Day 18: Tuesday, October 17th 2017.

Our hosts Rebecca and Jim had both left early for work and we found ourselves alone in the house with only Maisie for company, who wandered up to us and thankfully now seemed fully accepting of these new strangers. We could all learn from Maisie.

Nosying around other people’s houses, albeit in a respectful way, is one of the joys of AirBnB. Having strangers inhabit your space, leaving them alone in your house when you’ve only just met, and the trust in others, is implicit in the AirBnB concept. I remember when we first became AirBnB hosts some people were surprised that we should consider inviting total strangers into our home; “What if they steal all your things?” was one comment. Call it naive but, by and large, people tend not to go to the trouble of booking a room through AirBnB just to steal your stuff. It would be a lot easier to just put a brick through the window and not run the risk of leaving a trail of digital, personal information on a website. There are some ‘horror stories’ regarding AirBnB (on-line of course) but, as is usual in the case of ‘horror stories’, they are far outweighed by whatever the opposite of horror stories is. I guess it’s all down to your attitude to human nature. We might lose everything to the next guests we host and decide to give it up, but, percentage-wise, that would still be a tiny fraction of our guests.

So, we tread carefully around Rebecca and Jim’s kitchen studying the family photos that fill one wall, and try to decipher their story. They told us a little about their two children and what they are doing now and their progress is charted by the usual rights of passage photos – birth, starting school, graduating etc – each one with a slightly different hue adding poignancy to the passage of time; a ritual repeated on countless walls all over the world. For those lucky enough to have had children anyway. There are many other photos on the wall of other children, other folks, whose stories we don’t know; strangers to us but each with their own, unique history. Some will now be gone, some will still be here. We usually get complete life stories from AirBnB hosts, and they from us, but we only catch a glimpse of Rebecca and Jim’s story this time so we can only deduce the missing pieces from the pictures on the wall, a kind of ‘The Usual Suspects’ ending in reverse?

After a superb breakfast of granola, fruit juice and tea, all laid out beautifully on the mahogany table, I had a little play on the baby grand. We are in Polyanna-land here for sure. I don’t actually know much about Polyanna but a quick Wikipedia search informs me that she embodies optimism and faith in humankind. I think ‘Polyannaish’ is often used as a derogatory term denoting naivety and a refusal to ‘face facts’ – whatever they are? One quote from the book rings very true though:

“When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.”

The reverse is also true of course and begs the question; have you found what’s actually there or have you constructed it in your imagination? Is it ‘fact’, is it ‘true’, is it ‘real’ – is it ‘fake’? Concepts all stiring around in the melting pot these days. Discuss.

So, back to the ‘real’ world ouside. Unless that’s just another construct of……oh let’s just go with it eh?

We set off to find the Amish. Not that they are particularly lost or anything but it does feel like we’ll be entering another world; their world, their reality. So we drive to Millersburg and check out tourist information, then head for Berlin (the place names morph to another area of Europe) and on the way encounter our first Amish buggy heading towards us. I’ve read that many of the Amish community are understandably irritated if not downright hostile to the millions of tourists who gawp at them, take photos and generally act as voyeurs at some kind of human theme park; and we are just two more of those of course. But it’s hard not to get over-excited at the first, rather otherworldly sight, of a black horse, pulling a black, rather funereal-looking buggy with a white-hooded woman at the reins, trotting over the hill towards us. Just about 30 minutes drive from our 21st century, all mod cons, suburban house and we’ve arrived in the 17th century, as if we’ve driven through some sort of rip in the time-space continuum.

I’d read that there are a number of different Amish groups, some more strict than others, in their refusal to use electricity or to be contaminated by the modern world ‘outside’. In that respect they’re probably no different from any organised groups of people whether held together by faith, politics, ethics, love or hate; there’s usually a bit of ‘wriggle-room’ involved as moral certainties and dogmatic convictions slowly slide into pragmatic, less proscriptive practicalities.

We arrive at Hershberger Bakery and Farm where hundreds of pumpkins are piled high on the forecourt. Amish folk are coming and going about their business: shopping, chatting, just being ‘normal’. Buggies and carriages of different sorts trot by and some pull up outside the farm shop.

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There’s a man making ‘kettle corn’ over a some hot coals, looks like he’s done it a time or two before…

Two young men, without regulation Amish beards, and wearing ‘normal’ sweaters, shirts and jeans, pull up in an open-backed buggy. Thrillingly, they are also wearing spurs! They must belong to one of the more liberal sub-groups who are probably despised by the strict, ‘Old Order’ groups (see Monty Python’s ‘splitters’ in the ‘Life of Brian’). They are happy to let me take some photos of them too. I think the word ‘photogenic’ was probably coined specifically for the Amish.

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As is the way, we slowly become accustomed to ‘difference’, as the shock of the new gives way to curiosity and interest. As numerous buggies pass by during the day, and I lift my camera to my eye, the expressions of the people at the reins (mostly women it seems) vary between scowls, diffidence, uninterest and smiles, so I react accordingly, either out of respect for their wishes or some instinctive, irrational fear of being cast into eternal damnation for stealing their souls. Or is that the Eskimos? Anyway, best to err on the side of caution. And it would be impossible to obtain model release forms from them anyway should one make the cover of National Geographic.

