Day 3 Great Lakes Amish Country

   I found this day most interesting. I don’t know why but I guess I thought that the Amish had sort of “mutt type” horses. No, was I wrong. They mostly have Standard Breds, the type that they race as trotters.  The low end horses cost between $4,000 and $10,000. Most Amish horses run around $30,000 to $50,000. There are many horse farms raising horses for them. The kids usually have ponies for little carts that the kids drive. Our Amish guide told us of several Amish horses, stallions, selling in the millions. They are as expensive as our thoroughbred race horses. It is no wonder that you see them really moving out. They were very pretty horses. The carts have battery operated turn signals and such. Our Amish guide, like many others, buys a truck load of the best alfalfa hay from Nebraska, test it for nutrients to see what supplement to add, if any, to the horses feed if the hay is not perfect nutrient wise.

   Next, we ate lunch at an Amish home. We had salad, mostly broccoli and cauliflower made with a delicious dressing,  homemade noodles, mashed potatoes, homemade bread (not as good as Publix), rhubarb jelly (delish in my book), and chicken and gravy. The desserts were a date pudding, apple pie, coconut pie. I loved the date pudding. I asked if they gave out the recipe and yes she had a book, hand written, that you could pick up with a donation. No wonder I loved the date pudding, it had two and a half cups of sugar. Oh Dear! Then I discovered that the salad dressing had a cup of sugar in it. I thought, “No wonder the Amish seem to all be obese, especially the children and women. I later googled, Dr Google and checked on the Amish rate of diabetes. The consensus is because most Amish women walk at least 14,000 steps a day very few are diabetic. They use an old fashion ice box, propane cook top and oven, heat their homes with a wood fire box underneath the house that sends heat through out the home, have a well. Run most everything by battery. Our guide told us that our host ran a mixer hooked to a car battery. We had an Amish guide as well. He was most fascinating, and we all agreed we could have listened to his stories much longer. Probably the most interesting fact was about Covid. They are definitely community oriented and gathering is most important to them. Yes, they shut down for a week, but then decided not to shut down or wear masks when together. This  Amish community has 30,000 people and only five died of Covid. He then added, “Not to be harsh, but all five had existing health problems.” None of them are vaccinated. Yes, when going to a store they wore masks because one had to. Today we went to the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, and Tom saw his first car a 1949 Ford, and Holly saw a tractor too big to fit in our barn.

I really liked this trip.

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Tom & Holly