved cats and had quite a few farm cats running around. One black cat was particularly fond of the cows and had struck up quite a friendship with one of them. She rubbed her head all over the cow’s nose, and the cow gave her a gentle licking. I was so struck by this sweet relationship, I reached out and patted the cat as she passed me. Ooooh – her head was all gooey!!

This little black farm cat had a touching relationship with this cow.

There was a little calf out back that was in a pen by itself. It was still nursing age but drank eagerly from a bottle.

A calf is being bottle fed.

There is something fascinating and heartwarming about how the Amish choose to live, even though it is a hard life and a lot of their rules don’t necessarily make sense. The directives they follow are set by the local bishop, so the list of things they can and can’t do varies from region to region.

One central commonality among them all is that they worship in each others’ homes, not in formal churches. So, they make an impact on the world around them by their style of dress, the way they get from place to place, and their many farms and the goods they sell. But you won’t see a big community church or imposing Amish steeple anywhere.

We thoroughly enjoyed this little glimpse of Amish life.

We loved our RV travels to the Finger Lakes and were fortunate to be able to get a glimpse of the Amish in their daily lives. Perhaps the most special thing about the Amish in the Finger Lakes is that their presence is not marketed by the local tourism boards as an attraction the way it is in other places. This makes them blend into the landscape as being an unusual facet of the surrounding communities rather than standing out as strange museum pieces.

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Our most recent posts:

More of our Latest Posts are in the top MENU above.

A little about the Amish:

Amish religion and culture – Wikipedia page

More from our RV travels to the Finger Lakes region in New York:

• An Amish Farmer’s Auction in the NY Finger Lakes 09/13/15
• Watkins Glen State Park NY – Absolutely Breathtaking! 09/10/15
• A Peek Inside the Amish Farms of the NY Finger Lakes 09/05/15
• Waterfalls, Wildlife & Wineries in New York’s Finger Lakes 08/30/15
• Finger Lakes, New York – Seneca Falls & The Amish! 08/24/15

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August 2015 – After our incredibly fun ride on the Mt. Washington Cog Railway, we zipped west across the tops of New Hampshire and Vermont. As we went around Lake Champlain, beautiful summer thunderstorms descended on us, and we found ourselves sitting under a rainbow in a scenic pullout in the middle of the lake.

Our buggy tucks in under a rainbow!

Looking for photo ops, we caught the rainbow’s reflection in the back window of our fifth wheel.

We even caught the rainbow’s reflection off the back of the rig!

Crossing into New York state, we dropped down through the Adirondacks to the Finger Lakes region. What a fabulous area. Pulling into Seneca Falls at the north end of Seneca Lake, we were enchanted by the boats lined up on the back side of the main street of downtown.

Boats tie up on the backside of Seneca Falls – what fun!

Boats of all kinds were moored along the two sides of the canal.

This canal connects the north ends of Seneca Lake (to the west) and Cayuga Lake (to the east)

What a cool barge – with bikes on deck!

We instantly began talking about what fun it would be to spend a summer on a powerboat exploring all the lakes in this part of the world. Maybe someday!

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The town of Seneca Falls is very pretty. The main street is lined with old brick storefronts. Mark even found an elaborate mural of a storefront painted on the side of one of these buildings.

I think they’re open…try the door!

Back in 1848, Seneca Falls was the birthplace of feminism. The concept didn’t have a name then, of course, but 300 men and women got together for two days for the first “Woman’s Rights Convention.” They drew up a document of resolutions — the “Declaration of Sentiments” — and 68 women and 32 men signed it. A wonderful statue commemorates the occasion on the banks of the canal, and there is a Women’s Rights Museum in town run by the National Park Service as well.

The first Woman’s Rights Convention was held here in 1848

Across the canal behind this statue stands the beautiful Trinity Episcopal Church. What a great setting, right on the banks of the canal that connects the north ends of Seneca and Cayuga Lakes.

Elegant Trinity Episcopal Church.

The Finger Lakes area is filled with small family farms, and we were thrilled to see one pretty farm homestead after another as we drove along the extraordinarily quiet rural roads.

Small family farms dot the landscape between the lakes.

The Amish live in this area, and we soon saw signs giving away their whereabouts.

There are Amish here!

There is something very romantic about horses and buggies and living simply. Seeing a buggy parked outside a barn was a thrill.

An Amish buggy waits to be hitched up.

Stopping by the town of Ovid, we were delighted to see many more going by. First you’d hear the clip clop of the horses hooves on the pavement. Then the buggy would pull into view.

Wow! There’s an Amish horse and buggy going by!

There are open air buggies that the younger men use for courting, and there are covered family carriages.

Some buggies are open air two-seaters and others are covered and have more seats

What was amazing to me was that these horses move at quite a clip, trotting along very fast. Looking at my photos later, in many of them all four of the horse’s hooves were in the air!!

The clip-clop of horses’ hooves is a common sound in these parts.

Did I mention how quiet the roads are out here? This is ideal cycling country for anyone that likes to ride a bike, and there is a peace and quiet in the air that is utterly refreshing and rejuvenating.

Sunrise on a peaceful road.

We are lucky enough to have very special friends who live in the area, and we settled in to stay for a while.

Our own buggy, jazzed up a bit.
There are 350 horses under that hood!

The New York Finger Lakes area is a wonderful place to take your RV. The driving is easy, the lakes are lovely, there is a winery every mile, and life is lived at a gentler pace. A pleasant RV park near Cayuga lake is Sned-Acres Family Campground. They have grassy sites set high on rolling hills for smaller rigs and a beautiful, new section with spacious pull-through sites for big rigs. The new section wasn’t quite open when we stopped by, but it will be open imminently.

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Never miss a post — it’s free!

Our most recent posts:

More of our Latest Posts are in the top MENU above.

More info:

• Finger Lakes – Tourism Alliance site
• Finger Lakes – Travel Info
• “Declaration of Sentiments” from the 1848 ‘Woman’s Rights’ Convention – NPS Museum
• Sned-Acres Family Campground – RV Park
• Where are these places? – Google Maps

Other posts from our RV travels in Amish country:

Amish Heritage Tour in Elkhart Indiana

• An Amish Farmer’s Auction in the NY Finger Lakes 09/13/15
• Watkins Glen State Park NY – Absolutely Breathtaking! 09/10/15
• A Peek Inside the Amish Farms of the NY Finger Lakes 09/05/15
• Waterfalls, Wildlife & Wineries in New York’s Finger Lakes 08/30/15
• Finger Lakes, New York – Seneca Falls & The Amish! 08/24/15

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