Across the road from Hershberger’s was a farm with a huge, picturesque barn that had an impressive line of washing attached to it. Unlike Jane, I wouldn’t normally be that impressed by a line of washing but this one started way up on the roof of the barn and dropped steeply down to the house opposite like a some kind of rudimentary fire-escape. How many people lived on the farm it was hard to tell but they certainly got through a lot of clothing. Unless this was a monthly wash? Questions questions. The line had some sort of pulley device that meant washing could be attached and then gradually pulled higher and higher up the line, eventually reaching the top of the barn roof opposite. I suppose the lack of electricity meant that tumble-dryers were out of the question. We would see many lines of washing billowing out across the land today. Much more eco-friendly. Particularly if you have a big barn.

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We then set off for an area that looked promising in terms of ‘Amish- action’ and came across pretty towns with equally pretty names: Walnut Creek, Charm, Winesburg and then arrived at Farmerstown where we saw a row of buggies all lined up against a hedge like cars in a car park.

The buggy park was in the grounds of a big, timber-built auction house so we stepped inside and entered another movie set. We climbed the wooden steps up to the viewing area where the smell of animals, dust and straw was in the air as we opened the wooden door and entered the arena. Down in the ring below us pigs where being trotted out one by one to be sold, each encouraged to keep moving by the assistants who tapped the pigs’ backs with what looked like a leather patch on the end of a stick. It had the feel of the colosseum about it with the fate of each pig sealed by yet another tick in the auctioneer’s book. There didn’t seem to be many buyers today and it was difficult to see who was actually bidding; the auctioneer’s mesmerising, machine-gun delivery seemed decipherable only to the men in the ring below and he alone seemed able to read their barely discernible nods and twitches. It was like a ritual dance, the rules of which were to kept secret from lay people such as us. I lifted my camera up to my eye again but was directed by one of the auctioneer’s staff; “No photos”. That was a shame but not entirely unexpected. However, I heard a couple of the more traditional-looking Amish men sitting near me comment that they didn’t mind particularly so I must admit I did take some video footage, albeit rather surreptitiously, as I wandered nonchalantly around the viewing gallery, camera hanging from my neck, recording all the while. There were traditionally dressed Amish men, women and children all sitting against the back wall, none were bidding, maybe they had agents in the ring below bidding on their behalf? Or maybe this was just a family day out? It was certainly a spectacle and I was sorry I couldn’t concentrate on taking more photos. I had a chat with one of the older men and asked him how the pricing of the pigs worked but he seemed as clueless as me and had to ask the man sitting next to him how it worked.

We left them to their work and continued on through the green, undulating countryside, seeing lots of buggies on the way. Getting blase now.

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We parked the car on a bend in one of the villages so I could set up to take some good shots of an approaching buggy and an old guy in dungarees called out to us. I thought we were in for a scolding, but all he wanted to do was chat to us; maybe we were the first folks to pass by that day? His name was Randy Dietrich and we learned about his life, his army service during the 70s and his cataracts. The buggy trotted by as we were chatting so Randy had to be included in the shot. A nice moment.

Lehman’s Store in Kidron was another ‘must-see’ apparently so we called in on the way home. It was another huge barn crammed to the rafters with handmade wooden tools, carts, toys and all manner of gifts, hardware and food products.

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There was also an exhibition of amazing, ‘deep-relief’ carvings by local Amish artist, Paul Weaver; incredibly intricate scenes, each carved from one piece of solid ‘butternut’ wood. Some Amish women were discussing the carvings so I asked them about their interesting accents.

Our budget and baggage allowance meant the only things we actually bought were some cards and pumpkin seeds to plant out when we got home. I’m actually writing this post an hour after having planted the seedlings out in our veg garden, which seems like a rather satisfactory, circular and entirely unplanned coincidence.

The sun was going down as we left for Canton and as we rounded another corner the wonderful sight of an Amish farmer and his four horses, all in-line, pulling a drill, hove into view. I slammed on the brakes and leapt out of the car with my camera. We’ve chased sunsets in various parts of the world as I’ve deperately tried to capitalise on the wonderful, warm evening light. The nearer you get to the equator the quicker the sun sinks and it seems to tease you with the speed of its descent; catch me if you can. The farmer is obligingly heading towards me, standing upright on the drill, his four horses beautifully backlit by the setting sun, so I fire off a few shots and look forward to the next pass but unfortunately this is the last run and as he pulls up in front of me he dismounts and walks around to the front of the horses. Drat.

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At the same time a pick-up truck arrives and man jumps out and walks towards me. I expect another admonishment for taking photos. Thankfully I’m mistaken, he says ‘Hi’ and asks if there’s anything I’d like to know. English pessimism eh? I feel it’s ok to press record on my camera without any subterfuge so I capture a lovely encounter with another local, Danny Ray.

Back home to Canton. We pick up a pizza and Rebecca and Jim give us some broccoli to add as a topping, plus strawberries for afters. We chatted some more and then had an early night. The Amish done in a day.

I recorded a ‘thank you’ to them on their piano, and as they were both fans of Sibelius, my great, great uncle, I did a third-rate, 5th Symphony tribute to him too. Forgive me Jean.